In less than 60 minutes, how can an individual influence the behaviors and the results of more than 100 people?

The best way that I know of is through effective public speaking. Public speaking is where a person stands up and delivers a message to an audience. Effectiveness means continually achieving better results in your highest priority outcomes. Therefore, an effective presentation is one where the presenter provides a message that influences the audience members to achieve better results in their highest priority outcomes.

So then the question becomes, "How do you make an effective presentation?

In my opinion, it's not about style or content. It's about impact. Did the presenter impact the way the audience members think and act in ways that lead to better results in their highest priority outcomes?

Here are my three keys to effective public speaking:

Provide Relevant Value
Remember: value is anything that increases the chances that the other person will achieve what they want to achieve. Consequently, a presentation has to be relevant to the audience that shows up. You can't just use your favorite stories or methods or analogies. When you form the content and delivery of your message keep in mind what that particular audience is trying to achieve. Think of your speech from the outside-in, not the inside-out. In other words, decide what matters to your audience, not to you.

Make Your Message Practical
People are extremely busy. They don't have time to sift through your ideas and struggle to figure out how to use them. Provide audience members with practical suggestions on how to use your ideas. For example, here are two practical questions you can answer to make your presentations more effective: How can you provide more relevant value to your next audience? How can you make your message more practical for your next audience? By answering these two questions, I believe you will make a greater impact with your next presentation. Also, provide your audiences with a written recap of what you told them like I'm doing with this article.

Challenge The Audience
Finally, don't just leave your audience sitting there with more information. Give them a challenge that will provoke them to convert your ideas into specific actions. For example, I want you to imagine that you are in the old television series, Mission Impossible. Imagine someone has just hit the tape recorder and it says, "Your mission if you choose to accept it is to take every presentation and redo it so that it provides more relevant value in a more practical way than you have ever done before. If you choose to accept this mission, then in less than 60 minutes you will impact the way audience members think and act that leads to better results in their highest priority outcomes. This tape will self destruct in seven seconds."

As a professional speaker, Dan Coughlin speaks on RESULTS-FOCUSED LEADERSHIP, OUTCOME-BASED TEAMWORK, CUSTOMER-CENTERED MANAGEMENT, MASTERING THE THREE PHASES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING AND HOW TO BE AN INNOVATIVE EXECUTIVE.

You are welcome to reprint my articles, but please list me as the author." Then you can leave the paragraph below that just the way it is.

Several folks asked if they could copy my e-newsletter and my articles on my website into their company or association periodicals. The answer is, "Yes, you can use any of my newsletters or articles off my website and reprint them in your organization's newsletters or magazines, and they are free of charge. The only thing I ask is that you list me as the author and include this tagline, "Dan Coughlin can be reached at (636)825-6611 or dan@thecoughlincompany.com. Also, Dan has more than 100 free articles on business acceleration at www.businessacceleration.com."

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