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When you have been asked or hired to give a presentation, you will usually be introduced to the group before you present. Often, the person chosen to introduce you is not a seasoned speaker. The introduction, therefore, by this well-meaning person can turn the audience off before one word comes out of your mouth. How can you avoid this?

Write out your introduction!

• Prepare a short and snappy introduction to hand to your introducer.
• I often send one ahead also. This helps the group to have pre-presentation information for a flyer or newsletter.
• Even if you send one ahead, bring a copy with you.
• When you arrive, ask who will be introducing you and give him/her the copy and take a couple of minutes to point out pronunciation of any words that might be difficult or unfamiliar.
• Another note is to double space, use a font of at least size 12, and do not use all caps, which are hard to read.

What to include! When I wrote “short and snappy” I meant it. If the introduction drags on or is too praiseworthy, it will turn the audience off before you stand up. Just include the pertinent facts in the description — facts that are interesting and make the listeners sit up and take notice. The only time I include my college background is when I feel I need it for credibility.

What is your topic? Include words in the introduction that position you to speak on the topic you are presenting. What is it about you that gives you the expertise to talk about this topic? For example, if you are talking about running a successful home business, do you, yourself, have a home business? If not, you might want to reconsider speaking about home businesses.

A little humor goes a long way! One humorous fact can help any introduction to warm the audience. However, don’t depend upon pacing or delivery from the person who is reading your introduction. You can even add a line at the end that leads into a quick note of humor for your beginning comments.

What to do while being introduced! Often, while we are being introduced, audience members can observe us (we may be up on a stage or platform, or sitting at a table in full view). Make sure that you look lively, prepared and professional (I’ve seen presenters with their heads down, looking completely bored or practically asleep). As soon as the introducer is finished, be ready to jump up with enthusiasm and shake his/her hand.

How do you catch someone’s attention?

There are a lot of ways but they are all about either doing something unexpected or really hitting the sweet spot of the customer. I want to start with looking at different aspects of how to start a meeting and getting the customer to listen to you and in the end of this article go through the “Hail Mary Pass” where we try to get the customer to listen to us with only one argument.

The start of the meeting really sets the tone for the whole discussion

If you can catch the attention of the customer, they will listen and respond. If you don’t all you will be doing is fighting to get the attention until you at last have to give up or are lucky enough to find a sweet spot and get a chance.

To get the customers attention, do something that your competitors aren’t

Most salesmen will come to the meeting nicely dressed in a suit and have a briefcase. They will take out some brochures and than sit down and start talking about their product. If they are tele-salesmen they will start by introducing themselves “Hello, my name is X and I’m calling from company Y” and then just start talking about their product with no regard to the customer.

What happens when you call a customer and say “Hello, my name is X” is that the customer will start thinking “hmm, who is this? Do I know this person?” and completely miss the company name, making them very confused when you continue on the sales pitch.

If you come into someone’s office and just start talking about yourself all they want to do is throw you out!

One way to start a sales call is by instead starting “Hello, I’m calling from Y, my name is X”. It is a easy way of at least sounding a bit different.

Another fun trick is by coming into a meeting with all your questions typed up on a piece of paper and giving it to the customer saying “This is what I want to ask you today. We will go through these questions and than I’ll see if my product will be able to help you.”

I promise you that this technique will catch their attention!

Thinking outside of the box is extremely important in these situations

Look at what your doing today and than think of the most fun and outrageous presentations. See if you can come up with 5 different techniques. Then try them out! Try each one 10 times and the one that works the best, do it!

Finally it is you that knows your business best and I won’t try to make you do something that might or might now work in your business category. Try out different things and go with what works.

The Hail Mary Pass

Often in sales you’ll meet a customer that just won’t listen. You had a great presentation. You ask them some questions, tell them about your product and prove that it will really help them. But all you say just goes in through one ear and out the other.

There is one technique I love to use in these situations, it actually has a 32% success rate once you have learned it.

When trying to get a impossible customer to buy your product and finally give up. Right before you leave, Stop.

Tell them you have one final offer and just do something completely out of the ordinary. Give them 50% off or give them a 10 year guarantee. Basically give them the very best deal you are ever aloud to give them. Motivate it with that you are doing this because you want them to try your product because you are so confident that if they do, they will never stop buying your products.

If done well you will very often hit a sweet spot and if nothing else you will get their attention and get a new chance to prove your point.

If nothing else, you have nothing to loose. You were leaving anyway and now you know that you have done everything possible to get that sale.

