Are You Easy to Ignore?

PITY THE POOR FLIGHT ATTENDANTS . . . They’re required by law to give a speech that almost everyone on a flight ignores. They pass along information that could be critically important, but most travelers are anesthetized to it, right?
        Hey, that was me the other day (ignoring the speech) — until I flashed on how similar are the audiences for a flight safety speech and for 95% of the sales presentations out there. Sales presentations are SO EASY to ignore, because they are so rarely relevant to the audience, or they’re so formulaic, or they’re presented with such a forced delivery.
        The parallels are tight. On a flight, most people probably feel that they’ll figure out what to do if and when an emergency ever arises. In most sales presentations, audiences divert their attention to something other than the presenter, figuring if something really significant arises, it will either bop them on the head, or else they (the audience) will skim the handouts later, if they really need to consider this particular vendor.
        You know what would improve both flight safety speeches and sales presentations? Have a conversation.
        Just imagine if flight attendants started quizzing people about how to exit the plane? Or where the flotation cushions are? What if they gave prizes for the most right answers? Or sent people to the back rows if they screwed up the test? That would get travelers’ attention!
        Same goes for sales presentations (except the part about sending the audience to the back row).