1: How long do you have someone’s attention at the beginning of a meeting?
About 10 minutes. That’s it.
“You naturally have someone’s attention for about 10 minutes before that person loses focus on your message,” says John Medina, author of the brilliant book Brain Rules and the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research.
Yesterday, we looked at the concept of “the Hammock.” We have people’s attention at the beginning and at the end. In the middle? Not so much.
Understanding this is critical for people in sales. “You want to take advantage of those first 10 minutes on an in-person meeting to get your message across,” Erik and Tim note.
What about email? “Obviously,” they write, “the Hammock is in play here, as well. . .
“Most people skim through their emails, looking for any reason not to read them (or to put them in a folder marked later—and then never read them).”
This means your subject line must grab their attention.
Then, your first sentence has to be compelling enough to make your prospect want to read the rest.
Email browsers are set up like a windowpane. “They’ll see your subject line and probably the first sentence,” they predict.
So, ask yourself: “Does this material make them want to continue reading? Or does it make them want to put it in a folder to be ‘read’ later?”
What about Zoom presentations? Absolutely.
“In fact, ask yourself this simple question,” the authors suggest. “What were you doing the last time you were on the receiving end of a Web-based presentation? If you’re like most people, you were doing anything but paying attention to the message.”
The implications remain consistent across face-to-face meetings, emails, and virtual presentations.
“You need to start your Zoom meetings in a way that grabs people’s attention, and you need to end them in a way that keeps the emotional energy going,” Erik and Tim recommend.
With cold calls, you have dramatically less time. Not 10 minutes. 10 seconds.
“To make matters worse,” they note, “this 10-second clock starts over and over several times in the first couple of minutes of a phone call, with the prospect on the other end making a judgment call about whether or not to continue the call several times.”
The bottom line? “Every time you deliver your message,” the authors write, “no matter what the format (in person with PowerPoint, over the phone, over the Web, sitting across the table, in e-mail, and so on), you have to constantly fight the impact that the Hammock has on your prospect’s ability to give you his attention.”
2: So, how do you get out of the Hammock? How do you make sure that your message will be remembered?
You begin with an understanding of how our brains are wired.
“Many years ago, scientists believed that all parts of the brain participated in all of the brain’s functions,” Tim and Erik write. “That meant that if you had damage to 10 percent of your brain, you’d lose 10 percent of your memories, 10 percent of your ability to do math, 10 percent of your ability to read and write, and so on.”
Scientists now know that’s not how the brain actually works. Instead, the brain is divided into three separate parts that are nested within each other.
“The outer layer, which is called the neocortex, is the wrinkly part of the brain,” the authors note. “It sits on top, and humans have the largest neocortex in the animal kingdom. You can think of the neocortex as the brain’s computer, It loves to process data, and it will process and process all day long and be happy doing it.”
Underneath that is the limbic system, which sits inside the neocortex as a ball sits inside a glove.
“The limbic system,” they explain, “is where emotions reside—love, hate, and the varying shades of human feelings.”
And beneath the limbic system, “sort of like a stick that holds up a Popsicle, are the brain stem and other older brain structures,” the authors explain.
Some people refer to this part as “the reptile brain.” The authors, however, prefer the term “the Old Brain,” the term given to it by Robert Ornstein, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University.
3: What does the Old Brain care about? Survival.
And what does survival have to do with the Hammock?
“Your Old Brain acts as a filter. It decides what gets noticed—and gets your attention,” Erik and Tim note. “If you were to see your prospect’s Old Brain at the beginning of a meeting or a phone call, reading an e-mail, or while you were on the Web, you’d see it lit up like a Christmas tree.”
Why does this happen?
Because the Old Brain is constantly doing a “fight or flight” assessment.
It’s asking: “This information I’m getting right now, how must I react? Will it help me live longer? Will it kill me?”
What happens at the start of a PowerPoint presentation when the lights go down in the room?
Your prospect’s Old Brain says, “I’ve seen this before. This won’t help me live longer, and this won’t kill me. I can go to sleep for a while.”
It stays in this half awake/ half asleep state until it hears the magic words that come at the end of the presentation: “In conclusion . . .” “In summary . . .” “To wrap it up . . .”
How come? “Because they signal that this event is coming to an end, so the Old Brain needs to be prepared to assess the next thing that’s going to possibly affect its survival.”
As salespeople, that is the challenge we face every time we deliver a message. And how do we combat this reality?
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How am I using the first few minutes of my conversations—am I earning attention or losing it?
Action: Redesign the opening of your next meeting, email, or call to immediately answer one question: “Why should they care right now?”
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