When you are giving a speech you tend to think of what you want to say rather than what the audiance wants and needs to hear. When writing and giving a speech imagine you are sitting in the audiance. Answer the question the audiance is asking, "What is in this for me?" If you have read my book Easy Speaking or attended one of my presentation skills workshops you know the fundemental principal in speaking is the connect to the audiance.
Recently I was reading the monthly newsletter from sales trainer Chuck Reaves. He shared that that when president Obama gave his sales presentation to win the bid for the Olympic Bid he missed this fundamental principle of sales. Obama focused on him self as a speaker. In fact Chuck shared that, "Obama used the first person pronouns "I" and "me" 26 times in his presentation." In fact, at one point he said that the reason the IOC should send thousands of people to Chicago for the Summer Olympics was so that "my daughters and I could walk from our home in Chicago to the games".

Unfortunately, Mrs. Obama used more first person pronouns than the President (44 times in 41 sentences). This resulted in confirming an erroneous message: "I'm the reason you should buy". They should have thought of the audiance the IOC and considered what the vaule of the Chicago venue would be for them.

Chuck also shared the following sales presentation recomendations.

• Tried to sell as an individual. We've all been guilty of this one. Sales is a team effort. (See the section below on selling professional services.) Not only should we engage others in our organization to help us sell, our customers would appreciate knowing the depth of our organization. Having experts in our company engage experts in the client's organization helps to solidify our value to the customer.
• Did not sell to the "M" in WIIFM. "What's in it for me?" is a customer question, not a salesperson's question. Focus on answering the question from the prospect's point of view and "what's in it for you (the salesperson)" will take care of itself.
May be believing his own press. After a series of successful sales calls, we tend to let down our guard. We think we have it all figured out. We stop doing pre-call planning, we "wing it" in front of the customers and we fail to review and critique every call. Let's remember that we are never perfect at sales. Slumps happen.