Controlling a bore
Looking a tedious, dull, and mind-numbing bore straight in the eyes without
flinching is a highly effective way of stopping her in her tracks. If you fix your
eyes directly in the business gaze triangle without a flicker of an eye you may
be amazed at how quickly your bore comes to a halt.The power lift
If you want to get your message across when you’re presenting visual infor-
mation during a meeting, you have to guide the audience’s attention to where
you want them to look. A simple way of controlling your listener’s attention is
to use a pen or pencil. Point to your material and verbalise what you’re show-
ing. Then, lift the pen, or pencil, off the page and hold it between your eyes
and your listener’s (see Figure 5-1). This movement works like a magnet as
your listener lifts her head, looks directly at you, and while both hearing and
seeing what you’re saying, absorbs your message. While you continue to
speak, keep the palm of your other hand open.abFigure 5-1:
The Power
Lift controls
where a
person
looks
during a
presen-
tation.82 Part II: Starting at the Top
At last, a way to shorten business meetings!
One study showed that in presentations where
visual aids are used, 83 per cent of the informa-
tion is absorbed visually, 11 per cent through the
audio channel, and 6 per cent through the other
three senses. A study conducted at The Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania found
that in presentations that relied solely on the
spoken word only 10 per cent of the information
was retained. In order for a verbal presentation
to be effective, key points must be repeatedfrequently. When a visual element is added to a
verbal presentation the retention rate increases
to 50 per cent. The result is that by using visual
aids in your presentations you achieve a 400 per
cent increase in efficiency. Further findings
showed that when visual aids are used in busi-
ness meetings, the time of the average meeting
is 18.6 minutes as opposed to 25.7 minutes. This
equates to a time saving of 28 per cent.