Secret #2 - Begin with the End in Mind

In the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey teaches that you must imagine what you want your end result to be. This is the best way to start developing your technical presentation. What outcome do you want?

We are all in sales whether we like it or not. The entire reason for giving a presenta-tion is to sell something. That could be an idea or concept, a product or service, or process.

When you start with the end result in mind, you identify the one action you want your audience to do at the end of your presentation.

As you build the ending of your speech (otherwise known as your closing), you want to lead with the results your audience can expect to achieve after they have taken that one action you wanted them to take. Have your results clearly identified in terms of your audience’s results.

Answer the question “How will your audience’s condition improve?”

A great way to share the results is with a Then, Now and How story. You can either use a story about you or about one of your clients. Start with what they were like be-fore they took your next step - Then, move to what they are like now (positive re-sults) – Now and How to get your next step.

As you build your “then” story, you want to really emphasize how bad it really was. The harder your journey the higher your conversion rate will be. Don’t make it worse than it really was, just paint the picture of you or your client’s struggle. Be sure to include details like money lost, projects lost, embarrassment and or failures.

“Now”. Your “now” story shows how great it is now.

It should include results like in-creases in sales, promotions, recognition, and project successes. Again build a vivid picture of you or your client’s success. Don’t hold back and don’t be embarrassed by your success. You want your audience to want the same results that you or your client’s have achieved.

After you communicate the results your audience can expect, you can then give them the resource that helped you or your client to achieve those results.

This is where you talk about what you are selling - How. You don’t want to spend too much time on the resource itself. If you have done a good job in sharing the results and your audience has connected with you through your story, then they are already 80% bought into your product, service, idea, concept or process. Simply tell the au-dience how they can get your next step. This could be signing up at a website like 52TipsToMakeYouABetterSpeaker.com, the concept or idea you want your audi-ence to adopt or support, or your product.

Remember you should have just one next step.

If you offer too many choices or have too many action items your audience will get confused. A confused mind says no, a clear mind says go.