Entertainment isn’t as effective as persuasive storytelling.

You know those meetings where you turn up, unsure what to expect, and it turns out to be an entertaining hour bordering on the Wednesday night comedy club, but you wonder what it was all about and whether you really needed to go? As a result, nothing changes as you get back into your work.

Picture yourself standing at the edge of a dense forest. You're familiar with the path, but those who've entrusted you with their time aren't. Your responsibility is clear: ensure they navigate the journey smoothly, stay connected, and never feel lost.

Success isn't about racing through the rocky terrain; it's about how well your audience traverses it. It's about leading them with care, allowing for pauses, and ensuring everyone absorbs the journey at their own pace.

The more you know, the easier it becomes to lose your audience.

We have this amazing ability to hear what we think we are saying and find it very hard to distinguish between our inner dialogue and what the audience is actually hearing.

The value lies in the problems solved.

We obsess about our products and services.
What the competition is doing, and how the market is performing.
What next, and what do we need to do to keep up…

What about the customer? What do they want and need?

It's the thing that all presenters dread – the silence that follows a presentation.

The days that follow your presentation are critical to success. This is when the people you presented to should be passing on your content to others, becoming content ambassadors and evangelists for your message. But in that silence, it can be hard to tell what is really happening.

Have you ever sat through a presentation or even read a book and thought, This isn’t for me, what is this all about? or Why am I bothering with this? That isn’t how you want your audience to feel when you present, but I can’t tell how often this happens.

This usually occurs when the audience for this specific presentation isn’t clearly identified upfront. As a result, different pieces of content get added for everyone ‘who might be interested’ or who might attend the meeting. All bases get covered. What could have been a clear message for the right audience, addressing a clear problem, becomes a waffly rambling collection of something for everyone.

There are two significant challenges that, when not well managed, erode how we keep an audience connected and engaged as we unpack our strategic business stories.

The most common of these is giving away too much too soon, unpacking every detail coming up before going through every detail in even greater detail. This is a surefire way to have the audience tune out and miss critical points when they think they know what is coming next.

40-60% of your pipeline isn't lost to a better solution.

It's lost to indecision.

Your prospects aren't choosing someone else.

They're choosing to do nothing and taking the safe option where they won’t get fired for getting it wrong.

We live in an era of great distraction. There is more information more readily available and constantly competing for our attention, a feeling of less time to take it all in, and as a result, we are more easily distracted than ever.