President Reagan was a master communicator. In this particular speech he did a brilliant job moving between the stately role of U.S. President and a national eulogist. The pain of the event was etched on his face. In 4 short minutes, he addressed five different audiences. He spoke to the collective mourners, families of the fallen, NASA employees, school children, and even took a poke at Russia. He communicated comfort and patriotism within a very short timeframe. That's not easy to do.

In myths and movies, the mentor can play a few roles: they bring the hero a magical gift, teach them how to use a special tool, or help the hero get unstuck. In a presentation setting, the presenter is the mentor. Our role as a presenter is similar to a mentor. We should be brining something of important value to our audience, they should not leave empty handed. There should be something useful and somewhat life-altering that we give them. It's not very often that we sit through a presentation and feel like we've sat at the feet of a mentor, but we should.

Structure is what makes communication hang together. It's like the rails that a train runs on. Without them, things wouldn't move very far. If you only have time to do one thing in your presentation, make sure it has a clear and identifiable structure. Without this, you'll have no credibility. Once you've organized your ideas, if you step back and look at it, many times we've organized topics. We've strung together a structure with organized topics. At this point, change your topics into messages.

When someone says "that resonates with me" what they are saying is "I agree with you" or "I align with you." Once your ideas resonate with an audience, they will change. But, the only way to have true resonance is to understand the ones with whom you are trying to resonate. You need to spend time thinking about your audience. What unites them, what incites them? Think about your audience and what's on their mind before you begin building your presentation. It will help you identify beliefs and behavior in your audience that you can connect with. Resonate with.

When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change.

President Reagan was a master communicator. In this particular speech he did a brilliant job moving between the stately role of U.S. President and a national eulogist. The pain of the event was etched on his face. In 4 short minutes, he addressed five different audiences. He spoke to the collective mourners, families of the fallen, NASA employees, school children, and even took a poke at Russia. He communicated comfort and patriotism within a very short timeframe. That's not easy to do.

The only way to resonate at a level that persuades is to know who you are addressing. If it's true that the Audience is the hero, you need to spend time thinking about them. Really getting to know them to the point it feels like they are a friend. May times we picture our audience as a large clump of strangers. Instead, you need to picture them as individuals standing in line to have a personal conversation with you. It's easy to persuade a friend, you need to think about your audience until you know them as a friend.