Speaking Strategies: Delivering Benefits

00:00 What benefits can you deliver to your audience now? Those of you who've ever heard a marketing or sales expert you've heard, you've probably gotten tired of them, frankly, of saying benefits, benefits, benefits.

00:11 You've got to stress benefits, not features, not facts of a product or service you're selling. You know, it really applies to any speech or presentation because any presentation you're giving, you're trying to sell something.

00:25 I don't mean getting somebody's credit card out of their wallet to buy a sweater or a pair of pants right now.

00:31 But if you are a safety expert, and you're trying to sell the idea that all the people at your factory need to wear hard hats, you're trying to sell that idea. So the benefit has got to be you don't get a brain injury. You don't end up paralyzed if you wear that hard hat.

00:49 So you've got to really communicate benefits.

00:53 That's what connects it and makes it real to human beings.

00:56 I've never heard any audience member walk out of a presentation saying I hated the way that speaker drove home.

01:04 All the different ways their ideas are going to benefit me.

01:07 I've never heard that once, but quite often I hear people say, I don't know what that person was talking about or Boy, what a boring data dump that was.

01:18 The facts do not speak for themselves.

01:21 Yes, people could and should put two and two together and figure out how it benefits them. But why take that chance? Spell out your case, make your case, state your facts, but always tie it back to how what you're doing, what you're talking about benefits. The Audience Member If you don't do that, chances are your message will fall flat.