Effective Presentations

When it comes to presentations, be they in front of live audiences or virtually via powerful tools like teleseminars or webinars, people often worry the most about the last 15 minutes, when it's time to make an Irresistible Offer or invitation to work with you or come in for a consult. But if you ignore the beginning of your presentation, your audience might never even hear the end …so maybe it's best we focus on that for a moment.

The key to keeping your audience on the line or in the room is to create a strong first impression by employing what I call "positioning" in the first 15 minutes or so of your live group presentation, preview call or webinar.

Positioning means that you put yourself and your work in the most advantageous view, and you want to do that in the following 5 areas.

Here are those 5 P's for Powerful Positioning:

1. Position yourself.
Right off the bat, you want to position yourself for credibility. You want your audience to see you as someone who is well worth their time. For instance, in my teleseminar preview calls, I might talk about the $25 million in sales we've done in the past five years, and the thousands of clients whose lives we've transformed in 134 countries. If you're just getting started in a new field, you can share your accomplishments in other work or borrow credibility from the category you're in. For instance, if you're a new life coach, you can talk about the difference that having a coach has made for well-known people that your ideal clients admire.

Equally important is to position yourself for vulnerability, so that people not only respect you, but connect with you too, and see you as someone who can help them personally. To position for vulnerability, share what got you to where you are. If you don't have a dramatic story of hardship, you can still share about the drive, pain, or angst of knowing there was something more for you to do.

Create a strong first impression by positioning in the first 15 minutes or so of your presentation.

2. Position your audience.
You want your audience to know that they're in the right place. You can do this simply by tapping into their pain, making sure to use their own words, so that they feel understood. For instance, if you're in the nutrition or fitness areas, you might say, "This is for you if you're tired of yo-yo diets, where you lose a lot of weight, only to gain it all back again."

3. Position your topic.
Position your topic by showing the transformation that's possible from doing your work. For instance, during preview calls for my 6-Figure Teleseminar and Webinar Sales System, I position the topic by saying, "Teleseminars and webinars enable you to create personal freedom and have a life that you will love. You can touch people all over the world, make the difference you were meant to make, and make great money doing it."

4. Position your talk.
Positioning your talk is similar to that essay format you might have learned in school, where you outline the main points that you're going to cover. When you position your talk, I recommend covering four points: the first describes what you're talking about, the second states why it matters, the third point teaches them something they can use right away, and the fourth point is the transition to your offer.

5. Position your offer.
The goal of the fifth P is to create trust with your audience. In fact, I call it creating "partnership from the start." You do this by letting them know that you're going to teach them as much as you can in the time that you have, and you truly are. But you do have a limited amount of time together, so you promise that, before you conclude, you're going show them how they can get more. That way, when you make your offer, they're ready for it. They won't feel as though it came out of nowhere. And you'll also feel good, knowing that you're keeping a promise to show them how to take your work deeper.

I know...I've given you a lot, but still have only scratched the surface about how you can position yourself powerfully and craft a profitable preview call. To learn everything you need to know to get your work online and into the hands of the people who have been waiting for your expertise, download my no-cost, brand-new book, Position Yourself for Online Sales Success: How to Use Your Phone and Computer to Finally Set Yourself Free!