Last night I went to see “The Book of Eli”… I know… I know…not much of an ‘early adopter’.

I hate lines.

Because of this I tend to see movies when they are about to leave the theatre… not when they just get there.

Anyway—when the movie opened not a word was spoken for the first ten (estimate) mins. I’m not sure because I was so involved in the opening…I didn’t want to miss any of the very little details that were shared.

It was completely silent except for some sound effects of the weather…breathing…basic moving sounds.

There is a lot of things we can learn from this about drawing in your audience…creating anticipation and story telling.

In persuasive speaking there is a technique referred to as ‘vague language’.

The idea is when you deliberately leave out the intend or meaning or certain parts of the point… the audience will ‘draw their own conclusions’… they will create their own meaning… and remember if we (the speakers) tell you something… you will search for evidence to prove it wrong… but if YOU (the audience) say it or think it…IT IS THE TRUTH.

In the beginning of the movie there was lots of ‘vague information’ revealed…

It appeared to be hot and dry…seems to be ashes everywhere…desolate…not many people…a hairless cat-like creature was prime food…using a bow as a weapon…had some bullets…destruction everywhere…dead bodies…he appeared to be running solo…didn’t say a word.

With this limited information EVERYONE in the audience was left to draw their own conclusion about what it all meant… what happened?

That’s how our minds work..everything we hear or see (we delete, distort or generalize)…and then, we create a meaning.

A skilled presenter can use this to his/her advantage.

When constructing your talks include certain parts where you tell them just enough information to get their minds going but not enough to do the ‘thinking’ for them.

This is a technique to get the audience involved..knowing when and where to use this type of strategy is more of an art than a science.  If you use it too much your audience will get bored or frustrated…

But, if you go to the other extreme (where most presenters live)… and data dump and tell them how and what to think…you don’t get audience buy-in…and you aren’t ‘interesting’.

Who are some masters of vague language?

Think about who are some the people that have to speak in public often and please as many people as possible and will USE ANY ADVANTAGE THEY CAN GET.

Yep, you guessed it…politicians!

It is also beloved of politicians that want to talk for hours on end without actually saying anything. They will often leave huge gaps knowing that the listener will fill them in with what’s relevant to them.

That’s why two people can come away from listening to the same speech with wildly different opinions about what was said and/or meant. Both believe firmly they were right and even if you showed them the speech again would see the bits they wanted to see that supported their currently held belief.
There’s that deletion, distortion and generalization again — we all do it.
We have all heard some form of the saying…”you can’t please everyone”…right?

Well, a politician’s whole job is to please and influence as many people as they possibly can.  That is why they often speak out of both sides of their mouth.

If they were to give great detail and take a very specific stance they are bound to upset a portion of their constituency…so they release statements that are very, very, very well written ambiguous statements…just enough information to satisfy the question of ‘what’…which creates hope…but seldom answering the ‘how’…which would create accountability.

Simple enough concept, right?  Let’s see if you got it.

Tell me how I used this concept in this blog post.

Living, Loving, Giving Large

-Jeff

“For a brand new consultant who wants to get their first 4-5 clients, you need to rely completely on networking: personal friends, family, professional organizations, etc. Let you network know what you’re doing and the type of client you are looking for. Ask these three questions: do you know anybody in that category, do you know anybody that can lead me to somebody in that category, and do you know anywhere where people from that category gather? That is how I best expanded my network. Credibility is the next step and a great way to create credibility is by speaking. “ – John Carlton

Back in the 80’s, public speaking and presentation training were skills that only a few were committed to invest resources to master.

Why?

Because, a professional, after learning the skills of presenting effectively, had to find an audience to speak to.

