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

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

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.