Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Influence”
Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which a person doubts their accomplishments, skills, or abilities and has an internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud or impostor. People with imposter syndrome often feel like they don’t belong or that they have achieved their success due to luck rather than their own abilities.
Speak with more confidence
When you are speaking, which do you believe Is more important? To feel confident or to appear confident? Think about that. You probably want both, but you can’t have both all the time. The question is which is more important? The answer is, it’s more important to appear confident. Why? Because that is the perspective of your listeners. Once you recognize that it’s about the audience experience and not your experience three factors work in your favor.
Your first words are important because your audience is judging you. They are scrolling through questions in their mind:
Should I listen? How long will this take? Do I trust the person? How painful will this be? When will we get to the relevant part? What does this mean to me?
The purpose of your opening is to grab their attention, establish rapport and set the direction.
Most importantly – grab attention. How might you do that?
Here is a recent exchange gone wrong from a person who asked to be a guest on my podcast. Notice the mistakes. Remember that my podcast is titled, Your Intended Message.
The close to your presentation is important to the success of your message. Your close is the last impression. You can make it the lasting impression that resonates within their mind even after they leave the room.
Build rapport with your audience by demonstrating how you are like them. Imagine if you could be an audience whisperer.
What can you do when facing a hostile audience? How can you speak so they listen? How might you connect with them so they see your side of the message? Those are difficult challenges that we can learn to face by learning from Shakespeare – in particular the speech that Marc Antony gave after the death of Julius Caesar.
Notice the shift in tone of the audience and the techniques used to persuade the audience to change their thinking. Let’s visit the scene and listen to the speech and the changing tide of the audience.
To persuade your audience to act on your message they must believe you. To be believable you must be both credible and earn their trust. If you don’t have credibility, no one will listen. If you have credibility but your audience does not trust you, they will not believe you.
Do you want your message to resonate with your audience? The message is more likely to land well, be received and trusted if you have connected with your audience. They must know, like and trust you. How can you accomplish that? By building rapport rapidly near the beginning of your presentation.
If you want to be a guest on my podcast the most important question you need to answer is, “What will you do for me?” It’s not about you. When I receive a pitch in which every sentence starts with “I, me or my” you’re not talking about me and my interests. You didn’t grab my attention. What would grab my attention?
