The Lowest Arena for Presentation Skills
Wow this is really embarrassing. This is a story. Just for you. I do not tell my live audiences this. I am not sure I have ever told anyone other than a close friend this. But my first professional speaking job of sorts was in a boiler room operation. I was eighteen years old had just graduated from high school. I was in Charlotte North Carolina and this was a summer job before I went into college. It was a boiler room selling timeshare condominiums. So my job was to call people up and say congratulations you may have won either a brand new television a vacation to some exotic place or a quarter carat diamond. Now as far as I know. I do not break any laws. If I did the statute of limitations has long passed. Since this was 1981 when this occurred. I guess scummy part of it was: everyone got the quarter carat diamond and a quarter carat diamond of this quality. It costs about 50 cents or a dollar. The whole idea was to get people to come pick up their prize and hear a sales pitch to go buy a timeshare. Couple of lessons I learned from this.
Number one cold calling can work. If you just make enough calls. A certain percentage of people will say yes then it may be far less than 1%. If you keep your cost low enough it does not matter of those people who show up for a sales pitch. A certain percentage will buy. So that is one lesson just cold calling does work. We were going through the phone book for certain affluent zip codes. That was it.
The second big lesson is cold calling is a horrible existence. It is so boring. It is so you feel dirty almost interrupting people dinnertime. It is obnoxious. It feels obnoxious so if you are going to be giving presentations for a living I do not recommend giving presentations over the phone pitching. It is simply not enjoyable. I understand some people have to do it. It is the only job they can get but it should not be first choice – it is simply not fun.
The final big lesson is: it is so much easier to give presentations to people who actually want to hear your presentation. This is easy for me right now. Because you would not be here if you had not actively typed in presentation skills and found this course. Then actively clicked to enroll. Then actively pulled out your credit card or some other form of payment and bought the course. So you want to be here. So it is much easier for me to do. That say no I have kind of a warm friendly audience. In fact, your comments are overwhelmingly positive and effusive and I appreciate that. So that is the real lesson. Do not be knocking heads and butting and trying to push messages these days. Have good messages. Give your presentation and try to do it in a way where people want your messages. You will be much more effective you will enjoy it a lot more too.
What Is the Best Way to Tell a Story in My Presentation?
What is the best way to tell a story? Well the best way is not to think of yourself as this elaborate crafter of stories. But instead just relive it. Do not worry about memorizing it. Getting everything just right. Just relive the experience as you see it. Use your mind’s eye you saw that person you are talking to and what they said why they were surprised. Just we tell it. Live it. Do not worry about memorizing the dialogue just the right way. You are getting the setting the right way or the pacing. Just share the experience has it happened relive it. It will be easier for you. You will be feeling the experience. It can be easier for your audience to feel the experience as well.
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