How To Speak Persuasively on Webinars & Stages

What is your reaction to the word: PERSUASION? 

Positive, negative... neutral? In this episode we’ll unpack how our experiences being persuaded impacts our ability to influence others. I’ll share with you 4 Persuasion Principles you can adopt so that you can become a positive persuader (and not a manipulator). 

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Transcript

I want you to, I want you to really think about that for a second. What is your feelings? What are your experiences of being persuaded? And then I want you to ask yourself this question, how does that impact or limit your ability to successfully persuade others? Oh, let me say that again. If you will have a negative perspective of being persuaded by others, like for example, you hate it when people are trying to push their point on you or it's very clear that they have a one track mind trying to sell you their program. The only reason they're asking these questions is because they are trying to lead the horse to water and that horse is you and they are trying to sell you their damn program and you hate that. That's your experience with persuasion. How does that impact your ability to click, go live and promote your program or connect with your audience, or when you get to that point, if you're doing a live webinar or a mini series, when you are ready to say, let's talk about if you want to go further, here's an opportunity to do so in my program. What is the relationship between your negative perception of being persuaded and your ability, or maybe lack thereof, of persuading others?

1:30
Well, hey friend, welcome to another episode of the Heather Sager Show. It's me Heather Sager and I'm honored to be your speaking coach here today in this episode. I've spent the last 15 years studying and building my communication skills to inspire and teach business owners and their teams from stages around the world. I've had the honor of speaking on more than 1000 stages on topics of leadership, premium brand positioning, sales, and of course communication. And now my focus is helping fellow online entrepreneurs become magnetic speakers, so they can make a bigger impact in the world while growing their income. This show right here was designed to give you a dedicated space each and every week to grow your skills, and keep your big goals front and center. And if you liked today's episode, be sure to grab a screenshot and share it on Instagram and tag me @theheathersager so I can give you a shout out and celebrate the work you're doing. Alright, let's dive in friend, it's gonna be a good one.

2:33
Hey, friend, welcome back to another episode of the Heather Sager Show. It's your speaking Coach, Heather, and I am honored that you've chosen to show up today, especially for this important conversation on persuasion. Now, this is an interesting term, I really want you to get present around how you physically react to some of the things I talked about today, the concept of persuasion and selling, creates a visceral response for a lot of people. I want you to notice of that. I also want to encourage you if you have a space for you can pull out a journal and not only take some notes, but reflect on what I'm talking about today and how this rings true or it maybe impact your ability to sell in your business. I think this really would be a good journaling exercise. Before we jump into today's episode, let me make sure I don't forget to remind you that hey, this show is growing baby. We've hit I think we've hit 30,000 downloads. We are on episode number 70. We're celebrating those of you who have been here the whole time. Thank you. Thank you. To my new friends who have joined here recently, I am so so glad you're here. You are just in time. Helped me get the word of this show out in that ears of more people. If you like this episode or any of the others that you've listened to, do me a quick favor, take a screenshot. Post it on Instagram and tag me @theheatherager. I'd love to give you a shout out and celebrate, you doing the work. You were doing the work to grow and develop as a magnetic communicator and that is a big freakin deal, so let me celebrate you. Please share it. Help more entrepreneurs become more confident using their voice. I am a big believer that the more people who have the courage to use their voice, it creates this ripple effect. If more people are sharing their voice, helping other people, the ripple effect that happens when you help another person and then they're able to use that skills to help another person. I think we can start carving out a little more positivity in the world, so let's share. Let's share and get more people on the train of having the courage to share their message. 

4:44
But let's dive in and talk about persuasion because you're going to need to do that in order to get other people to be present, listen to your message and then want to take action. I'm curious. Let me read you the definition of, I googled it, right? I went to the old Google and I said what is the actual definition of the term persuasion because I want to sit with that for a second. Persuasion based off Google, it's cause someone to do something through reasoning and argument, to cause someone to believe something, especially after sustained effort. Convince. I want you to get present with yourself for a moment. What comes to mind when I read the definition of persuasion? To cause someone to do something through reason or argument, to cause someone to believe something especially after sustained effort and convince. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound pretty like this is unpositive.

