4. Understanding purpose of message Before even beginning a communication process, it is vital to understand what customer or employee knows and feels about you and ideas you represent. Knowing this helps you decide purpose of message.

Akin to Maslow's psychological heirarchy, there are four levels of purpose, each of which pre-supposes and relies on existence of previous level. They are sequential and it is not possible to achieve an objective until all levels are completed, in order and fully.

The levels, in ascending order are: Awareness > Understanding > Conviction > Action

4.1: Awareness Let's take as an example a company attempting to differentiate itself in marketplace, with end goal of bringing someone to make a purchase of their service.

Without bringing your existence to attention of prospective customer you cannot move on to higher levels. Indeed, even internal communications often fall short on this point: they fail to restate context of communication, which is in effect 'awareness'.

4.2: Understanding Once a prospect has gained awareness, they are then ready to move on to understanding what it is that differentiates you from 'noise' of your competitors. They will need to understand what specific qualities YOU bring to marketplace.

This level is vital to internal communication: biggest block I come across in assessing why an internal communication has failed is not that staff don't know 'what' is going on, but that they don't understand 'why' it is going on.

4.3: Conviction Customers now have awareness and understanding; they now need convincing that your service is right for them.

Even more importantly, they must be convinced that YOU must be their supplier, because YOU have a distinctive competence that meets THEIR specific needs.

4.4: Action Finally, this conviction in you must be turned into action. It is up to you to decide what action they should ideally take -— a phone call into a sales office, perhaps, or a request for a consultant to visit; even a request for further supporting literature.

In internal communication primary level is all to obvious —- action. Yet unless those who are to deliver service are made aware, helped to understand and are convinced they will not deliver effectively or efficiently.

Conclusion ========== At heart of all management lies communication, and successful communication is not a one-to-many transaction, but a dialogue between interested parties. Successful dialogues rely on four principles: Reality, Reaction, Co-ordination and Purposefulness.

Understanding what other's 'reality' is, giving and receiving appropriate reactions to feedback, co-ordinating coherent messages and understand purpose of each message are four key principles for successful communication.

5. Humorous Anecdote – Humor is one of BEST ways to win an audience over and get them enthusiastic about you and your presentation. Humor enhances audience’s positive perception of you. When an audience laughs with you, chances are good they are also FOR YOU! The safest type of humor is stories or anecdotes that are uniquely yours. The problems you had traveling to get to your presentation make humorous presentation stories. Your dinner disaster is always good for a presentation laugh. One reminder worth mentioning--only use humor when you can relate it to subject matter—irrelevant jokes are not suitable presentation openers. Here’s an example of a humorous anecdote… “There is nothing more humbling than honest opinion of a five year old. I was feeling really good about this outfit this morning (even preening a little in front of mirror) when my five year old daughter came up to me and said, mommy, are you going to wear that table cloth to work?”

6. Curiosity – Provoking audience’s sense of curiosity can also help you capture their attention. When we are curious about something, we tend to listen more closely to see how it works out. The TV news trailers you see during Prime Time television often use curiosity to try to entice you into staying up and watching late news. “Tonight at 11:00, find out what vitamin combination can save your life.” In presentation realm, you might use a more subtle tactic, “Today, I’m going to tell you three important things that I guarantee will change way you do business forever…” Because they are curious, audience will pay close attention to see what those things are.

7. Gimmick – The sole purpose of a gimmick is to capture audience’s attention, so it makes sense that beginning with a gimmick is a good strategy. An example of a gimmick might be… A presenter who is going to speak about benefits of a paperless office begins presentation by dramatically crumbling papers and throwing them away. He/She then asks audience to throw away all paper that has been planted in front of them. Note that everyone loves a gimmick, as long as it is in good taste.

Remember, incorporating a good attention getter into introduction of your presentation can mean difference between being MEMORABLE or FORGETTABLE. For much more about this and other Presentation Secrets, check out book "15 Presentation Secrets: How to WOW Even Toughest Audience," by Debbie Bailey available at trainer2go.com/ebooks.html.