Thursday, October 6, 2011

The importance of performance (Issue 16, Vol 03) | Successful ...

There are two areas where performance is of critical importance:

? How you perform when speaking to customers

? How you look after customers (post purchase)

In terms of ?speaking to customers?, it?s my view that far too many corporate folk are scared of letting themselves go and revealing their passion on stage. They somehow feel that they are being disrespectful to their material if they don?t treat it very seriously. To be frank, this often produces a dry, boring performance. In fact, it is little more than a presentation of raw data. I can read that in a book, or research it on the internet. What I want from you as a speaker is you interpretation, your views, your thoughts, your commentary and if you?re going to deliver that ?with feeling? you have to get off the fence and let the audience clearly see and hear what you believe. That means having a view and expressing it with strong, clear, emotionally engaging language. In this way your performance stands out from the crowd ? it become uniquely yours, as opposed to just another review of raw data.

I recently spoke on a teleseminar run by two friends of mine. (They operate in the German and English markets and I?ll feature them in a future edition of CDCD, as their service may be useful to you). Sitting in on the teleseminar was an old friend of mine, Dr Liz Garnett ? someone whom I deeply respect for her knowledge of all things musical. She and I have enjoyed many conversations on the subject of performance as it relates to singing. Much of this can be translated directly to speaking. Liz kindly wrote a post in her blog about the teleseminar and her take on it makes interesting reading.

Performance as it relates to looking after customers is vitally important too. I?ve recently bought access to new internet based service that?s supposed to make publishing websites ?a five minute job?. Sadly it doesn?t work ? and it?s not just me ? many customers have been experiencing difficulty with it. As somebody who worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years, I know that technology doesn?t always work. In fact, everybody knows that and this is why customer support is vital. Amazingly the developers who brought this new service to market seem not to have understood this. Their customer support has been terrible and as a direct consequence lots of people have been asking for their money back ? and the original developers have destroyed their reputation. Sad and completely avoidable.

Here?s what I want you to do:

Make sure the next time you present, you clearly nail your colours to the mast. Make a stance. Clearly let the audience know what your view. Do this, and you can?t help but deliver more of a performance, as opposed to data review.
Review how you look after customers ? particularly when things go wrong. Imagine the customer as being your favourite celebrity. Are you treating your customer the same way you would treat that favourite celebrity, or could you do just a little bit more??

Improve your presentation skills now!

This post was first published as one of Chris Davidson?s ?Competitive Difference? emails. You can?subscribe to Chris Davidson?s ?Competitive Difference? (CDCD) Via the Active Presence website. You can also?contact Active Presence Directly.

Source: http://successfulspeakingsecrets.com/the-importance-of-performance-issue-16-vol-03/

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