What benefit do you provide the audience?

People should listen to you because you have an important message that will help them to improve their business or personal lives. They are there for no other reason. Yes, they will attend out of sheer interest, but these people will also have either business or personal reasons for being there. You are there to give advice that can be easily followed. Your advice will be taken as a proven statement even if you have never experienced the advice you give. How can this be possible? For example, a university professor, will explain in detail business processes that are deemed to be the latest methods. Armed with these, the student feels assured of success. And yet, in reality, the professor has never tried these methods, but people heed them because they are given by a recognized expert.

You will be listened to because you are offering solutions to problems that may exist in the marketplace. You will need to make sure that your topic is relevant in today's business environment and know that an audience will actually be in attendance. Once you have determined the market, then the actual presentation will be saleable and you will have the ear of every attendee. You must remember that they will listen and that you must convey a message that will solve a problem and also give an easy to implement solution. Do not tell lies or your speaking engagements will end abruptly.

Do not just think that a topic is salient, do your research to make sure it is. For example, I put on a free breakfast seminar in the San Francisco area a few months ago. I picked a topic that would be relevant to a society that was facing a downturn. The topic was the Seven Deadly Sins of Selling and the presenter was Ian Selbie. I offered the topic to everyone I knew (which was only a few hundred) and I got a registration response of 117 attendees. It was an overwhelming success. The topic was also of great value to the participants.