Last week I attended a meeting in which an author spoke about his book. Overall, he was a very engaging speaker and his message made a lot of sense. Yet, there was one point in his presentation in which he said something in passing that struck me as odd—not quite offensive but slightly off-kilter from the rest of his positive message.
I didn’t think much of it, but late that afternoon when Chris, the organizer of the meeting, called me to discuss some topics, he also asked me what I had thought of the speaker. I told him about my generally positive impression. Chris agreed with my assessment, but then he also brought up the same comment I had noted.
Interestingly, the speaker had delivered some very good insights and helpful ideas, but when I thought about his talk a few hours later, the most salient thing in my mind was the one negative thing. It wasn’t that big a deal, and it was totally irrelevant to his message, but it stuck in my mind.
Sticky details can make your message more convincing
Which do you think is more likely, that you might be killed by a shark attack or by a falling airplane part?
Most people guess shark attack, but you are 30 times more likely to be struck by a stray bolt from the blue than to be viciously torn apart in the blood-tinged surf by rows of razor sharp teeth.[1]
People overestimate the odds of something happening because they are more vividly brought to mind when the question is asked. One reason we call rare events to mind more easily is that by definition rare events are what make the news. That’s why we’re much more conscientious about locking our doors when we’ve read about a recent burglary in the neighborhood.
The availability heuristic, and its subset, vividness, simply means that we place a greater likelihood on events or situations that we can more easily imagine. In short, if we can easily remember something, it is more likely to influence our decision.
Here’s another example to reinforce the point. Researchers studied the effects of vivid details on mock jury trials. In one drunk-driving case, the prosecutor had to convince the jury that the defendant was impaired based on circumstantial evidence.
In one version, the testimony said:
“On his way out the door, Sanders staggered against a serving table, knocking a bowl to the floor.”
A second version went this way,
“On his way out the door, Sanders staggered against a serving table, knocking a bowl of guacamole dip to the floor and splattering guacamole on the white shag carpet.”
When the subjects of the experiment judged the cases immediately after reading the testimony, there was no significant difference between the two versions. However, when they had to judge the cases two days after having read the evidence, they were much more likely to find the defendant guilty.
What does this have to do with selling and presentations?
One of the most important tasks of anybody trying to persuade another is to make sure that their message is recalled when it comes time for the other person to make a decision and act on the information provided. If you’re a salesperson, you may meet with an influencer who then has to take your information to the decision makers. Will they remember your great points two days later?
So, if you’re making a presentation and you want people to remember the benefits of your solution, find ways to express those benefits so that they will be recalled when needed.
How to make your presentations more vivid
Vivid details and style: You don’t want to get carried away with it, but as you can see it helps to have one or two vivid details in your explanations. “Our security is like being guarded by a pitbull with a bulletproof vest and an Uzi.”
Concreteness: Concrete words can be pictured in the mind. Try to make abstract concepts real. For example, instead of saying your solution “improves productivity”, tell them that Chris in Accounting can now get that report on your desk by Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday afternoon.
Stories: Among the many excellent reasons to use stories is that they are much more easily remembered, especially if they have one or two vivid or unusual details.
Analogies: Hitch your bland explanation to a more exciting analogy. Our performance advantage is like the difference between Superman and Mr. Magoo.
Pictures: Pictures are tremendous vehicles to make your ideas vivid, but try to use pictures that have some impact and that they haven’t seen many times before.
Try some of these ideas and your sales pitches will be as sticky as a gecko on duct tape.
[1] I first found this factoid in the Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, by Scott Plous, and also in this article. Neither one of these constitutes actual proof, of course, but the idea remains the same. Besides, most people will remember the fact long after they have forgotten this footnote—and that’s the whole point of this article.
A clear target will improve your chances of gaining agreement
One of the most important steps in any persuasion attempt is to first clarify in your own mind exactly what you want from the other person. This will allow you to improve your approach and help you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.
