There were a number of reasons I got into communications, but one of the most important was because I wanted to get better at communicating in both the verbal and written sense. As I became better at communicating I realized that to be a powerful communicator I needed to incorporate some level of emotion. This is where my focus on emotional marketing began.

What many graduates of a communications program don’t realize is that communication is all about the transfer of emotions! Communications is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited or sad or optimistic or whatever you are. This point becomes even more important when presenting to a group of people and unfortunately great presenters are few and far between.

With the creation of PowerPoint we’ve all seemed to fall into a comfort zone of using it whenever we have to present to group of people and we set ourselves up to be unremarkable right from the get go. There is nothing worse than a presenter who can’t present without PowerPoint and sadly I may have offended a great number of people who are like this. But it’s true. As communicators we should all strive to be powerful in how we present to our audience. We need to strive to be remarkable and memorable and never rely on a simple tool to lead us when communicating. If you believe in your idea, sell it! Make your point as hard as you can and get what you came for.

The Take Away

As powerful communicators we need to learn to communicate by connecting with our audience, using basic presentation skills such as eye contact, speaking to the audience not to a screen, lead the presentation don’t be led by the presentation, use PowerPoint to reinforce your words not repeat them. Get some emotion through to be a powerful communicator! If you don’t know how, look at great actors like Alec Baldwin in Glen Gary Glen Ross (just watched it!), or a speech by JFK or Obama. Those guys know how to communicate with emotion!