1. Content: You can’t substitute “Style” for substance. Every great communicator has had something of value to say. They champion a cause.
2. Passion: People matter. To Great communicators, people matter greatly. It’s easy to love to speak to people but do you love the people you speak to?
3. Credibility: Truly great communicators are so because they “practice what they preach.” The scriptures are true, “your sin will find you out.” Once credibility is gone almost all influence is gone with it.
4. Preparedness: Great communicators can but rarely, if ever “wing it.” Consistent study makes for ever-ready preparedness.
5. Notes: Great communicators speak from the heart not a note book. Breaking from predetermined notes with conviction, compelling the audience to join in, is a hallmark of a great communicator.
6. Short: Great communicators are able to take complex information and condense it to a riveting thirty minute message. Most long winded messages are an attempt to inform not connect.
7. Convicting: Great communicators give more than a simple message but an impassioned invitation to do.
8. Self-revealing: Great communicators are real with their listeners. They avoid ego filled, self-absorbed statements and share real life struggles, only after they have conquered the issue. Great communicators are not looking for sympathy or acceptance but rather hope that their struggles may benefit others.
9. Confidence: Confidence is not the absence of fear but moving forward in-spite of it.
10. Tone: Great communicators know their audience is listening to every breath. They make every syllable count.
11. Story-telling: All of history’s great communicators can tell amazing stories. Fact or fiction has little to do with this ability.
12. Props: Most great communicators use props. While in the moment a microphone stand can represent anything from a fireman’s pole to a golf club. This type of creativity seems to be very spontaneous.
13. Humor: All great communicators have a well developed sense of humor, and it shows. Great communicators build on moments of hilarity not lose their audience.
14. Pause: Great communicators pause in order for their audience to digest the given information.
15. Eye Contact: Great communicators make eye contact. Each person in the audience feels that the speaker is looking right at them.
16. Intensity: Great communicators deliver a message with intensity. Volume and speed have little to do with intensity. When the heart is convicted intensity is the aftermath.
17. Movement: Great communicators know 55% of what they say is interpreted through body movement. Great communicators speak more with their body than their words.
18. Decision: A great communicator will demand a response from the hearer. Under their influence people are compelled to change. A call is made for a specific and personal decision.
