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How I came to Write The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations
by Larry Tracy
To explain how Shortcut came to be written, I must explain how I migrated from Army colonel to presentation skills trainer. My biography outlines how I did more talking than shooting in my Army career, especially in front of senior executives and hostile audiences, and I need not repeat it here. I first got the idea of translating my real-world experience in speaking to a civilian career a few years before I retired from the Army.
I attended a one-day seminar on persuasive speaking given by a well-known training company. I found I was perhaps the only person in the room who had paid out of my pocket, as all th others (almost 100 people) had their tution paid for by their employers. I found the instruction rather simplistic, and was surprised that my fellow attendees were so impressed by the content and the instructor whom I found steeped in theory withlittle practical experience.
After I retired from the Army. I decided I could pass on the real world experience I had gaind in the field of public speaking. I found many of the books on th subject be filled with theory and page filling anecdotes, and the workshops not much better. I believed busy people did not need the "glitz" ofthe professional speaker, but instead a "shortcut" method to deliver effective, bottom-line presentations.
So I started doing workshops for governemnt agencies (I live inthe Washongton, D.C. area) and corporations. As I had suspected, there was a great need for such training, because of an interesting paradox: Public speaking, in survey after survey is listed as one of the leading phobias in the United States, yet other surveys show the ability to speak coherently and persuasively to be one of the leading indicators of success in businees and life. I wanted to adress both elements in my workshops. Unlike many speech coaches, I do not believe people shoud seek to elimiate the fear, but instead it to convert apprehension to enthusiasm.
My wife realized I was happier in font of an audience than sitting at a computer, but she constntly urged me to put what I was teaching in a book. Eventually, I succumbed, and the result is The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations.I started the writing process by following the outline of my workshops, and I have calld the book a "Workshop in a book."
That, of course, is not completely accurate, because the workshops have an intensive "hands-on" element in videotaped practice presentations. But there is indeed a strong conguity between what I teach and what is in the book. Consequently, all attendees at my workshops recive a copy of Shortcut as a "take-away" which can reinforce what they learned and put into proactice in the workshop.
As in these workshops, the heart of the book is my S3P3 System-a Pyramod of Planning, Practicing and Presenting supported by the pillars of Substance (content), Structure and Style. Within this System is found the "Backward drafting" 3-1-2 method, and the practice simulation I bring with me from the military-The "Murder Board." It's not a macabre as it sounds-it a simuated practice in which colleaueges role play the audience, enabling the speaker to anticipate question and objections (which, incidentally, removes much of the fear of speaking). The Murder Board is to speakers what the flight simulator is to pilots.
So that's how The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations came to be written. I hope you'll internaize the lessons of the "workshop in a book," and shorten your learning curve to become a more persuasive speaker.
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To purchase a copy of “The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations” 
