Call to Action

A call to action is the mechanism used to deliver the payoff from a presentation. If it's well designed it will deliver results with a high probability of success. If an employee want to get a raise, for example, then the main points of the presentation are going to be concerned with the reasons why that should happen. They will include the employee's achievements, his or her important successes and (perhaps) the wage rates currently awarded across the industry. However, without a strong call to action the entire presentation is a waste of time.

The challenge

The problem is that most people are afraid to include a strong call to action in their presentation. They are too embarrassed to ask for what they want - and that means they are less likely to get it. That applies to employees looking for a raise, salespeople looking for a sale or songwriters looking for a recording contract.

The golden rule

The golden rule of presentations is simple - if you don't ask you won't receive. So if we start by accepting that rule then the key question is how can we ask for what we want in a manner that won't embarrass ourselves or our audience (however if there is a choice between asking for what we want and embarrassing our audience then we have to choose to embarrass them every time!).

Don't be shy

I once created a presentation for the CEO of a company who wanted a contract from a very large multinational company. I know what the corporate people would be looking for so I built in a solid call-to-action at the end of the presentation. After delivering the presentation the CEO continue to work on the audience - and ended up asking 6 times - in 6 different ways - for the contract. He got it - and the interesting thing was the audience were never once embarrassed.

The secret of asking for what you want

Actually, I have found, over the years, that it's not really that hard to ask for what I want if I've already done some planning beforehand. Being unprepared is the worst thing possible - and should never happen to any good presenter. I will be writing about the exact steps that anyone can follow to get what they want (the effective call-to-action) over the next few weeks (bookmark this page).