Do These 5 Crucial Steps to Capture and Keep Your Audience’s Attention

During my PhD in Communication Science, there was a presentation about the AIDA marketing model, which explains how to first attract someone’s attention and create an interest which then produces a desire to act, and I remember thinking about how difficult it is to attract someone’s attention long enough to generate concrete action in a world of abundance. It is as if we have decided on one of the most difficult missions in modern society at the moment. Has paying attention to someone or something become the greatest luxury we can afford? Of course, in marketing and sales, this is possible, because that is the essence of their purpose, and the funds invested in it best show how challenging it can be.

 

And what about paying attention in face-to-face communication?

Clients often complain to me: “While I was giving the presentation, everyone was on their cell phones or laptops.” Or “While I was explaining my budget, half of them were on their laptops and the rest were going in and out.” Or “I’m in a meeting with a client, and he’s constantly responding to messages on his cell phone.”

As a communication expert, I notice a significant dispersion of attention and the inability to maintain focus in business relationships.

There is a lot of information and stimuli that surround us so we don’t listen, we don’t hear, we don’t experience, we don’t perceive. We are together at meetings, presentations, events, but each in their own little world in which it is difficult to connect and create an understanding for joint action. We talk about things important to us and in which we have invested a lot of effort, and when our interlocutors do not follow what we’re saying, we become frustrated, our self-confidence drops and we doubt the quality of what we are talking about.

 

How to gain and maintain the attention of the interlocutor and make that time useful for everyone involved?

Keeping attention and focus is a complex process and there is no one simple solution. However, there are techniques and tools that we can apply in business communication and thus increase our influence and change patterns of behaviour.

• • Preparing for a meeting or presentation is crucial.
     
  • Our focus must be on those we address, not just on achieving our goals. By profiling our interlocutors and adapting to what is interesting to them and means something to them, we will create a solid basis for attracting attention and creating interest.
     
  • Prepared and structured information must be interesting and useful to the interlocutors so that they can use it after the meeting or presentation. We need to tell them why what we say matters and how they can use it. That will make our suggestions meaningful and necessary and we will get the support that we need for further work.
     
  • Performance itself is a powerful tool for retaining attention. If we structure the entire presentation through rhetorical questions, every time we ask a question, wherever the interlocutor’s attention is, the brain will register the intonation of the question and return attention to what we are saying. We need to make sure that the answer is useful and purposeful for the interlocutor. The more direct questions you ask that require answers, the stronger the engagement of your interlocutor. This makes your presentation a joint activity in which both parties participate, creating the experience together and not leaving room for passive participants.
     
  • Another powerful tool in your presentation are pauses. You will attract more attention by taking meaningful pauses than by a gush of spoken words. The principle of reaction is similar to that with questions, and in addition, we give our interlocutors time to connect and accept the spoken content.
     

And one more thing to keep in mind. Our role is to guide our interlocutors through the content we present. It depends on us what they will experience and know and what these new experiences will motivate them to do. Try to visualise what awaits them and don’t limit yourself in descriptions, comparisons, or feelings. If they don’t want to be here as it is, now that you know how to grab their lost attention, take them on the path they want to be on.