Your audience needs your help to keep their attention on you.
There is something interesting about these three numbers:
70
60
20
In the book, Brain Rules, John Medina shares some interesting data about the attention span of our prospects and customers. In the first 3-5 minutes of a sales conversation, your audience retains 70% of the information you share. During the next 60 minutes of the conversation, only 20% of the information is retained. Unfortunately, the last 60 minutes of the conversation is usually the most important content.
Your audience’s attention span is only about 10 minutes long, but there is a way to hook their attention so they remember the important points you are delivering. Here are 5 techniques you can use to hook your prospect’s attention.
1. Storytelling
It’s important to break the ice and build rapport during a sales conversation, and storytelling is a great way to do that. When telling a personal story, you tend to be more animated and relaxed, and this grabs the audience’s attention. There are a few steps on how to build a story that your prospect will remember and relate to.
- Start with the end in mind. What’s the problem that you’re going to solve in your prospect’s world?
- What is at the root of that problem?
- Find a similar problem that shows up in your world.
- Tell a story around that and how you were able to resolve it.
Keep your story about 2-3 minutes long and end with a landing statement saying something like, “It’s kind of like the situation you are facing”, then draw a clear parallel to the story and business problem/solution. By doing this, you have spiked their attention and communicated how you can help them in a way they can remember.
2. Number Plays
When giving a presentation, write 3 numbers on the board and say, “There’s an interesting story around these three numbers.” The audience immediately starts to try to figure out what those numbers mean, creating intrigue and grabbing their attention. You can also use number plays while on the phone, or in a blog post as I did at the beginning of this post.
Just like with storytelling, you always start with the end in mind when creating your number play. Identify 3 numbers in your story that relate to the point you are trying to make. You can use number plays in several different scenarios, whether it’s talking about 3 of your company credentials, 3 problems companies experience in your prospect’s industry, or 3 percentages that support a point you are making.
3. Word Plays
Similar to number plays, you can write 3 words down on a board, and it creates the same kind of intrigue for the audience. Ask the audience, “What do these three words have in common?” This is unexpected and makes them try to figure out the riddle.
In creating your word play, think of what the point is you want to make, then find where that shows up in the world. When you tie that in to what you are offering the audience, they will remember that point going forward.
4. Props
A prop is a 3D object that reminds your prospect of a conversation that you’ve had around an important point. This is a great example of how a prop can be used in a sales scenario.
What’s the landing point you want to deliver? Find a prop that tells a story around that. Then when the audience sees that prop after your conversation or presentation, it triggers them to think about your main point.
5. You-Phrasing
In Michael Stanier’s book, The Coaching Habit, he mentions a study done around including the word “you” in math problems. Researchers found that when the word “you” was present, the questions needed to be repeated fewer times, and the problems were solved in a shorter amount of time with higher accuracy.
What does this mean in the sales world? The use of “you” engages the person you’re speaking to within a sales conversation more than “we” or “I” because you’re talking about them. The phrase, “I’m going to show you how to increase your sales” doesn’t have near the same impact as, “What if you could increase your sales?”. Find ways to use the word “you” in describing what their world would look like with your product or service by putting it in the front part of the sentence.
By using these techniques, you will be able to not only hold your audience’s attention longer, but they will also be able to retain more information and remember what you presented. Now the question is, did you communicate value in your messaging? Now that you know how to keep your audience’s attention, take some time to fine tune your messaging.
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We understand that it can be difficult to know where to start when improving your sales messaging. That’s why we’ve created a Sales Conversation Roadmap “Cheat Sheet” that you can download here.
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