5:43
I want you to imagine being persuaded by other people. When you're sitting in the seat of listening to someone that you know they're trying to persuade you to believe what they believe. This has been a last year of that, lots of conversations online where people are trying to get others to come from, to listen to my point, listen to my perspective, to convince, especially after sustained effort. I envisioned somebody like so committed to what they have to say that they don't care what anyone else says they're going to, like wear you down. That's what comes to mind, quite frankly, when I think of persuasion. And I don't think I'm alone in that. So the idea of persuasion, we know that we need to be persuasive when it comes to business communication, when it comes to our marketing. But yet, we have this weird, complicated relationship by being persuaded of others. I want you to, I want you to really think about that for a second. What is your feelings? What are your experiences of being persuaded? And then I want you to ask yourself this question, how does that impact or limit your ability to successfully persuade others?

07:03
Oh, let me say that, again. if you would have a negative perspective of being persuaded by others, like for example, you hate it when people are trying to push their point on you, or it's very clear that they have a one track mind trying to sell you their program, the only reason they're asking these questions is because they are trying to lead the horse to water, and that horse is you and they are trying to sell you their damn program. And you hate that. That's your experience with persuasion. How does that impact your ability to click, go live and promote your program or connect with your audience. Or when you get to that point, if you're doing a live webinar or a mini series, when you are ready to say, let's talk about if you want to go further, here's an opportunity to do so in my program. What is the relationship between your negative perception of being persuaded and your ability or maybe lack thereof, of persuading others? I don't think we talk enough about this but I think we need to have a conversation around this today because if you hate being persuaded by other people, it will limit your ability to be persuaded, and I think it's because of this simple thing. When we think of being persuaded, we think of somebody pushing something upon us that we don't want. And friend, that is not persuasion. That's like I don't know, that's manipulation. Persuasion, specifically persuasion, when you're talking about selling, it's sharing information and helping someone make a decision for somebody that you know they want, not necessarily your program, right? Let me be clear, I'm not saying, let me use me as an example. If I were persuading you to buy my program, if all I was focused on was the right solution for you is to buy my program. So every question, every episode I give, every nugget of information is to get you to buy Speak Up to Level Up. That is not persuasion, or if it is it's a very negative. It's a negative version of persuasion, which I think is manipulation. Because here's the thing, not everyone is a good fit for my program. And quite frankly, not everyone wants to level up their speaking. Speaking might not be their central strategy to driving more leads in their business, to getting more eyeballs on their business and experiencing scalable growth in the next 12 months. So what I've had to do, and I'm encouraged you to think about the same as business owners, our job isn't to convince everyone that our ideas, or programs, or solutions are perfect for them. No, your job isn't to convince anyone. I disagree with this definition of persuasion. It's not about convincing someone to do something they don't want to do. It's about offering an option to help someone do what they want to do. Okay, that sounds a little bit confusing. So let me clarify this. For example, for me, I'm not pushing this, like speak, speak, speak, the solution is Speak Up to Level Up. If you want to blah, blah, blah, Speak Up to Level Up. No, instead what I focus on is I am attracting people who want to grow their business, who want to grow their audience, who want to fill their programs, who want to be seen as a trusted authority in their field. I know if you're listening to the show, those are things that you want. It's my responsibility in my teachings, in my podcasts, in my webinars, in my any of my sales tools, I offer a solution that helps someone do that. And then we get to allow people to make the choice. What I don't love, and you probably don't love this either, is when somebody sits on their high horse and tells you that their product or program is the only way that you can accomplish your goal or your dream. And I just think that's so that that's the schmucky marketing that we hate because the truth is, there are a bajillion ways to run a successful business. There are a ton of different ways to drive leads in your business. And you, my friend are very smart, which is why you are in business for yourself. When it comes to persuasion, it's your responsibility to allow people to exercise their smartness and make decisions. So your job when it comes to persuasion is to present enough relevant information and show a path to what they want. That's what it is, right? You're not there, especially on a webinar. If you do webinars, and you have that moment where you clench your buttcheeks because you know the next slide is when you're going to say, and I'd like to invite you to join my blah, blah, blah program, and you know, you have to launch to a pitch. You clench your buttcheeks because you're like, Oh, my gosh, I have to convince all these people to buy my program. What if I were to tell you no, you don't. You do not, that is not your job. And quite frankly, you do not want everyone on your webinar, buying your program, because I promise you, there's some people in that audience that you do not want in your program so take the pressure off yourself.