Persuasion is about getting agreement from another person, but it’s not as simple as a yes or no question. There are different degrees of agreement, and by being clear about what you’re trying to accomplish, you can better tailor your approach. This will help you dial down your persuasive efforts in some cases, or crank it up in others.
Using this approach, you first gauge where the audience is, then you think about what degree of agreement you need in the strategic context of your persuasion campaign, then you choose your message and approach accordingly.
First, we need to have a common terminology for the various degrees of agreement. I’m using terminology that Terry Bacon uses in his book, Elements of Influence, with one slight modification. As he says, there is a range of possible attitudes that the other person may have toward your proposal or idea.
Rebellion
Resistance
Skepticism
Neutrality: apathy, ignorance or indecision
Compliance
Commitment
Leadership
The baseline is neutrality, and this is the one term that I have changed from his scale, in which he calls it apathy. I use neutrality because people can be indifferent or neutral for one of three reasons, apathy, ignorance or indecision. Apathy is one of those reasons: they know about the issue but don’t care about the outcome or decision. The second reason might be ignorance: they are not aware of the issue. The third is indecision: they know and care about the issue but don’t know which course of action is the best. If you want to move them from neutrality, you must know the reason they are neutral. You must either inform them, show them why they should care, or make the case for your solution to the issue.
The “negative” attitudes as they relate to your proposal are:
Skepticism: they don’t support your idea but are not necessarily resisting. Maybe they don’t trust you or haven’t heard enough to make them feel comfortable with the idea.
Resistance: in this case they are actively pulling back from your idea, perhaps seeing disadvantages for themselves favoring a different approach .
Rebellion: besides resisting your idea, the other person is taking an active role in fighting against the idea, either promoting another idea or trying to enlist others on their side as well.
The “positive” attitudes are:
Compliance: the other person goes along with your idea. They may say yes, or agree not to block your efforts.
Commitment: the other person personally commits to seeing that the idea gets implemented. They take an emotional and personal interest in the idea and become enthusiastically committed to it. This is the difference between following the letter of your request and promoting the spirit as well.
Leadership: others make the idea their own and take an active leadership role in promoting and extending it.
Why does it matter?
Being clear about the type of agreement you want will help you improve your assessment, targeting, and persuasive approach.
Assessment is important because you need to know where people are in their attitudes before you begin your persuasion effort. It’s extremely unlikely that you will move someone from rebellion to commitment in one meeting or presentation, for example. You may need to move one stage at a time. You’ll have to be patient. Snap decisions do not lead to lasting commitments. Some salespeople get impatient and begin pushing for agreement, which sometimes works—unless the buyer has a chance to change her mind.
In addition, the process of figuring out their attitudes is going to give you insights into their thinking that can improve your arguments and appeals. That’s why it should be an integral part of your audience analysis.
With persuasion, just as in so many other activities, a clear target improves your aim. You want to aim specifically for the level of agreement that you need, because there are dangers in overshooting or undershooting your target. Sometimes, for example, a speaker who is passionate about a topic might only need compliance, so that others will not stand in their way. Yet they may try too hard to inspire their audience to the same level of commitment, and either talk past the close or turn them off with their “excessive” passion.
On the other hand, it’s even more common for someone to get compliance and think they have achieved commitment. The audience members may be agreeable but that is no guarantee that they will actually do anything about it afterwards. There’s a big difference between compliance and commitment. Anyone trying to implement a new sales process, for example, knows that agreement is not that hard, but ensuring that account managers will embrace it and make it a habit is a much tougher task.
Different targets require different approaches. For example, compliance can generally be won through logical and rational reasons. Commitment and leadership usually require an emotional component as well.
In writing this article, I aimed for compliance. Whether you commit to try this is up to you. I assumed that my readers are in neutral, either through ignorance or apathy, and that’s why I’ve tried to inform you and tell you why you should care.
