by Laura Camacho
You’ve been told that the most effective speech or presentation is focused on the audience. Here’s a tool to help you do that. The result is that your audience feels alignment with you and is more likely to accept your message. The tool is called Feel Know Do.
The value of this Feel Know Do tool is that it gives you a way to get ultra-clear on your intentions. Persuasion is emotion driven so the tool starts with feelings.
What do you want people to feel about your topic? Emotional connection is something that business owners tend to underestimate. However, but if you're pitching your business to potential investors, for example, you want that investor to be excited about you and your project. Consider ways to transfer that excitement.
Another example requires a different feeling. If you have to lay off people in your company, you don't want to be excited, you want to share that you're concerned, and that you hate this but it's necessary for the survival of the company.
Any time you have a mission-critical or otherwise significant message to convey, start by asking “What do you want your audience to feel?”
The second component is the actual knowledge to be transferred. What does your audience need to know? The point is never to share everything you know, but focus on what your listeners need to know.
In a sales message, the audience needs to know why they should buy. This part of your message spells out the benefits of your product. If you have bad news to share, the “know” outlines the reasons that led to this decision.
Finally, strong messages always have a Call to Action. What do you want the audience to do as a result of your message? What are the specific action steps? You may think action you want is obvious, but in this age of information overload, it’s always best to connect the dots for your audience.
If you get clear on the Feel, the Know, and the Do elements in your message, your message will resonate with the audience. And that means you are a successful communicator.
Laura Camacho, MBA, PhD, PMP, is an executive coach, trainer and speaker who opened Mixonian Institute in 2009 to rid the world of boring business communication. She has created innovative training programs for local and international companies, related to leadership effectiveness, excellent feedback, growth mindset and emotional intelligence. Multilingual, Dr. Camacho’s career highlights include facilitating The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in Spanish,) being editor of the leading management newsletter in Venezuela. For 10 years she taught communication classes at ECU and College of Charleston. www.mixonian.com
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