So, if you wanted to speak to groups you had to:

a) Promote your own event (that requires time and money to put people in a room)
b) Sell yourself to speak at OPE (other people’s events) or trade associations or
c) you already had a captive audience (you worked for a big corporation where you can speak to your coworkers or you were a lawyer speaking to a jury, etc)

Traditionally, people who searched for public speaking and presentation training in the past were:

• CEOs and business executives that had to present to their employees, customers, media, and coworkers
• Lawyers that had to present in from of the jury
• Media professionals that had to speak in front of the camera
• Seminar leaders and speakers who speak full time
• Trainers and teachers who communicate to students.
• Few professional salespeople that conducted group presentations

For the majority of small business owners and professionals in the service industry (financial planners, chiropractors, doctors, insurance professionals, veterinarians, consultants, etc) the idea of reaching out to current and new customers through group presentations was not very attractive.

Well, as you may be aware of, that is old news, because both the internet and the declining cost of new technology has changed the business landscape dramatically. The message here is simple:

If you breathe, you must use presentations to grow your business or to enhance your personal brand!

Here are the facts:

• You can create persuasive videos and presentations very fast once you understand the presentation structures
• Videos are a great way to leverage your time and to capture leads
• You do not need to invest a lot of resources to record videos
• By using social media site (facebook, twitter, youtube, viddler, etc), you can reach a lot of people really fast, specially if your videos are viral
• Most people prefer videos over written text (why people watch TV or go to movies so much)
• Great videos position you as an expert
• The only thing that is stopping your message to reach thousands (if not millions of people) is YOU
• Build your personal brand is one of the most important business strategies you can to focus on (ask best seller author and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary.com)

What you MUST understand is that the technology (internet, video cameras, screen capture software, social media sites) are a “equalizer platform” so that everybody has the same opportunity to spread their message in the same way (and that is the wave of the future).

Now, of course it helps if you are famous, have brand-recognition or have a lot of resources to drive online traffic to your site, but the message here it that if you are committed to learn some simple skills, you can compete with the biggest names in your industry, and, in many cases, win the game.

For the most part, most of the videos that we see in social media are entertainment videos, yet, the shift to commercial and marketing-driven videos have started to catch on.

In the near feature, video presentations from small businesses and professional services will be like websites are today. If you are in business you MUST have one. If you have a great site you may gain extra business; if you do have a site, but it sucks, it will end up hurting you. Video presentations are like that. You see, by the end of this year, I believe that we will see a lot of professionals in the service industry and small business owners creating and recording videos because the technology is the same for everybody, but what will make the difference will be:

a) the content
b) the delivery

We encourage you to be ready for one the biggest shifts in marketing and sales this year. Just analyze and study the leaders in your industry. I guarantee they are already unleashing videos on the Internet. Now it is your turn!

If you’d like to learn how to be an amazingly persuasive presenter and overall better influencer, then please consider attending a very special event, where you will learn not only learn how to “speak like the pros” but you actually learn the art and science of persuasion.

In this class, you’re going to learn:

• How to Turn Your Psychology ON!
• What you need to know about your audience
• The Question Technique
• The Mapping Association Technique
• The Secret Formula for Impromptu Presentations
• Influencing from the Front Presentation Structure
• How to Create an Influence Framework
• How to Kill the Monster while it is little
• The Art of StorytellingH
• ow to Deeply Connect and Deliver POWERFULLY

Thats just ONE of the days!!!…and MUCH, much more.

To more information or to register, just go to THIS page now: http://www.influencingfromthefront.com

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Approximately 2,500 years ago, in Ancient Athens, public speaking was considered one of the most important skills one could have.

Why?

Citizens met in large Assemblies in the marketplace (agora) to debate issues of war and economics and politics.
In addition, with the institution of the People’s Court by the Sage, Solon, in 594-593 BCE, citizens could take their grievances before a magistrate and argue their cases.

Since a family did not have a lawyer, they had to represent themselves in front of a council.

Therefore, if you had a dispute or disagreement, your capacity to influence and persuade groups was important–it was a matter of life and death.

Rhetoric, the study of persuasive communication became a field of study by great influencers of that time, like Plato, Aristotle among many others.

