Whether you own a business or work in one or whether you are a corporate executive, manager or aspire to become one, you have to be able to deliver powerful, compelling presentations. Some people view the ability to stand in front of an audience and captivate them as "fluff" – form rather than substance. Don't kid yourself. People subconsciously draw conclusions about you based on your deftness at the podium.

Here are my 10 steps you MUST take to deliver a killer presentation:

• Read the book, The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto. It'll help you better employ logic in crafting your presentations – especially those that require you, the presenter, to get someone else to make a decision or take action. Most people wing it. Don't! Great segue to the next point:
  
  
• Be mindful of this: All business is show business and all presentations are sales presentations.
  
  
• Always remember that people buy benefits, not features (It's about their problem, not your solution). Identify their problem and the "pain" they're in. Then show how you will eliminate it. More in the next point:
  
  
• Remember – craft your presentation in the following order:
  • WHY – If your audience can't determine why they should care about what you're saying, and do that within a minute or two, you've lost them. Define their problem and pain and do it first.
    
  • WHAT are you going to do to solve their problem?
    
  • HOW are you going to solve it?
    
  • WHAT IF they decide to say "yes"? Describe how their situation will be better; make them really feel it!
    
    
• Start with the end in mind. Define the objective and work backwards.
  
  
• Become a good storyteller. Paint word pictures.
  
  
• For you PowerPoint fanatics – When possible, invoke the 10/20/30 rule. 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30-point typeface. (Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for this.)
  
  
• Use enough logic for the listener to justify an emotional decision.
  
  
• Of Cicero, people said, "What a great orator." Of Demosthenes, they said, "Let us march!" Work on the craft of public speaking until you are at least comparable to Cicero but aspire to be Demosthenes.
  
  

If you've paid attention, you know that I only provided nine steps. The tenth one is yours. You must be authentic in engaging your audience, whether it's one person or one thousand. I'd love to hear your personal tenth step. Send me an e-mail!

 The Real Deal:

Are You One of the More Fortunate or the Less Fortunate?

I cringe when I hear government officials or candidates running for office refer to people who are financially successful as "fortunate." One of Webster’s definitions of that word is "someone who attains prosperity at least partially through luck." Presumably then, anyone who has not attained prosperity can legitimately attribute his misfortune to bad luck.

Eight years ago, one of our presidential aspirants said the following in a speech on income taxes, "Those who have been lucky at the gaming table of life should be forced to share their winnings with those who have been less fortunate."

According to this guy, Dick Gephardt, life is a roulette wheel and prosperity is achieved through chance. What a Crock!!!!

Implicit in that message is the proposition that if you have been successful, you should feel lucky, undeserving or guilty. Conversely, if you have not achieved success or prosperity, it's not your fault; you have no complicity. Those who have achieved financial success ordained your fate. They achieved success at your expense. Crock Times Two!!!!

Politicians frequently invoke the virtues of using the tax code to reward "working people." I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're on my mailing list, they don't regard you as one of the "working people." Apparently, you achieved success with smoke and mirrors.

I know a guy who has earned, in his life, about what I have earned. He has nothing to show for it; spent it all. Under the current law, this guy will be taxed in retirement at a rate much lower than I will, because his money (or lack thereof) will be earning much less money. He believes that's fair; I believe something else. I believe he should move to Cuba.

Of course, there are people with difficult circumstances. Of course there are people who need help. So don't write calling me cold-hearted.

Here's my point: It's time for political correctness to take a back seat to the truth. Many people who have not achieved what you have achieved have failed by choice. Their unconscious choice may have been inertia, but it was still a choice. Inaction, staying stuck, blaming others – those are choices. As a successful business leader, you have also made a choice. Yours was a choice to be engaged in creating your life. You achieved prosperity by choice. Hard work, risk-taking and initiative are attributes to admire and cultivate. Excuse making, victimization, irresponsibility, a lack of ambition and blame are not.

Business philosopher Jim Rohn once speculated that, "If you took all of the money in this country away from everyone today and distributed it equally among the entire population of adults, within five years it would be distributed in the same proportions that it was before you took it." Something to think about.

Own your life. 100%. No excuses … no blame … no victimhood!

See you in November. Until then, Get Real, Get Tough, Get Going!