12:21
I want you to imagine this. Have you heard of those, the Bell Curves like for for adoption. This was big. I remember studying this in economics back in college. The like adoption curves for when new technology would hit the field. They have the adoption curve. It's like a bell curve, a graph, right? Where on the left hand side, it's really, really low and small and then it curves up where it's like the peak in the middle, where it's like most of the people they are, then it goes down. That curve is typically on the left side. It's when a new technology hits the market. For example, back when iPhones came out, or a new version of the iPhone comes out. You have the early adopters, the people who are obsessed with technology, who are like primed and ready of going as I don't care what it is, give me that next thing that you have to offer Apple, and that's like the early adopters. Then you move into, moving up in the center of the Bell Curve, you have the people going like, okay, I keep hearing about this dang iPhone thing like Oh, wait, it has a camera on it. Oh, wait, it has a calculator on it like, that's cool. I want a calculator and camera in my pocket. Cool, I'll jump on board. And then as it goes into the peak, right, where everybody starts talking about the iPhone, everybody wants it. And they're like, whoa, whoa, and then you have everybody jumping in. They don't necessarily care about Apple, they don't necessarily care about all the things, but they like to be what everyone else is doing so they start buying it. And then we reach the point where it's like the majority starts buying that product. And then on the tail end, you have the laggards. They're the people who are like resisting of going, I'm standing by Android. I no way am I gonna move over to my platform. That's my husband, by the way. And the other people who are like, because of sheer fundamental principle, they do not want the thing. Okay? You know what I'm saying here, right, apply anything, right? It happened with Facebook. We have the early adopters, the cool kids that were in college, and then those of us in 2007, 2008 were like, send me an invite, send me an invite. We wanted in and then in 2009, 10, 11, people were coming in droves, but then holy crap. 2011, 2015 if you were on Facebook, who the hell were you? And 2015, 16, 17 finally our aunts, and uncles, and parents, started getting on the platform and now we just joke if somebody is not on Facebook, we're like wait, now it's because of the standard of this principle. They don't want to be in a conversation. You know what I'm seeing. The adoption curve, that Bell Curve that happens, let me give you a little gift here, friend. 

14:51
If you sell programs, products, digital courses, I want you to apply this bell curve into your business because I think what happens is we think, Oh my gosh, we have to convince everyone. And then the people who are the laggards on that very back end who quite frankly, we do not want in our program. If we have to try so hard to convince them that our program is going to help them with the whatever thing. It doesn't matter if whether or not we can help them. You can't help someone who is unwilling to be helped. So free yourself of the expectation to convince those people because guess what, there is a whole pool of people who are those early adopters and the people that will be joining after that and that majority. That's what I want you thinking about when it comes to persuasion, you were talking to those people to help them make a swift decision. A swift decision of going wow, I didn't even know this was a possibility for me. Oh, I want that jump in. So let me give you, let's use  my business as an example. And I'm specifically going to talk about webinars right here because I think this is a point where people have a lot of mental junk going on around selling on webinars. So when it comes to my webinars, I have a masterclass. You can watch it right now on demand. You can go to heathersager.com. It's in the link in the show notes, just just click on that for my latest masterclass where I teach you how to sell your programs, your digital courses, or your coaching programs using guest speaking even if you don't have a large following so you can go click on that. In the master class what I'm focused on, is okay on the masterclass the early adopters, meaning somebody who already understands how speaking can grow their business, I know they will convert on that webinar. So if you go watch that webinar, and you're like, yep, I already know that speaking is solution. They're on there, just like gut check and be like, is Heather the coach that I want, but in their head, they're already really thinking that speaking to solution, those are the early adopters. Those ones for me are where I'm hitting the fast action bonus to make sure that Oh, they want to jump in now, like fast action bonus, whoop, if you join while you're on that webinar, friend, you're going to get your hands on a training from my media partner, who teaches you how to book your first live podcast within the next 30 days. Whoa, that is targeted at the early adopters. This is like the Wizard of Oz moment. I'm telling you how my business works behind the scenes so that you can make it work for your business. I don't know if I'm supposed to do this, but we're doing it anyways. 

