The average attention span of an adult is eight seconds—eight seconds!

That is tough news for a presenter. It means you may have a room full of people, but their minds are elsewhere. You're competing with a slew of activities demanding their attention—email, texts, Facebook, YouTube, chats, and apps, in addition to thoughts about their next meeting and projects that are behind schedule.

How do you get a message across in a world like that?

The inability to powerfully inform and persuade amid an unprecedented number of distractions is one of the greatest hidden and pervasive costs of the twenty-first-century workplace. Learn to connect with your audience, and you'll stop having unproductive meetings and wasted time.

In Presentation Advantage, FranklinCovey outlines its "Connect Model," the mental model that allows you to connect with the message, yourself, and the audience during any presentation by:

Structuring relevant and purpose-driven messages
Understanding how our brains best synthesize and remember key information
Using visuals such as PowerPoint to inspire instead of torture your audience
Aligning your message, body language, and tone of voice for a powerful delivery

Whether to one person or one hundred, effective presenting is today's top business skill, and the experts at FranklinCovey help you master it. With the Presentation Advantage, you can deliver dynamic, compelling, and truly effective presentations every time.

Kory Kogon is the Global Practice Leader for Productivity, focusing her research and content development around time and project management, and communication skills.

Before joining FranklinCovey, Kory spent more than six years as the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations for AlphaGraphics, Inc. She was responsible for the teams helping franchisees start up their business, develop staff, and reach profitability in a highly competitive, commodity-driven industry. She also led the implementation of ISO 9000, supervised the move of the corporate headquarters from Tucson to Salt Lake City, and managed the installation of the first company-wide global learning system. In 2005, Utah Magazine honored Kory as one of the "Top 30 Business Women to Watch" in Utah.

Dr. Breck England is Senior Product Architect and Writer-in-Chief for FranklinCovey. As a senior consultant, Breck has 25 years of field experience in helping some of the world's prime corporations become more effective in leadership and communication. He has directed projects for some 200 organizations around the world, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bank of America, GE, AT&T, Groupe Bull, Hoffmann-La Roche, Chevron, and Lawrence-Livermore Laboratories.

Before joining FranklinCovey, Breck served as Vice President of Intellectual Property for FranklinQuest and Vice President of Consulting for Shipley Associates, an international communication training firm. Breck earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah and was adjunct professor of organizational leadership and strategy in the Marriott School of Brigham Young University for seven years.

Julie Schmidt is a Regional Practice Leader for FranklinCovey's Productivity Practice, partnering with the Northeast and Southeast U.S. and Canada regions. She is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity, Project Management Essentials for the Unofficial Project Manager, and Presentation Advantage.

Before joining FranklinCovey, Julie spent more than 12 years with Xerox Corporation in their Professional Services Division. There, she served in many roles, all with an emphasis on designing, selling and implementing key training and consulting programs for their Fortune 1000 clients.