2,500 years later, many facets of communication have changed, or developed, yet, Public Speaking (or being able to communicate to groups of people) is STILL one of the most important skills you can master. Now, before I tell you why I believe that, let me tell you that I am biased!!

Of course I am biased, because:
a) I teach public speaking and presentation classes
b) I am a full time trainer and speaker for 8 years
c) Presentations are the # 1 vehicle I use to get clients.

So, that being said, I would like you to consider the fact that I will do the best to remove myself and give you purely concrete reasons why you should invest in yourself and work on your public speaking skills.

Here are the 13 reasons I believe it will be one of your best investments in 2010:

1.   You will grow as a human being: There is an old saying “if you want to learn something, teach it.”  That is so true, if you want to MASTER real estate, go teach it! You will improve your skills, guaranteed!! You will become better at what you do!

2.   You will achieve expert status: People who can conduct professional, educational and value-driven presentations are perceived as experts in their field. Most people prefer to do business with experts than non-experts. Plus experts usually can charge a premium (they better deliver the goods).

3.   You will help more people: If you really believe in your product, service or message, and you know 100% in your heart that you are creating WIN-WIN-WIN scenarios (your clients, you and society wins), then the more people that gets your message the better, true? Speaking through groups allows you do to just that!

4.   You will generate more leads: Once you create one presentation, you can distribute via video (YouTube), PowerPoint (slide share), podcast, social media sites, etc. The more people see it, the higher chances you have to attract clients.

5.   You will make more money: As you start to realize the benefits of being and expert, spreading your message to larger audiences and charging a premium for your services, you will naturally increase your income.

6.   You will increase passion in your life: There is something magical that happens when you research, develop, write and talk about your topic. It is my personal experience that it as exciting as your 21st birthday, it is reinvigorating!

7.   You will discover another side of yourself that you did not know: Public speaking is like participating in individual sports, like running or swimming. At the end of the day, it is you, only you, with nobody else to blame. You will have some stressful moments preparing and rehearsing your talk in your hotel room, office or living room, but at the end of the day (or night), it will be 100% worth it.

8.   You will save traditional marketing dollars: When you master your presentation and your topic, you will be able to: a) use the technology and the free resources available to promote your message that will live on forever! And b) speak to groups, minimizing the acquisition cost of your leads.

9.   You will enhance your leadership skills: leaders are expected to speak to an audience. The higher you go up in your professional career, the more opportunities and requests you will have to speak up and tell your story.  In times of crisis, change or opportunities, leaders are the first ones to speak up. Leaders are the ones who represent a company, a mission. As Jeff Taylor, CEO of monster said “I have always felt that as the CEO of an organization, you have got to be wiling to put yourself in front of the brand”. Leadership and public speaking are twin brothers!

10. Better relationships: Developing your group presentation skills is like losing weight, the result will end up affecting many areas of your life. When you loose weight, you feel better, look better, have more energy, which in turns give you more energy, more confidence, and that leads to more social interaction, dates, fun, outside activities, and the list goes one and one. Becoming a master presenter is the same thing. You will be able to transfer those new-learned skills into your personal relationships and that will lead to more connection, more understanding, relationships that are more positive, more influence, etc.

11. Transfer into sales skills:  Most of the presentations you will do are called “persuasive” presentations, where you want to influence people’s feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. So, as you further develop your group communication skills, you are also learning skills that could be applied in one-one-one sales situations.

12. Increases your confidence and self-esteem: Knowing that 98% of the population and your peers won’t speak in public is very self-edifying. Speaking effectively in front of groups will give you more confidence because, at some point or another, you had to overcome your own FUDA (fear, uncertainty, doubt and anxiety).

13. You will be among the elite group: Simply stating: frogs hang out with frogs, ants with ants, leaders with leaders.  People who conduct group presentations are willing to take risks, to play the business and the life game at a higher level.

Even though your Rhetoric (ability to persuade) by today’s standards is not a matter of life or death, I hope you can clearly see that an investment in developing your presentation skills will have a direct impact on your life, your future, your family’s future and your financial prosperity.