17:24
So bell curve, that's how it works, right? So my persuasion, the way I communicate, is targeting the early adopters to people who already have the awareness that I want to get better at speaking, boom, that's that early adopters piece. But then there's that whole piece in the middle of people going, Hmm, I like Heather, I've been listening to her podcast, or I was referred to her by a friend, I really understand that I do speak in my business every day. Yeah, man, my voice is an important part of my business.

17:54
Speaking isn't just for stages, I am wanting to do Facebook Lives and maybe I want to contribute now on this thing of Clubhouse like I do want to get a lot more intentional. And I want to structure my message so that I'm confident that what I'm saying is actually, one, making sense and, two, leading back to the growth of my business. That's that middle part of the Bell Curve. That's the majority of people who are coming in, that they don't know necessarily if this is the right solution for them but they're willing to say Huh, I wonder if this would be a fit. The master class information, the teaching education is for that group, where we have to give that group of people enough information to be able to understand, oh, this is how speaking works. Oh, this is okay. This is the path that would work to help me actually establish myself as authority. Oh, this is actually how I would monetize speaking. Oh, my gosh, this is how I would on the back end, convert people into leads and sales in my business. Hmm. Okay, so those are the people we're talking to on a webinar friend, we have to, one, hit on those people who already know that they want to get in and, two, educate and provide a pathway for people who want to do the bigger thing. For me, the bigger goal is I want to grow my authority, I want to grow my business, I want to fill my programs, I want to be seen as the go-to expert. These are all things that I know my core audience wants. So I have to touch on those and then showcase how they can make that happen through speaking and then it's simply allowing them to make the choice to see how that's working. 

