ABSTRACT
You always start with an advantage if you have been specially invited to speak to an audience. But the relationship is reversed if it is you who apply to make a presentation. This is often the case when you, or your company, want to influence a particular body of people. Such presentations are really selling opportunities. Your relationship with the audience becomes an unnatural one because:
(1) You have sought out your listeners, who may be GPs attending a meeting to which they have been invited by a pharmaceutical company representative or director, or you may have asked to speak to specialists at a hospital,
(2) You want them to take action(s) favourable to you or to those whose interests you represent, you company, your profession, your department.
(3) You may have to replace their ideas with your own, and some of those held by your audience may be entrenched ones,
(4) Because you yourself have asked to present your case, you can often feel as though you are on your own with little or no support from those listening to you. Indeed, sometimes they may be hostile.
These problems, which you share with everyone who seeks to sell products (like the medical sales force), services or ideas, create tension, and often make you act out of character. You start talking too fast or too loudly; you look down at your notes instead of maintaining eye contact with your audience; you end up concentrating too much on your ideas rather than the needs of your audience.