In the year 2000, the average attention span of a human was 12 seconds; in 2015 it was measured at 8.25 seconds. During that same span, the average goldfish had maintained their attention span at 9 seconds.
By keeping the goldfish principle in mind, it will help you in all of your communications. Whether you are trying to sell something, debate a point, or present an idea to a coworker, the Goldfish Principle is the key to winning.
A dear friend of mine once gave me the key to keeping people engaged. It was a simple statement that I have tried to live by since then.
The two of us had been working on a presentation for a prospect. We were going to be allocated up to 60-minutes to present our solution. For the next several days, I put together dozens of slides, information packets, and stories that sold our product. I thought it was one of the most thorough presentations I had ever put together, after all we only had 60-minutes, I needed to answer as many questions as possible.
Critique
After reviewing the presentation with me, he gave me the following critique;
“Too Long”
“Too Boring”
“Too much duplication”
“Too much blah, blah, blah!”
Then the words I’ll never forget:
“Don’t say in blah, blah, what you can say in blah”
We cut the presentation down to 20-minutes, had a great meeting, used the other 40-minutes for casual discussions about their problems, their long-term plans, and possible alternatives. With all the other preparation we had worked on, we were capable of answering many questions on the spot.
The business was awarded to our team, and one of the best comments was not “great presentation” it was “great conversation”.
Knowing people have limited time and worse, limited attention span, keep the Goldfish in mind at all times! Keep it simple!
The Kole Performance Group is an authorized Zig Ziglar Trainer, which can help you in many areas of your business. Engagement is one of the key things we work on, with both employees as well as prospecting and customer service. Our guiding principle is continuous improvement, and we believe you should work on improvement every day.
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