19:27
What I'm not doing is I'm not trying to convince or based off of this off by gosh this frickin definition. After, especially after sustained effort convinced, I am not trying to sustainably effort to convince anyone who doesn't want to speak on stages. I am not trying to convince them that they should really consider it. That I'm not even exerting my effort in that because to me, that would be, one, that would just be exhausting but two, that would be having this really narrow conversation and this would not serve the  majority of my audience. Are you getting what I'm saying here? I think a lot of times, we think our need to convince people that our program is the perfect thing they want, but we're trying to convince people who don't really, they're the laggards. They're not going to do it anyway. Stop exerting all your energy to convince them and start persuading the people that actually want the bigger picture of the thing you sell. Talk to them, equip them with the information in the pathway, so they can make a strong decision. That's what persuasion is about. Manipulation is about trying to convince somebody who doesn't actually want the thing. So for example, for me manipulation would be I can tell you this, if I jump on a sales call for somebody who wants to work with me, and they are, it's a little bit. I'm this overshare here, but I'll share it. They are a new business owner, right? A new business owner who wants to grow and they're just getting started. This is an abstract example. This happened to me a couple times in the last few months. Somebody who's just getting started and they think, Oh, yeah, they're like thinking they're in that early adopter / mid category, where they're like, Oh, I think speaking give me a really good strategy. For me, I don't feel great offering somebody a high ticket one on one coaching package, which my one on one work is between five and $12,000 to work with someone one on one, to build speaking their business, to design their live events, that kind of stuff. I don't want to work one on one and have a business owner who's just getting started, who's not consistently making money in their business. Adding speaking is not the right first step for them in a one on one setting. It would be far more appropriate for them to build their offer and then join my program, Speak Up to Level Up where they can get the support, but they're not making an investment that's going to put them in the red. Here's the thing, it would be very easy for me to state my case and sell on that phone and get someone to invest eight to $10,000 using my coaching services. I'm very persuasive friend but for me that would be manipulation. Because persuasion puts the benefit and the positivity of like the value. We're focused on the end user, not ourselves. manipulation is when you put yourself as the center and that is the priority. So regardless what the other person's scenario is you like I want to win. So persuasion puts the emphasis where the value and good has to come out. I mean, it has to be mutually beneficial. But you're putting more emphasis on the end user, that for me is really important. I am huge on having a high integrity business. That's why for me, I've been really, really focused of saying, You know what, I know my programs can help a ton more people but I don't want just people signing up out of FOMO. I don't want people going like oh my gosh, if I don't get this, I'm gonna miss out on my check. No, like, I want people jumping in the program who need help with speaking, who want support, right? They're going to show up in the office hours, they're going to get feedback, they're not just signing up because of FOMO and it's another course on their shelf. For me persuasion means that I have a duty, I have a responsibility to attract the right people into my coaching services. And in my program, I think you have to make the decision that works well for you. There are a ton of marketers who are like, go to the masses. Let the person on the other side, just chat, choose whether it's right for them, which I do agree with. But I do think we have a problem in this online space where we are, marketing is kind of teeter tottering into the manipulation category, where we're forcing people to self identify as needing a program that they don't actually need. Oh, my gosh, I just said it out loud. But I do agree with that. So if you don't agree with that, send me a DM on Instagram, let's have a conversation about it because I really would like to have conversations about this. But I'm very passionate about this idea of when it comes to marketing and being in high integrity. 

24:05
Let me give you a couple tools that's going to help you think about this idea of persuasion. Let me get my notes out here. When you're speaking to an audience, let's say it's on a webinar, or you're on a podcast interview, or you are a guest speaker at a virtual summit, I want you to think about your role. Your role isn't to convince anyone. Your role is to show possibility and pathway, possibility and pathway. I think this is something that's really important for you to consider. Possibility, right? Helped them paint the picture for where they are right now, what the landscape is like in their relevant life industry, insert the appropriate context here and then you want to show them a path to get where they want to go. That's what true positive high integrity persuasion looks like. 

24:54
Let me  introduce to you four persuasion principles that I adopt. It allows me to stay in integrity in my business, but it also allows me to stay on track when it comes to ensuring that I'm not just teaching, right? I am a trainer, I am a teacher, but I'm also a marketer. And I have to understand when am I wearing that trainer hat, IE inside my program, or IE, if I'm guest teaching in a specific group. There's a trainer hat and then there's a marketer hat. You can, you should train and teach when you're marketing, but you need to be really clear that you're not just trying to equip people with information so they can go do the thing. Because what happens, I think this is what happens a lot, is a lot of newer business owners, or even a more experienced business owners, they think, you know, I've been burned in the past where I'm so annoyed. I'm so annoyed with the fluffy content, I'm so annoyed with somebody just rambling on for 30 minutes about the why that I already know and then to get the details, I have to give him my email or I have to sign up for the program.  I don't feel any more enlightened than when we started the conversation. 

26:03
Think about one of, you know, this common principle, you want to leave people better than you found them. Really, really important. I want to leave people better than I found them. So what what does that mean for me when it comes to speaking, it means I actually need to offer people valuable information that's going to get them to think differently, so they can act differently, and they can get different results. That's what I'm really, really passionate about. So I have to teach people how to think about speaking, think about their business in a different way. But then I also have to give them tools to act. Now, if I were to just give them tools to act, what would happen is if I didn't adjust the perspective around how people approach those tools or approach speaking their business, I'm setting them up to go make potential mistakes. So let me think about this. 

