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What makes the difference between an average presentation and one that rocks your world?  What makes the difference between a memorable speech and one that fades into oblivion as soon as the presenter steps off the stage?  The answer sits in four building blocks that are essential for crafting a speech into a work of art rather than hum-drum blather.

Every word we utter, every gesture we make take its nuance and meaning from the context of the moment.  Consider context to be the background or the stage setting for what is being spoken.  Small wonder that Congress recoiled with the Big Three Automakers arrived in individual corporate jets to ask for money.  The context made their mode of travel ludicrous.

If  Astronaut Neil Armstrong had said, "One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind"  while standing on the 16th hole of Pebble Beach with a #3 wood in his hand, that statement would have been destined for locker room chatter rather than heard as a defining moment in placing the U.S. on the moon.  Context is everything.

While this is a rather silly scenario, every speaker faces an audience with a background that brings them together.  To connect with an audience,  a speaker must state the context for the gathering, the context for the message.  If President Obama had failed to summarize the concern, anger, and frustration of the average American as a preamble to his major addresses given during the long election process, he might very well have never been chosen to lead this nation.   When a speaker sets the stage by providing a context for his words, the audience settles in to listen, believing "Ah. He understands what I am going through."

Often, the speaker can put into words what the audience has been experiencing yet is unable-for political or personal reasons-to express. In one keynote address, I summarized the anxiety and uncertainty the group faced with an unprecedented spinoff.  Being able to put a humorous twist by way of an analogy also got the group laughing and nodding.   Now, we can get down to business!

Statistics, flow charts, and diagrams belong in handouts. What brings data to life is the emotion behind the information.  If  Martin Luther King had given his "I have a dream speech" but recited all the facts and figures behind segregation, the audience would have gone to sleep. Instead, he painted a picture and portrayed his own emotion about seeing races sitting beside each other.  You saw and felt his intensity.

If you think this only belongs in political or religious arenas, think again.  Rita Davenport, president of one of the most profitable direct sales organizations in the world, Arbonne,  never addresses her audience in terms of dollars and cents.  She talks about individuals and what happened in their lives as a result of having their own business. I've watched this petite and very funny woman bring crowds to their feet because she captured the emotion of success-not the facts.