Good luck to you!

Negotiation is a fact of life. In a very real sense, we are all negotiators. Inevitably, our own needs and concerns bump up against the needs and concerns of those around us and we bargain in order to reconcile our needs/concerns with those of others.

That said, some people are clearly better at negotiating than others. Some people just seem to have a special talent for knowing just what to say at just the right moment in order to resolve a conflict or close a deal. Such negotiators become the stuff of legends, or at least, Hollywood movies. Steven Spielberg’s recent movie, Bridge of Spies, immortalizes a gifted negotiator by the name of James Donovan, portrayed in the movie by Tom Hanks.

The rest of us, however, are compelled to resort to our own more modest talents when we engage in bargaining endeavors. The good news, however, is that all of us can adopt some relatively simple techniques employed by successful negotiators, and enhance the odds of success in our face-to-face encounters. Here are a few simple techniques you can try in your next adventure in bargaining:

1. Avoid using ‘irritators’ in your conversation. By ‘irritators’, I mean those innocuous words and phrases (example: “this is a generous offer”) that have zero persuasive value and are more apt to irritate the party with whom you are negotiating. When you tell your counterpart that your own proposal is ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’ you imply that she would be unfair or unreasonable to reject it. So, refrain from attempts to attach positive value judgments to your own proposals, particularly when those judgments will communicate negative implications about the other side.

2. Limit your counterproposals. If the other party presents you with a proposal, avoid the temptation to immediately respond with a counterproposal of your own. When you routinely respond to the other side’s proposals with counterproposals, your responses are apt to be interpreted as blocking mechanisms rather than as proposals in their own right. In addition, counterproposals have a way of muddying the waters as they tend to add issues to the discussion rather than promoting clarity and bringing focus to the issue in question. While counterproposals do have their place in negotiation behavior, use them sparingly. Judicious use will increase their effectiveness and reduce the chance of your antagonizing the other side.

3. Give the other side a “heads up” on what you are about to say. This particular technique, referred to as ‘behavior labeling,’ is quite simple to use, but can be very effective. Suppose, for example, you are negotiating to sell your car, and the other party’s purchase offer is below Kelley Blue Book. Instead of asking, “Why are you offering me less than Kelley Blue Book?”, consider asking, “Can I ask you a question: Why is your offer less than Kelley Blue Book?” Similarly, if you intend to offer a proposal of your own, begin by saying, “If I can make a suggestion, what if we… ” This behavior labeling draws the attention of the other party to what you are about to say and tends to draw them in to making a direct response to what you have just posed to them. This technique also serves to reduce the back and forth volleys between the parties and may enhance a more deliberative approach to the negotiation.

4. Test your understanding of the other party’s position by reflecting back what they just told you. This is another simple concept to implement. For example, returning to the car selling scenario, consider saying, “So if I understand what you are telling me, you don’t think my car is worth the Kelley Blue Book price because… ” This can be an easy way to prompt the other side to reveal more of its own thinking on the subject, without you having given away any more of yours. And, by summarizing aloud what the other party is telling you, you clarify what might otherwise have been uncertain. Your summary also communicates to the other party that you are listening to what she tells you, thereby eliciting further disclosure from her. This can help develop an attitude of mutual respect between the parties.

5. Ask questions to obtain more information as to the other party’s thinking, its goals and interests. Questions are usually more acceptable to the other party than direct disagreement and are more likely to communicate respect for the other side. Consider using what is referred to as the ‘funnel approach’ to questioning. Begin with broad, open ended questions (example: “So why is it that you are looking to purchase a car at this time?”) and proceed to narrow the questions’ scope (“What is it that you like about my car?”) until you reach the key issue (“What do you think is a fair price for this car?”).

6. Limit the reasons you cite in support of your bargaining position. Most of us tend to assume that the quality of our argument in support of a position is enhanced by the quantity of reasons we offer in support of it. In fact, successful negotiators typically offer fewer points to support their position in order to avoid diluting their impact. The downside to tossing out multiple arguments is that, invariably, one or more of the arguments will be significantly weaker than the others. The other side is then in a position to focus its rejoinder on refuting the weaker arguments and then reject your position altogether. So, when advancing a proposal or a particular position, limit yourself to just a select few points in support of it. In this instance at least, less is definitely more.

These simple techniques can be employed in almost any bargaining situation you may encounter. Make them a routine part of your negotiating repertoire, and see if you too can improve your negotiating effectiveness.

© 2/16/2016 Hunt & Associates, P.C. All rights reserved.