Presentation Advantage: How to Inform and Persuade Any Audience

The average attention span of an adult is eight seconds—eight seconds!

That is tough news for a presenter. It means you may have a room full of people, but their minds are elsewhere. You’re competing with a slew of activities demanding their attention—email, texts, Facebook, YouTube, chats, and apps, in addition to thoughts about their next meeting and projects that are behind schedule.

How do you get a message across in a world like that?

The inability to powerfully inform and persuade amid an unprecedented number of distractions is one of the greatest hidden and pervasive costs of the twenty-first-century workplace. Learn to connect with your audience, and you’ll stop having unproductive meetings and wasted time.

In Presentation Advantage, FranklinCovey outlines its “Connect Model,” the mental model that allows you to connect with the message, yourself, and the audience during any presentation by:

• Structuring relevant and purpose-driven messages
• Understanding how our brains best synthesize and remember key information
• Using visuals such as PowerPoint to inspire instead of torture your audience
• Aligning your message, body language, and tone of voice for a powerful delivery

Whether to one person or one hundred, effective presenting is today’s top business skill, and the experts at FranklinCovey help you master it. With the Presentation Advantage, you can deliver dynamic, compelling, and truly effective presentations every time.

About the Authors

KORY KOGON is FranklinCovey's Global Practice Leader for Productivity, focusing her research and content development around time, project management, and communication skills. She has coauthored Presentation Advantage, Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, and The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity. Kory brings more than twenty-five years of expertise from frontline positions to being an executive team member. Prior to FranklinCovey, Kory spent six years as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations for AlphaGraphics, Inc. She was responsible for the teams and projects that helped franchisees start up their businesses, develop staff, and reach profitability. She led the implementation of ISO 9000 globally and managed the installation of the first company-wide global learning system. In 2005, Utah Magazine honored Kory as one of the "Top 30 Business Women to Watch" in Utah. In 2012, Kory earned a certificate in the Foundations of NeuroLeadership from the NeuroLeadership Institute, of which she is a member.

DR. BRECK ENGLAND is FranklinCovey's chief writer, having authored The 3rd Alternative with Stephen Covey and Bob Whitman, and Great Work, Great Career with Todd Davis and Jennifer Colosimo. In addition, Breck has taught literally thousands of business professionals how to present with excellence. Around the world, from Switzerland to Saudi Arabia, Breck has trained and coached everyone from bench scientists to road-warrior salespeople to engineers in the oil fields.

For seven years, Breck also coached hundreds of MBA students in presentation skills as adjunct professor of organizational leadership and strategy in the top-rated Marriott School of Brigham Young University.

JULIE SCHMIDT is a Regional Practice Leader for FranklinCovey's Productivity Practice. She is a subject matter expert on The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity, Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, and Presentation Advantage.

Before joining FranklinCovey, Julie spent more than twelve years with Xerox Corporation. There, she served in many roles, all with an emphasis on designing, selling, and implementing key training and consulting programs for their Fortune 1000 clients. Previous to Xerox, Julie was in the marketing industry, where she worked with organizations to develop sophisticated database marketing programs that dramatically increased their ROI.

Julie attended DePaul University and studied Industrial/Organizational Psychology.