Want someone’s attention? Then make your message attractive. This means talking about what matters to the other person.

Here are my five top tips on how to do this:

1. Describe what’s in it for them

Start by highlighting what benefit they’ll get from your message. For example,”If you’d like to beat stress at work, listen to this…”

2. Tell them how long you’ll be talking

This fixes their attention on you, rather than what they need to do or say next. For example, get a colleague’s attention by saying “I’d like five minutes to talk through the annual report” rather than “We need to talk about the annual report.”