The Top Performer's Guide to Speeches and Presentations: Mastering the Art of Engaging and Persuading Any Audience - Hardcover

Ursiny Ph.D., Tim; DeMoss, Gary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402207751 ISBN 13: 9781402207754

Publisher: Sourcebooks, 2007

Synopsis

Speeches and presentations are a facet of almost everyone's career, from professional speakers to executives to teachers. Top performers just like you struggle every day to not only get their message across, but convince the audience to change their actions according to that message.

The Top Performer's Guide to Speeches and Presentations is your essential handbook full of tips for crafting effective, engaging presentations that accomplish your goal, be it selling a product or service or teaching a new system. Discover:

• The four cornerstones of dynamic speaking and communication
• How to best use your eyes, voice, and body language
• Relating to your audience through story
• Tools for preparing a masterful Powerpoint presentation
• Developing your own signature style
• Tips and hints to ensure that your audience responds with action

About this title

About the Authors

Tim Ursiny, PhD, is a success coach and the author of The Confidence Plan (Sourcebooks, 2005) and The Coward’s Guide to Conflict (Sourcebooks, 2003). Gary DeMoss is the author of Making the Client Connection (Dearborn, 2004) and The Financial Professional’s Guide to Persuading 1 or 1,000.

Gary DeMoss is the director of Van Kampen Consulting, which provides communication and relationship-skills training to financial advisors. Gary has been with Van Kampen for twenty-four years. He began his career with the company by starting and directing their national sales. He was later named director of marketing and in 1998 started Van Kampen Consulting. Gary is a keynote speaker, seminar leader, and consultant to advisors who want to build their affluent client base, and he was recently selected as a platform speaker at the 2003 Million Dollar Round Table conference.

He is the coauthor of the book The Financial Professional’s Guide to Persuading 1 or 1,000, which helps advisors learn the science and art of delivering more powerful client presentations both one-on-one and in group settings.

Prior to joining Van Kampen, Gary was with Procter & Gamble in sales management. He has a BS in business from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Style and Structure

Have You Ever...?
Have you ever spent a lot of money on something that you ended up not using? Let me tell you about a gentleman I once knew who had extreme buyer's remorse. I was attending a major event for leaders across the country. At this particular event, each speaker paid $10,000 for the opportunity to stand up for five minutes in front of this elite group of professionals. This was their chance to speak to a group of influential buyers who they usually would have no chance to get in front of. So the cost was significant, the stakes were high, and the ability to present well was crucial.

Unfortunately, the first speaker got up and was obviously nervous. He was stumbling over his words and ended up thanking the audience for about one minute (20% of his allotted presentation time). At this point I was no longer looking at him―I was looking at the audience. Often when we study speakers, the best way to gauge their ability is looking at the audience because the people listening will tell you everything you need to know. As I watched I noticed that a third of the crowd was fiddling with their pens or looking around. The speaker then went on to give detailed information about his credentials and experience for about two minutes (40% of his presentation time). At this point about half of the audience was engrossed in some other activity, such as chatting with their neighbors. Three minutes into his five-minute presentation he finally started to talk a little about his product, but did so by dumping as much information as possible into that last two minutes. By the end of this presentation, no one cared about anything he had to say. Ten thousand dollars were down the drain because he did not know how to engage his audience.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1402207751
• ISBN 13: 9781402207754
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144