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In business or personal relationships, short is sweet. Be succinct, concise and to-thepoint. If you have any story to tell, any new initiative to pitch, frame your text around the following questions: “Who?” “What?” “When?” “Where?” and “Why?” If this excludes something you still want to tell, keep it in hand to bring out when your initial pitch has aroused such interest and enthusiasm that your audience is clamouring to know more. Then, you can expand further, give more detailed examples, or whatever.
Remember, your audience has a short attention span.Don’t bog them down with long drawn out overly-ambitious sentences. Instead, inspire people with your vision and concision of thought. Free your audience with your brevity and get to the point!
Can rhetorical questions work? Do they appeal to people? Might they be your way of creating additional interest?Yes, yes and……yes! Of course, one does not live one’s everyday life asking rhetorical questions (certainly not out loud!): “Would I like a Martini? Yes.”“Am I happy to pay these prices? No.”
But, used sparingly, within important pitches, meetings and presentations, they
are an excellent way of reinvigorating your audience and ensuring that people around you believe that you are interesting.
Facts and statistics can become tiresome and dull, but a direct question needs answering, a story needs ending,we need closure.A rhetorical question is the opening that facilitates this closure:
“So, exactly how many people would die in a Luxembourg-based tsunami?”
“What was the single biggest cause of food poisoning last year”
“Which is the best way to make someone fall in love with you?”
”Shriek!”
I need to know! I would listen to anyone that makes me think of questions like that! Rhetorical questions can be a fantastic tool to show that you have really focused on the key issues at hand.
Rhetorical questions are like joker cards – you can’t use them all the time. So, save them up and deploy when necessary.
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