26:47
Let me give you an example here. If I were, let me say here, okay, if I were to give you Okay, let's do this. Let's see, we talked about doing an introduction for if you go on a podcast and you want to know how do you introduce yourself. I can be like, okay, friend, let me give you the perfect script and recipe for an introduction on a podcast. And I'm just gonna make it up here. Or it's like you give them your name, your role, how you help people and paint the picture for something or other, right? Let's pretend I gave you this script and that was all I gave you. And I was like, you just need to use this  when you're on podcast so that way you establish yourself as an authority out of the gate, you paint the picture for the kinds of programs that you offer, and you set the stage for the conversation, right? Let's say I give you that and I just I just gave you the script. I didn't tell you the underlying reasoning behind it. What happens is when you have a podcast, where the host just jumps straight into questions, what happens when you're on a different kind of stage? What happens where that plug and play template doesn't quite work? It leaves you on your heels where you're like,Whoa, what do I do? What do I do and it's not extremely helpful. 

28:03
So when we talk about possibility and path, it's your responsibility as a speaker, as a influencer, as a persuader, to give people, this brings up persuasion Principle number one, you have to give people context. You have to give people context to understand where this fits in because if you just equip them with tools, without context, when they go out into the world to use those tools, it's like giving somebody a hammer, and they go to work on a car. And they're like, I don't understand how do I use a hammer on a car? I don't work on cars but I don't think you use a hammer on a car you need like a wrench and insert another tool that you would use on a car here that I don't know. I just envisioning like a greasy towel with a wrench. That's the only tools I have for you when it comes to working on a car. But what I want you to think about this, sometimes we give information where we hand them a hammer, and then we send them out to the world and all of a sudden they're in front of working on a car. We need to give context to allow people to say, Hmm, does this tool I'm giving them fit, does this financial formula that I'm providing, if they go home and like start looking at their business, they're like, Oh my gosh, I don't understand how to use this in my business. Because my business is slightly different, or this scenario is slightly different. We have to give people context. Context means you have to make the thing that you're talking about relevant to other people, relevant to their life, to their business, to their priorities, to their goals, You have to anchor what you're talking about to something relevant to them. Don't shove the turkey in the oven before you preheat it. Context is the preheating process. You have to give them a little bit of picture, help them understand where this fits in so when you offer up a tool or a teaching, they can be successful with it. That's a big piece around having high integrity with persuasion as you're equipping people to be successful, whether or not they move on, with or without you. 

30:08
Side note, that demonstrates to people that you were in high integrity with persuasion, and you're not trying to manipulate them. If you don't provide the context, and you're only giving them this one tool that's going to work for everything, people feel manipulated, because they're smart. They know, there's not just one way to do the things. They know that this one secret recipe can't work 100% of the time. So if you share with them a little bit of information around ha, here's some context for how you can use this, you build trust and you show them that you respect them, that you respect their ability to make decisions and and use things. So let me give you an example here. I've been using my business a lot. So I think examples allow you to be like, Okay, what are you talking about how their habits make sense. There's a lot of entrepreneurs that want visibility, they want to get their message out there. They want to articulate their ideas, articulate their message, they want more leads back in their business. We all know very clearly from this episode, like, that's what I know my audience wants. Well, that's a different language, right? Using those things. for somebody who might not be really aware of speaking or aware of the connection between speaking and business growth, they might just see like speaking as Oh, being an expert, getting myself the 'as seen on,' getting PR opportunities, like they might not necessarily connect the difference, even though they know logically they go together. They don't really see it. So my job is to give context around why speaking on stages is absolutely relevant to them. Because I can connect things that are important to them and the language that's relevant to them. Context, context. So so where I would see this happen a lot back in the corporate world where I would be in a meeting with someone, and they would jump straight into their idea, like straight on their idea. And I'd be like, ooh, back the truck up, give context. Because where you're at in your mind, like where you're thinking, you're most likely 30 steps ahead of the person in front of you. So you need to like pause, back the truck up 20 steps and let people understand why you're sharing the thing that you're sharing, give people context. And that context has to be how it connects to them, how it connects to them. This is the quintessential thing that you have to like, you have to have it. If you're going to be a persuasive speaker, you have to provide context to your audience. Context for why this is relevant, and why this fits into something important to them. 

