By Gerald George Mannikarote, MBBS MBA
What’s your audience’s frequency? What’s the station that your customer is listening to? What channel should you set your dial to? I would bet and say it’s WIIFM.
When presenting to an audience you need to understand why they would want to listen to you you. The question residing at the backs of their minds is “What’s In It for Me?” or “WIIFM”. If you don’t give your audience a WIIFM, then they will quickly lose interest. What this means is, you need to tailor your presentation to your audience- whether it’s a sales pitch or if you are presenting a facts or a proposal.
So tune into your audience’s frequency. Is there a WIIFM? Understand what your audience really wants before you develop your pitch or presentation. This will give you a better chance of having your audience listen to you. Your and audience and you will be on the same wavelength.
Gone are the days when you can simply stand on a soap box and give a presentation and expect a crowd to listen to you. Gone are the days when you can show up at a customer’s door step with a fabulous new product and expect them to buy it. If there is no WIIFM, then there is no reason you should have an audience or a customer would buy.
So how do you tune into WIIFM? You need to know your audience. You need to understand their needs. You need to understand what they want to hear.
When developing your presentation, understand what your audience needs to hear. Are they the kind that likes to see graphs? Then add graphs to your presentation. Are they the type that likes to hear stories about how your product helped others? Then tell stories. It is very important that you understand your audience or customer before you give them a pitch or presentation.
But simply graphs or stories to your presentation is not enough. You have to truly understand your audience. You must give them a reason to listen to you. You must help them realize that you kept them in mind when you developed your presentation. You must let them know what’s in it for them. You’ve got to tune into WIIFM.
Thanks for reading this piece. Have you used WIIFM in your work or presentations? How have you used it? Please leave your thoughts in the comments. If you liked what you’ve read, please don’t hesitate to share this with others. You can also contact me at jerrydmann@dmanntraining.com