This is an interesting video on social media

We just wanted to take a moment and thank all the wonderful friends that helped us this past weekend. With their help we were able to impact the lives of more than 40 people in many different ways.

I’m not going to call them out individually because they are too humble and would not like the attention, but they know who they are.

From the bottoms of our hearts…THANK YOU!!

Jeff & Roberto

It was July 18th, 2009 and it was another beautiful Saturday morning in San Diego,  I woke up excited because I was about to have a nice work out in a brand new gym in my neighborhood. I have been a member of 24 hour fitness for over 10 years now, but I decided to check out a different club that is literally walking distance from my house (I have to drive 5 minutes to go the nearest 24 hour fitness club).

In spite of having a great deal at 24 hour fitness, I was open to get a membership in this club because of his proximity, so I printed a free pass online and I went to try out the gym. Now, being in the sales training business myself, I knew the sales staff of this club (I am not mentioning the name) was going to offer me a membership once I got there because that is part of their client acquisition process.

Being curious about how people promote their services, I was paying attention to everything they were doing. To my surprise,   the  presentation of the salesperson went like this:

Step 1: The rep asked my name and I said “Roberto”

Step 2: After shaking my hand and saying  “nice to meeting you”, he turned around and grabbed a form.

Step 3: He said “what is your name again”? (he forgot my name). I said, “Roberto”

Step 4: First real question in a very short breath: “how old are you”? (I guess he does not know anything bout rapport building skills)

Step 5: The salesperson did ask me some good fact finding questions that were ok, but he never asked me  “What is really important to me about a gym?”, or  “Why, specifically I was there?”, or “What was not going well at my current club?”, nothing to figure out my areas of discomfort or my ideal definition of what an amazing club looks like.

Step 6: I told him I was going to work out and then he grabbed my ID and told me “to grab it on the way out”  (so  he could finish up his presentation and close the deal). I said, “cool”

Step 7: This is the craziest part.  Once I was done working out, I came back ready to negotiate a deal, and the salesperson was talking on the phone, and he saw that I was there standing in front of him. He pointed with his finger to the phone and in a lower-pitched voice he whispered  “it is my mom” and he kept talking (totally ignoring me). Look, I think everybody must love his mom (I absolute love and adore mine) but he was working, and his job is to sell me a membership. For my surprise,  he grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down $39.00 and $ 49.00 (or a very similar number). He slid me the piece of paper with the price on it (like you write your phone number in a piece of napkin), and he kept talking to his mom. I stood there asking myself: Is this really happening to me? This is the worse sales process I have ever seen!!

Step 8: Today is July 24th  and it has been six days after I  visited this gym, and  still have not received any follow up call!! Unbelievable!!

I tell you this story because this salesperson was very articulate, was dress up nicely, and he was actually being shadowed by a brand new salesperson ( I guess he was teaching another rep how to sell memberships). So how come his sales presentation was so terrible? It was because of his presentation and influence psychology. I want to use this true story to illustrate what is going on inside a salesperson or presenter’s head during a presentation, so you avoid missing out on deals and opportunities in your own profession. At InfluenceOlogy, we break down Presentation and Influence Psychology into 8 major components.

It does not matter if you are doing one on one presentations, or you are speaking to thousands of people, the bottom line is that every single one of these 8 aspects of the Presentation and Influence Psychology can impact your sales performance.  They are:

Beliefs

Beliefs are the emotional validation of your thought process. You and I have thoughts all day long, both positive and negative. We consciously and unconsciously validate them with emotion, meaning, we say “yes  that is true” to both positive and negative beliefs and we act upon them, and off course,  they become our reality. In a sales and presentation context, we have all kinds of beliefs that stop us from doing a better job. Beliefs such as: this person will not buy, my product is too expensive, nobody is buying now, etc. I was not coaching that sales person so I can not tell you for sure what kind of beliefs he had, but if I were to guess, here are couple that would fit in that occasion: “this guy already  has a membership in another club, he will not buy today”, “giving him a good price will be enough for him to buy”, “my club is better than 24 hour fitness, so he will choose us regardless of the price”, “my conversation with my mom is more important, so the client will wait”. Can you see how our beliefs can impact our presentation performance?