32:35
Persuasion Principle number two, sincerity. This to me is paramount above everything else. Sincerity means honesty. It means vulnerability. It means authenticity. I think sincerity also means not fluffing up your stuff, like overly fluffy it.

32:51
And just talking around the thing. I think, again, I think consumers, coaches course creators depend on who your audience is. They're smart. Consumers are smart and they're savvy and they can smell fluff from a mile away. I know from my audience, they have a very low tolerance for the fluffy crap because they've been burned so many times. When somebody comes in and actually gives them a tool that's helpful. They're like, say, goodness, like breath of fresh air. I like this chick. She's a straight shooter. For me, sincerity is important. Let me give you an example of this. I have a few case studies and testimonials that I often share. A couple of them are big names, like great success stories. But I also know that other clients and other students have not gotten a big success of some of the micro celebrities that I work with. From a stage, I'm not always going to talk about the big giant successes, right? My recently one of my clients who went on a stage in front of 3000 people and converted the audience at like 67% into her freebie, and then converted 85% of those into an upsell. I'm gonna use that example every once in a while. But if I'm only using the examples of here's how one of my clients made $9 million, people are like, but really, not really. So I think one of the ways that you can show sincerity, authenticity and just realness with your audiences, balancing your testimonials, balancing your case studies, to not be the big padded, whatever bro marketing thing that shows how everybody's give you these raving success stories. Show micro successes too. 

34:29
For example, I had a client who just joined Speak up to Level Up a week ago. I send all of my new members who come into the program. I send them a personal loom video to welcome them in, give hem a little orientation, but it's just a quick video, but I want people to know that they're actually are going to see me, they're going to hear from me and work with me in this program. She sent me a video back where she shared, Heather Oh my gosh, this exercise where you got me bucketizing my mind. This bucketizing activity is how I help people map out their content ideas so they can see clearly and strategically about their content. She goes, you know, in all my time like, this is the first time I actually feel like I have clarity around what I want to talk about. She was a weekend, right. So me sharing that little example here around, sometimes the wind is just going, I feel I can breathe. And in one week, she was able to map out all of the content ideas she had in her head, but organize them in a way, just like how good we feel, when we go through and like got everything out of our closet and reorganize it home edit style, and get the baskets and the color coded and all those things and put it back in. When we look around it, we get a sense of accomplishment. Sharing a micro win like that sometimes is far more powerful. Because your audience goes, Okay, I can actually see myself doing that. versus if you're only sharing the big huge wins, they're going but like how many people get to those results. I think you need to share bowls, why you need to share the possibility of what can happen, because that shows exceptional results that if you do the work, you can get the work. But also you need to show those micro pieces here. I think that's something that's really powerful when it comes to persuasion is be real, share different kinds of testimonials, different kinds of wins, and you will really create incredible trust. 

