**Note - This course is offered exclusively using live stream remote attendance. You will need a computer and an internet connection. We will continue to monitor the situation surrounding COVID-19 closely.  When it is deemed safe to reconvene group gatherings, we will resume our in-person class offering as usual.  If you would like more information or have any questions, please contact us via email or phone 425 270 3274.

How to Get Distracted Audiences to Stop, Pay Attention, and Act

Being persuasive has always been important because it helps people act despite mental roadblocks.  Online presenting is more important than ever because presentations are increasingly moving to the Internet.  And it is hard to capture the attention of busy people because they are, well, too busy to focus for long on your message.  This course teaches simple, but effective tools to deliver your message, make it stick, and, in so doing, create positive change. 

What are the Benefits From this Course?

Every time you present, you are managing two reputations—yours and your organizations. Make sure your presentations enhance these. The person whose message sounds like the most sensible way forward will define the future.  Make sure that person is you.  Whether presenting to clients, employees, stakeholders, or the media, you need to communicate with credibility.  This course will offer tools to deliver your information convincingly and with this confidence.

We all have to deal with ‘difficult’ audiences.  Make sure you gain the edge in challenging situations even when:

• There is mistrust and anger in the room,
• There is technical complexity that impedes understanding, and
• The Internet gets in the way and keeps your audience from being fully engaged

This highly interactive workshop develops skills for making prepared and impromptu presentations.  We take on the challenge of presenting in situations that may be controversial or highly charged.  And we cover online presenting and presenting with brief written documents. We focus on communication skills for occasions when there is time to prepare in advance, such as a formal briefing or prepared speech.  And we focus on skills for making impromptu presentations such as handling questions and media interviews. This course will focus on oral and brief written communications for occasions when you have to get your message across effectively and quickly but remain persuasive.

This course covers:

• Analyzing why an audience is resistant to your message—what brain researchers and risk managers have to teach us.
• Designing a way to deal with resistance points—developing messaging that responds to criticism you might encounter.
• Designing the delivery of your communication—whether presenting in writing or orally, when you need to deliver recommendations, not just information.
• Models for persuasive oral remarks.
• Models for persuasive written briefings.
• Models for when you do not have time to prepare ahead, such as media interviews and question/answer sessions.
• Transforming conflict conversations into a respectful and more positive discussion using tips and techniques that mediators use.
• Capturing attention and delivering motivational remarks using tips that professional speakers use.

Who This Course is For?

This course is suitable for a wide variety of professionals including environmental risk managers, regulators, public involvement managers, remediation project managers, program managers, technical experts, engineers, scientists, health and safety personnel, natural resource personnel, environmental planners, public affairs officers, attorneys, and others who are called upon to communicate in difficult environments and who need to persuade when doing so.

What is Unique in this Course?

We improve the usual approach to audience analysis (demographics, topic familiarity, etc.) by considering research findings on how the brain processes decisions and makes people skeptical and resistant to new courses of action.  Then we introduce multiple planning models to design a persuasive presentation, including techniques used by professional motivational speakers.  We look specifically at communicating when there is a lot of distrust and conflict in the audience.  And we cover how to handle a media interview and models for impromptu presenting. 

Participants working in teams prepare and deliver several presentations during the workshop and receive instructor and peer coaching on how to improve.  The goal of this course is to move beyond the notion that persuasive presenting is about delivering information.  Persuasive presenting is a carefully designed communication process designed to inspire forward movement on your issues.  

What Can You Expect in this Workshop?

Teaching Model:  We use a Tell → Show → Do → Teach-Back Model

• Tell: We present what we know about the skills being taught.
• Show: We demonstrate how the skills are applied through lectures, exercises, facilitated discussion, etc.
• Do: We have participants practice the skills using team assignments, role plays, mock activities, etc.
• Teach-Back: We wrap up topics with peer-to-peer and instructor advice on how to apply the new skills in the real world.

How We Present this Material:  We use discussion, exercises, lecture, and mock exercises combining student and instructor experiences to collaboratively create dynamic, fun, and highly interactive training.   But learning is not complete until there is application.  Participants discuss how they can transform the course content into a real-world application after the course. 

Can the Course be Customized for your Organization?

If your need is to train inside your organization we can increase relevance and value by modifying the content to match your audience and your specific goals for the event.  While this program is designed as a specific, interactive training session, we can provide anything from a one-hour keynote presentation to the full event and we emphasize the topics that you think are most valuable.

Testimonials

"Instructor is clearly skilled in the field and adept at conveying the material." J. Corwin

"Michael was knowledgeable, entertaining, and struck a great balance between presenting to us and hands-on participation. I enjoyed this class!" Ian S.

"Good variety of topics & tools, so even if one tool doesn't seem applicable, others will be. Good participation methods for attendees." Anonymous

"Great instructor! Lots of great information delivered well!" C. Marchand

In reality, good persuasion is all about helping people. There are a lot of reasons why being persuasive is an important skill for a professional, but most importantly persuasion helps people take beneficial action despite the mental roadblocks that get in the way.  The bottom line is that people won’t buy into your vision for the future unless you persuade them.