Intention and Outcome

Kevin Hogan, one of my mentors and, in my opinion, one of the best Influence researchers and teachers in the world today, taught me that to be successful you must have OBT (outcome-based thinking), meaning, the “ability to visualize the precise outcome of a process before beginning that process” (The Psychology of Persuasion). So when doing a presentation, what do you really want, specifically?  What is the image you have in your mind? What is your intention? What is the perfect outcome do you want to achieve? Off course, that salesperson outcome was unclear. I cannot imagine when he shook my hand for the first time at the beginning of the presentation that his outcome was not allowing me to purchase a club membership, true?

Values

What is important to you in life? What is most important to you in your career? What is important to you in your relationship? What is important to you in every single encounter you have with a potential client? The answers to these questions determine your values, or the things and the feelings that you value most in a specific context. Why do your values impact your presentation performance?  Imagine you have 3 sales people trained with the same sale system, selling the same product, working the same geographic location, representing the same brand, working the same hours, but they have different values systems: person A values money the most, B values positive impact and C values job security, do you think they will make different choices at work and present differently? Off course they will! Value system is a complex subject and its exploration is way beyond the scope of this article, however, there is one major thing you must know.  Every master influencer has a very defined and clear value system (they actually are clear of the things they value most). What I found to be true is that when it comes to presenting and selling, some of the top values of the world-class influencers are positive impact, growth, and success.  Question, what do you value most when presenting?

Identity

Behavior consistency comes from your identity; or  the way you define yourself (consciously or unconsciously).  Every mentor, coach, psychologist, will agree that how someone defines him or herself will shape their lives more than anything else. In my 7 years of training and coaching, I found out that the best influencers remain very consistent during their “selling time”.  Yes, they can have a bad month or so, but for the most part, their sales behavior are extremely consistent, because they see themselves as the best in the business, so they act accordingly (can you imagine Tiger Woods not training for an tournament?). Just for the fact that this person did not take any action to sell me a membership, it tells me that he does not perceive himself as the best at his job. Question. How would the best health club membership salesperson behave in that situation?

Focus

The primary reason someone experiences fear and uncertainty during a presentation is because they focus on themselves. They have a little voice in their heads asking: How do I look? How do I sound? Am I saying the correct thing? Do they like me? Do I look good? Master influencers focus on the audience, they focus on how they can make the lives of their audience better! Everybody that you come across is on point A (current situation) and they want to go to point B (their outcomes, e.g., more money, feeling better, more peace of mind, more health, etc) . Instead of focusing on my needs as a client, and my potential reasons for switching health clubs (close to home, save money on gas, save time, better equipment, better networking), he focused on price! No more comments!! When you focus on the wrong thing you get unwanted results.

Preparation

One of my favorite books that I have read recently is called “Talent is overrated” by Geoff Colvin, where the author demystified the idea of natural born talent. The major idea of the book is that top performance comes from deliberated practice, not natural talent (also known as God given talent). The author goes into details about how top performers such as Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and others achieve maximum results by practicing their craft. According to the author, deliberate practice is characterized by the following elements: a) its designed specifically to improve performance, b) It can be repeated a lot, c) Feedback on results is continuously available d) it is highly demanding mentally, e) It isn’t much fun. Question for you. Do you think that salesperson have been practicing his presentation? Do you think he was prepared? Think about it? Within 20 seconds, he committed 2 mistakes (one forgot my name and two asked my age as a primary question). Additionally, he was not prepared to close the sale! He was not prepared to win, or maybe, he was indeed prepared to fail!

