You’ve probably heard that time-honored advice when giving a speech. Tell ’em what you’re going to tell them, tell ’em, tell ’em what you told them. On today’s show, what that’s lousy advice and how you can do better.

Here's some advice that many of us have heard when we starting giving presentations or speeches for the first time:

“Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell ’em, tell ’em what you told ’em.”

Four great and interesting speeches, with varying levels of importance:

Honoring the dead - The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
Civil rights - I Have A Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A successful product launch - The iPhone Announcement by Steve Jobs
Human personality - The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

Three commonalities that these four very different "pitches" share. They all:

Tell a story of the problem
Articulate a vision
Inspire action

Resources you may wish to investigate:

The Quick and Easy Way To Effective Speaking* by Dale Carnegie
Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences* by Nancy Duarte
SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham [affiliate]

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I respond to a question from Duke about how to set expectations with a larger team.

Thank you to Brett Hennie, Bob King, Mohana H, Cliff Lynch, Huzefa Jamali, Tom O’Toole, Daniel Smith, Ales Lizr, Ben Hammond, Rob Flaherty, Les Karpluk, Jodi Rifkin, Julie Weinberg, Pablo Espinar, and Jose Marchand who’ve subscribed to my weekly update this past week.

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What have you seen a presenter do that motivated you to take action?