The good news is that attention is a skill that can be improved with practice. You can make adjustments in how you work on a regular basis, and if you’re really ambitious you can even try some ideas on ways to train your brain to improve its capacity for sustained focus.
Personal adjustments in how you work
Pay attention to your attention. The first step in any skill improvement is to gauge how well you’re doing. Be aware of times that your mind wanders, or the number of times you interrupt an important task. It’s probably far higher than you imagined. One study measured the number of “unimportant interruptions” in a typical knowledge worker’s day totaled 28% of their time. (This figure includes the time it takes to recover mentally from the interruption.)
Invest your attention like Warren Buffett. Attention is an investment in the quality of your work and relationships, but most of us invest it like a day trader, jumping in and out of our “positions” to chase after higher returns. Buffett has been successful by choosing his investments very carefully and then holding them for a long time.
Worthwhile tasks require quality time, and the best way to get it is to carve out time to force yourself into a specified time period or task. Peter Drucker, in his book The Effective Executive, suggests finding ways to consolidate your discretionary time. It’s not so hard to find ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there throughout the day, but it’s also not very effective.
For starters, I recommend a web site devoted to the Pomodoro Technique which involves setting a timer for 25 minutes at a time, which seems to be long enough to get something done and short enough to handle. It works well, but larger chunks of uninterrupted time are much more conducive to quality and depth of thought. The appropriate length will vary, and you will need to find what works best for you, but it’s probably longer than you typically spend now.
In order to set aside the time period, it helps to arrange your calendar and/or your space so that you’re not distracted by others and so you don’t have to interrupt your flow to get something you forgot. Set specific times to check emails and surf the web.
If time is too arbitrary for you, set a target, for example two chapters read in the book before you put it down, or 500 words written.
Besides carving out time, you can also make space for yourself. Disconnect. Ironically, the more “connected” we are electronically, the more disconnected we become personally. Here’s one simple change you can make that will have a huge impact: position your computer screen so that you can’t see it when you’re on the phone.
Get away from the distractions. It seems unthinkable today to leave the house without taking your phone, but most of us alive today used to do that all the time. Go on, give it a shot. Even within your own house, is there a room that does not contain a screen of some sort? If not, make one.
Write things down. I carry some form of Moleskine notebook everywhere I go, and I’ve found that helps me deal with distractions in two ways. First, taking the time to write down a thought, observation or idea usually helps me think it through a little better. Second, as David Allen says in Getting Things Done, if you get it out of your head and down on paper, it won’t be a nagging distraction.
There are tons of other ways to arrange your day for better focus—if you can take the time to think about them!
Improvements in your brain’s capacity to focus
For most people, adjusting personal habits as discussed above will be enough, and should make a significant impact on your capacity to control your own attention productively. If you want to take it a step further, there are some approaches that may make a difference.
I say may because, as the Boomer generation ages, an entire industry has sprung up to sell us “solutions” to train our brains and keep them young, so it’s hard to separate fact from marketing. I’ll limit this to two suggestions, one of which I’ve worked with extensively and one which I still hope to give a good effort to in the future.
The Dual n-back task is a fiendishly difficult and laborious yet addictive application that supposedly helps you improve the capacity of your working memory. I forced myself to do it almost daily for over two months and kept a record of my results. I saw huge improvements in my score on the game. I also noticed what I thought were clear improvements in my ability to focus and remember. (Which proves absolutely nothing, of course; it may have been confirmation bias, wishful thinking, or the placebo effect. However, I still go back to the game occasionally for a tuneup.)
Meditation is touted as the best long term approach to improving your attention, and there is much more evidence and literature about its benefits. I have no reason to doubt it; it’s just that I have tried to do it and have so far failed miserably every time. I try to concentrate on my breathing, or a spot on the wall. When distractions intrude, I “gently push them away”, but they come back stronger than ever. If you have the time and willpower to devote to meditation, go for it. If you’ve mastered it, let me know how you did it.
