And the Winner is……... | Presenting with Impact

Winner of 5-days Challenge: “the 5 steps of a persuasive talk in a jiffy.”

As you might remember, I invited you to take part or simply read the 5-days challenge some weeks ago.

In this challenge you could learn the 5-steps of a persuasive talk:

1) The situation.
2) The point.
3) The 3 WHY ‘s or HOW’s.
4) A possible Contra-Argument.
5) The benefits/effects of your point.

Using your hand as a reminder for these steps. (The Fist, your Thumb, 3 fingers, Pinkie and Thumb to press the benefits deeper into your audience’s mind).

Since then, quite some correspondence has gone back and forth between the people who took part and me on the other side.

They all did a brilliant job.

Whether it was,

Making company’s more aware of protecting themselves to cybercrime.
Making a point to the Dutch government, as a student, to change the unfair loaning system they are currently burdened with.
Pleading you are suitable for a position, although it might at first sight look as if you do not have the right experience.

And the winner is……….

There are two winners!

Suzanne Steur. Her persuasive talk was full of pathos. This means there were clear examples, good use of metaphors, use of rhetoric, like appealing directly to audience with her message by means of a slogan with three concrete, concise elements.
Lieke Linssen. Her persuasive talk was concise, concrete, clear and had a good balance in information. Not too much information, but also not too little.

Congratulations Suzanne and Lieke! Good job! They both win a 50% discount on a coaching session! And the book “How to own the room!” . You will find it in your mailbox in due time.

See, their winning contributions down below this Blog.

What I learned during this challenge (as during trainings ;-)) is that each person had their own tops and pitfalls.

For one person it was to learn to add more pathos to her talk. The information was too abstract, a bit dry and needed more context, background. (Pathos)
For another, it was a question of learning to introduce and dose the information better and making the points more clearly. (Structure)
And yet another, tended to mix several pieces of different kinds of information into one paragraph and did not make explicit what she was trying to say.

The good news is that often, you only need to improve 1, 2 or maximum of 3 points (first become conscious of it) that seem to pop up more frequently. Once you detect them and nail them, you can greatly improve your persuasive power.

Do you recognize yourself in any of the above points?

Are your presentations too dry?
Do you miss good structure, and do you fail to make your points?
Or maybe, you do not have any idea what you need to improve to become a better presenter?

Then subscribe to:

To more grip, impact and presenting pleasure!

Contribution Lieke:

Situation (the fist): Due to a wrong judgement of the Dutch government, students that started studying between 2016 and 2022 (also referred to as “the generation of the loansystem”) will be unfairly burdened with a heritage of huge debt. In this timeframe the Dutch government made a fatal mistake by getting rid of the so-called “basic grant”. This meant that this generation did not receive any form of gift and had to pay all the cost themselves, by means of taking a significant loan. The consequence of this is that they can get into problems with obtaining new loans in the future (think for a house or starting a business) because they simply still owe a huge debt. Not to mention the effect on the mental state of this generation, that needs to start their journey into an adult life with this huge weight on their shoulders. As if the above it not enough, this generation will also face the problems of the aging population, the climate and corona crisis. This will pressure them even more.

Next year the basic loan system will become effective again. But the generation of the loan system will not be compensated.

The point (the thumb): this is unfair. To burden this generation so excessively and single them out. This needs to be changed.

3 WHY’s (3 fingers):

THIS IS WHY: it is important that everybody will be treated equally. It cannot be the intention that this generation will be singled out from the same possibilities from the ones that came before and after them and that they will be the only ones to be burdened so heavily.

THIS IS WHY: The politicians initially promised favorable conditions, when applying the loan system. They said that the loan would be interest free. However, now they changed their mind and will raise interest after all. These can hardly be seen as favorable conditions.

THIS IS WHY: You cannot burden a generation with the consequences of the corona crisis, the climate crisis, the aging population and on top of them single them out with burdening them with a huge study debt.

Contra-argument (pinkie)

Now you might think; how will the government make up for this? How can they compensate these students? A fairly reasonable way of doing this could be to lift a part of the loan. This money has gone anyway.

What could this mean? Example:

The benefits (Press the benefits in the mind of your audience by your thumb):

So, do not leave this generation with a huge debt! Make sure all opportunities are still open for them, once they start their adult life. Do not make them suffer and carry an unbearable load, simply because the government had a wrong judgement in the past and broke their promise. Make sure they can step into the future full of confidence and burdenfree.

Contribution Suzanne (3 why’s and 3 how’s):

Situation (the fist): The number of cyber security cases has drastically risen. In this digital world there are ever more cyber risks, and the impact is becoming more visible daily. Think of all the mails you receive of cyber criminals pretending to be your bank or companies where leaks, due to cyber criminality, leave all their private client data “on the street”.

Yet, organizations are frequently not well prepared for potential security issues. The police or army is not well enough equipped in this new digital world whilst the biggest security risk is simply caused by human handling. For instance by accident clicking on a link that is intended to steal your identity or leaving sensitive information in the open, like a sticky post-it on your computer with you password.

The point (your thumb): I think we need to wake up, stop being naïve and take proper action!

We ourselves as human beings need to be prepared against this crime.

3 WHY’s (3 fingers)

If nothing gets done, some terrible situations can arise. So, why do we need to take action?

THIS IS WHY: Firstly, an organization may lose its business. To start with, all employees in an organization need to learn what impact their behaviour may have to the Business if something goes wrong. A hack may occur by human error due to the lack of alertness and a ransom may be requested to unfreeze a digital Business, resulting in an organization becoming bankrupt.

THIS IS WHY: Secondly, the reputation of an organization may be at stake. Due to GDPR violation where certain private data gets captured and misused, the branding of an organization that has caused this may be negatively impacted. Think of RDC where expensive car details together with its locations were made publicly available, due to which owners were cautious of car theft.

THIS IS WHY: A third example is that investments may be done in vain. Criminals may get hold of Intellectual Property, stealing ideas or inventions, making all efforts spent on a venture redundant. Think of reproductions in India or China where they copy ideas resulting into the creation of cheaper products offered at lower prices in the marketplace against which your organizations cannot compete.

So, the question becomes, what can we do as a company?

What needs to be done against this is foremost to start with prevention by means of awareness creation. This is the most crucial security measure that an organization should take.

THIS IS WHAT
THIS IS WHAT
THIS IS WHAT.

So, in a nutshell it is about.

Arising awareness.
Put a solid Identity Authentication and Access Authorization in place of each end-user.
Take regular detective measures.

Contra-argument. (pinkie). Now, after hearing all of this, you might think, this sounds all very nice and great, but how on earth are we going to tackle this? Will this mean more workload for employees? And what are the steps to be taken? How will we go about it?

No worries. I already gave this a good thought, how we can implement this successfully, without anyone having to spend a lot of extra hours on their part. ……

The benefits (Press them in by your thumb pressing down).

To sum up, we need to wake up, stop being naïve and take proper action. Security breaches can occur anywhere with anyone at any time and occur ever more frequent.

Let us be more conscious and well prepared to safeguard ourselves, our organizations, and our businesses. This way we will be able to sleep peacefully without having to worry of “what if scenarios”. Thank you.