Ravi: “What’s wrong with the way I’m presenting this? It’s really important and they are not buying in. At this point they hate me and they don’t even want to hear from me anymore.”
Me: “You’re talking too much.”
Ravi was following conventional presentation logic. That’s why he was losing. He’s not alone.
Most people don’t know how to create instant acceptance. It’s rare to see someone who does. When the stakes are high, most think they’re being “logical” when they’re actually relying on a kind of logic that generates too many words. They talk a lot, present too much detail and explanation, believing it’s essential to creating understanding and agreement. Audiences don’t work like that.
Especially at the executive and senior levels. They have their own logic.
To be successful you have to master a different logic. Audience Logic. Audience Logic decides the outcome.
Here are the rules of Audience Logic (especially senior level audiences):
Rule #1: Your Key Message has to do the work.
It’s a skill to extract and polish an overarching Key Message that creates audience alignment. Most people think, when they want buy-in, that their overarching key message is some version of “You need to do this”.
That’s not compelling. That is not a Key Message. That’s the outcome you want, but that does not make it a Key Message. A Key Message needs to be compelling to the audience.
Rule #2: Your Key Message has to meet 4 strict criteria:
It has to be concise
Easily understood
Easily remembered
And it has to create immediate acceptance and agreement.
If it doesn’t do all four, it’s NOT a Key Message.
Your Key Message has to strike the audience’s “Go Button “. You get one shot at that. And it has to be in your opening sentence. When you master this ability, you have them immediately.
Rule #3: Once you have Your Key Message, your presentation needs to stick to 3–5 compelling Sub-Key Messages that strongly support your overall Key Message. The same criteria applies to each one of these. Not 13, not 15 messages. If you add more than 3-5, you dilute the effect you’re trying to create, and you drive audience interest away.
Rule #4: Each slide should convey one Key Message that directly supports your main Key Message or one of your sub-Key Messages.
Rule #5: The audience needs to get the Key Message of each slide visually in 3 seconds or less. If they have to stare at it longer than that to figure out what’s on it, or if you need to explain it, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. The kiss of death is hearing yourself say, “I know it’s a busy slide, but let me explain it.”
Rule #6: Each sentence you say has to land with impact. Make a strong point that resonates - and stop.
No unnecessary embellishment or detail. Pure, clean signal. No distraction. No noise.
This is the reason so many senior execs send their people to us for training and coaching.
All presenters talk too much. Especially when it’s important. Especially when they need buy-in. It drives executives crazy.
Most people don’t know how to make each sentence impactful on its own. And they don’t know when to stop. They use a lot of words to make a point. Then they make the point again. And then they make it another way. The audience politely tries to hide its irritation. Sometimes not politely.
Even smart people (especially smart people who know a lot) don’t realize that they are diluting their message. They are hungry for acknowledgment from the audience - which always comes late - and so they keep talking.
They don’t realize that putting excess detail into their presentation creates a jam the audience can’t get through. And they’re so tied to their material, what the audience considers “excess”, they often consider “essential”.
Even experienced presenters don’t know how to make a strong point, recognize that it landed, and pause to give the audience a moment to process it and catch up. When you master this skill, along with the earlier rules, it’s very powerful.
Rule #7: Weave the right examples into your presentation. Punchy, powerful real-life examples that will resonate (and even rock) the audience. Your examples shouldn’t be too long, not too short. They must be precise and supremely impactful. When you master this ability, you are known as a great storyteller.
Rule #8: Engage the audience emotionally. If the audience does not participate emotionally, you haven’t been successful in reaching them. Great presenters always experience great warmth from the audience, and often tremendous admiration.
Rule #9: Your recommendations need to meet very strict criteria if you want them to be approved or acted on:
Your recommendation needs to be tied directly to a business outcome the audience cares about. They do care about people, it’s not always just the money, but it has to be tied to something the audience cares about.
Your recommendation needs to be actionable. This is less common than you think. Many recommendations use vague or imprecise language like “Alignment” or “Asking for your support”.
It needs to be the next step the audience will enthusiastically agree to do right away. Asking for the whole thing at once often blows the deal. Getting the next step done to a win puts you in a position to then ask for the step after that, which puts you in a position where you can keep going and get to your eventual outcome. I’ve seen too many great ideas shot down with, “We’ll think about it”, “We need more data” and “Not this quarter”.
Rule #10: Create a great opening sentence. Your first sentence creates an immediate mindset. As I mentioned earlier, your Key Message has to strike the audience’s “Go Button “. You get one shot at that. And it has to be in your opening sentence. When you master this ability, you have them immediately.
I’ve coached many executives and professionals to master these rules. I am ruthless in my coaching. I show no mercy. I think like an audience. The typical audience will show no mercy, not really. They may be polite, but they are all unmerciful.
Ravi had a truly compelling case. Unbelievable actually. He wanted senior leadership to invest $7 million over the next two years for a provable return of $800 million in the first year. Ravi had been talking for two months and could not get it approved.
Ravi wasn’t wrong. The outcome he wanted was extraordinary. Ravi didn’t need better data. He didn’t need more slides.
What was wrong was the logic he was using to present it. Once he understood Audience Logic, everything changed. His presentation became clean. The recommendation became obvious. The decision happened quickly.
That’s the difference between talking at an audience and working with the actual logic they operate with.
Good people lose all the time, not because their ideas aren’t good enough, but because how they’re communicating gets in the way. Not because the audience is unreasonable, but because no one ever taught them how audiences actually decide.
Audience Logic doesn’t make you persuasive. It clears the way for the truth to be heard.
Master Audience Logic, and your best ideas get the hearing they deserve. Winning becomes your natural outcome.
Be the cause!