Episode 40 - Creating A Passionate Presence

Charismatic people have a presence whenever they walk into a room.  You can actually be in introverted person and not have a very outgoing personality and still be charismatic.  Once you have charisma people what to be around you.  They WANT to be persuaded by you.  Sales reps, business owners, politicians all know that they can get a lot more lattitude when they have charisma.

Next in the podcast, Steve discusses an article by Harvard Business Review entitled "Getting Your Point Across."  The article give a few points as to how we can make our message more memroable.  First, "you can't communicate what you haven't defined."  What do you want the audience to do?  What are the bench marks along the way to that?  It's important to build your presentation backward.  Decide what your call to action is and build backward from there.  There always needs to be a call to action or a definite goal that you want to achieve.  The second point from the article is "lose the slides and have a real conversation."  Too many presenters rely on their slides and drone on and on and never make in impact on the audience.  Those who can have a conversation with the audience will be the most successful.  Finally, "be repetitive without being boring."  In the political campaign of Bill Clinton back in the 90's, there was an important slogan: KISS, or "keep it simple stupid."  That's why it's important to repeat without being repetitive.  Audiences can ony remember a few simple points.  Drive home the point but don't bore yoru audience to death.

Rounding out this episode, Kurt and Steve dive into passion as it relates to presence.  Can we have passion for a job that we don't like at all?  It depends.  It is however, much beter if you can be in a position to promote a product, service, or cause that you have some belief in.  Passion is most effective when it comes from deep within.  Kurt relates one of his best lines: "are you singing the words or are you singing the song?" 

Product knowledge, testimonials, dwelling on the positive, and constant improvement are a few of the things that fuel passion.  If you feel stalled in your career due to a lack of passion, try learning and growing on a daily basis. This furthers a positive attitude and can ignite your passion for your career again.  If after you do this you still just can't get any passion for what you're doing, it may be time to move on.

Finally, Steve relates the weekly persuasion blunder: a door to door sales person that was so pushy that her prospects called the police on her!