There are facts that are supported by study after study which are important for those who communicate for a living to understand if they hope to become accomplished at doing so.
- Sustained attention lasts about ten minutes
- Presentations are usually at least an hour long.
Consequently, you must find ways to make changes to your pace, visuals and points of interest at least every six minutes in order to maintain one’s attention.
To avoid losing your audiences’ attention, keep things varied and unpredictable:
- Ask Questions
- Tell accompanying stories (Anecdotes)
- Maintain Interaction
- Cohesively alter Topics
Appeal to the listener’s logic and reasoning, emotions and survival instincts.
No matter how hard we want to concentrate, humans won’t always be able to consciously direct what they’re paying attention to.
Multi-Tasking
When someone tells you that they are good at multi-tasking, don’t believe them. Multi-tasking doesn’t work.
- People don’t actually multitask – they switch task.
- It takes more time to get tasks completed if you switch between them.
- You make more errors when you switch task.
- Switch tasking throughout the day can add up to a loss of 40 percent of your productivity.
Bottom Line
During normal, everyday activities, your mind wanders up to 30 percent of the time. Hence the more interesting your dialogue and the more ways in which you grab and hold attention, the less your audiences’ mind will wander.
What are some other keys to effective communication?
What do strong communicators avoid?
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Good reminders! Yes, I find it very important to throw in personal anecdotes to break up the presentation and personalize it a bit I usually sense that relaxes the sellers.
No question Mary-Jo. Additionally the prospective client has another opportunity to see the personal side of you which is so critical to establishing these relationships.