36:17
Okay, persuasion principles three and four, I'm going to share with these together for you because I think they go hand in hand. And I've talked about these on the show before. So take note, these are two things that I feel very passionate about that I think every leader, business owner speaker, influencer, you have to have and they are competence, and humility, confidence and humility. I believe that you can't have one without the other. If you are going to be persuasive with an audience, you have to be confident. You have to fully believe that what you teach is solid and have confidence that you can help people, have confidence that you are a pro, even if you're struggling on the inside with imposter syndrome. And you're like, oh my goodness, you still are confident of knowing that you can get results for people, you are confident in knowing that you are here for a reason. Even if you're having that struggle in your head, you have to exude confidence, but confidence without humility. Right without with confidence. But the humility is just egotistical. And again, we are savvy consumers, we can sniff out somebody who has a high ego and we will go running. We might sit around and like listen to their Clubhouse room, because we're just curious what they're talking about and how they connect with people. But at the end of the day, we're going to invest with people that we know have high confidence but also have the humility to know that they honor and appreciate the clients that they have. They know that they are the only person who does this, they know that they're not the best person in the world, but they know they are a really good fit for those that they work with. Having humility knows that you don't have all the answers. Having humility shows that you understand that your solution isn't the only one, having humility is knowing that you are giving your audience a choice to make a decision not forcing it down their throat out of urgency or scarcity or pushing FOMO. Having humility shows that you have high integrity, that you are working with the people who truly need your help and that you are also a student. To me, those are all things that are important. And I think having humility is showing vulnerability. It's been an honor it with your audience. But again, if you one without the other, if all you citizen humility, right, if you sit in this role of like, I'm just here to learn. I've learned so much from my students too. I don't know all the answers. If you're constantly downgrading yourself, because you're trying to demonstrate humility, you lose confidence. You lose the confidence that people have in you because it doesn't look like you're confident. So you have to show up bold and confident and empower with your content, meaning I am an authority. If you don't believe that you tell yourself every single day I am an authority. I am an expert in the space, I am growing to become an authority in this space, whatever mantra you have to say to yourself, you have to own that role that you belong at this frickin table. Friend, you are here, own your seat. Do not give it away. You are here. But you have to balance and have the humility to be able to say I don't know all the answers. I've earned the right to be here. I'm here. But I'm going to allow others to speak. I've earned the right to be here. But I'm open to conversations I've earned the right to be here. But I am going to share more vulnerable things, humility and competence. Those things have to go together in order for people to feel good about being persuaded. Remember how we started this conversation around the negative aspects around persuasion and how we hate the negative persuasion? I think right here this is one of the things that really cinches it for people. Having that humility factor that sincerity we talked about when you bring in those more human aspects. I think it allows people to feel good about their decisions at the end of the day. When we make purchasing decisions even or just decisions to invest, invest our time, invest of our time of listening to a podcast, or invest our time of going to a masterclass, invest our money to buy a program or product, we want to feel good about it. We want to feel like we're doing business with someone we align with and showing this sincerity, the things we talked about today. I think that's what separates you in being a powerful and positive persuader. And not a manipulator. 

40:24
Okay, we covered a lot of really good ground today. I hope that this just like scratching the surface around this concept around selling and persuasion and manipulation and how these things come in. But if you were only to take away one thing today, I want you to reflect on your initial question I asked you, what's your reaction to being persuaded? And how is that reaction either setting you up for success or holding you back from success when it comes to connecting with your audience and helping them get what they need to make a strong decision and move forward? All right, Friend, just reminder, if you love this episode, please, please, please rate and review the show on whatever platform you're listening to those reviews. People look at those. I look at those, but it helps people make a decision to say, you know what, it's just a show I want to stick around for Is it someone I want to learn from this is something that's gonna be valuable. So if you get value, put that in the review. Tell people what you get out of the show, what you love about it, and it would just mean the world to me. All right, friend, I want to wish you a Happy, Happy New Year to you. May 2021, if this is when you're listening to it, may bring you so many incredible opportunities for you to learn and grow this year. But most importantly, I hope it presents the opportunity for you to have the courage to step up and start sharing your message. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. All right, friends. See you next week. Same time, same place.

41:53
Hey friends, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you had to hear, and you're looking to make a bigger splash with your brand online, then you've got to check out my brand new free video training. You can get it over at heathersager.com/minitraining. What I'm going to teach you the three speaking strategies at every online business owner needs for this virtual world here in 2020. Hint, you don't have to be some big pro speaker to make speaking work for your business. Go grab it now. heathersager.com/minitraining and I'll see you on the next episode.