Action

One of my favorite quotes is from Will Rogers when he said “Even if you are on the right track, if you just sit there, you are going to get hit”.  It is my belief that the more action with purpose you take, the better you become and the more confidence and unconscious competence you will have.  That salesperson was not taking action to serve me, his company or his pocket, period! As my business partner Jeff Paro said “Information that leads to knowledge is for fools, information that leads to action will create wealth.

Physiology

I have been going to the gym for over 20 years now (I love it). In my mind, feeling good and healthy and performing well in life was always an easy connection to make. However, I never had an understanding of the importance of your physiology during your sales process, and I thank Mr. Anthony Robbins for teaching me that.  According to Robbins, emotions are create by motion, so if you want to feel better, feel confident, you can use your body, breathing, posturing so you create these emotional states.  The key to understand is that you are always in a specific state (even now, as you read this paper), and top salespeople know how to influence their states when they need it.  A great emotional state allows you to become resourceful in any situation, so more ideas and strategies flow through you. When I came back to pick up my ID and to talk to that salesperson, he was slouched in a chair talking on the phone. His physiology was not optimized to do a sales presentation, not even close.

There is so much more to talk about presentation psychology and I will write more in future articles, but the major point in this article is this:  You can control and influence your mindset 100% of the time,  period.  The secret is to break down presentation psychology into small chunks (the 8 elements) and work on them separately first and then you can integrate them later on. Soon you will become the role model in your industry!!! Now that you have read this entire article, put these ideas into practice. As Herbert Spencer said “The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action!”

One of the beliefs that I teach about influence is that “influence is automatic, either you are influencing or you are being influenced” regardless of the environment, the intention, the state of mind you are in, or your company.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in my hometown Porto Alegre (Brazil) and my mom,  my sister and I were relaxing in a coffeehouse, people watching, sipping  “cafezinho” (expresso) and having fun. We were talking about work, family, vision and one thing lead to another and the conversation ended up in a story that has influenced me deeply-and I want to share that with you.

My mom was talking about one of my cousins that I had heard about when I was growing up but I had never had a chance to personally connect with him.  This man was extremely successful, he had his own successful company and he was one of these people who “lives to work”.

The problem wasn’t that he worked so much, but the fact that he was really selfish, really into himself, a person who put business and deals above real friendship.

According to my mother , he was a person that knew a lot of people due to his business success, but he hardly took the time to connect with people. Years passed by and my family never heard from him. Many years later, my family received the news that unfortunately our cousin had passed away.

My mom and my dad went to the funeral, and when they arrived there, both experienced something really sad. In spite of this man being very well-known in the community that he lived in, very few people showed up for this funeral.

But  that was not the worst part.

In Brazil, the tradition is that after the priest says the last words about the deceased person, the top of the coffin is closed and 6 pallbearers carry the casket to the rack so the body can be taken to the burial. Unfortunately, it did not happen that smoothly. Something was wrong!

When the pallbearers approached the casket to lift it up they noticed that something was missing. People started looking at each other with desperate and sadden eyes. People became uncomfortable and they knew why. There were only 5 men to carry the casket and they needed a sixth person to help out (in that situation they needed a man, because the casket was heavy).

Unfortunately they had to stop the ceremony and find a stranger that worked at the cemetery to help carry the casket.  I do not know why, but when my mom finished telling me this story I was in deep trance. I was thinking what kind of life someone must live so that in the end of it, after meeting thousands of people during your lifetime, you do not have 6 friends to carry your own casket.

The reason I decided to share this family story is for you to think about your life and most important, about the positive impact you are having on your friends, family and the community that you live in.

Are you positively impacting your friends, family coworkers and community?

Are you going to leave a lasting impact that is going to be bigger than your own life?

For some reason, I had never thought about who is going to attend my funeral, who is not (I am sure nobody thinks about that stuff), but what if nobody shows up? What does that really mean? You see, everybody on this planet is teaching us a lesson about life, about what to do and about what not to do.  I thank my cousin (that I never met) for influencing me to become even more connected with the people who are really important to me.  As I mentioned before, “influence is automatic, either you are influencing or you are being influenced”.

Roberto Monaco