One of the easiest ways to be a better presenter is by organizing your content clearly and logically. It sounds so simple, yet many presenters don’t organize their material; instead, they just throw everything at the audience, all jumbled together with no clear indication of how things relate to each other or to the overall message. Then the audience is stuck with the messy task of figuring it out.
As a presenter, your goal should be to make it easy for the audience to understand your content. Here are four ways for you to create a presentation that is clear and organized:
HAVE AN OVERALL MESSAGE
The message is the one thing that you want the audience to remember from your presentation. It’s the point or the takeaway. Every statistic, story and slide that you use should relate to and support your message. If it doesn’t, cut it out. Sure, you can have extra material in your notes or in handouts, but don’t clutter your presentation with it; extraneous material distracts from your message. And if you’re not clear what your message is, you’re not ready to present
USE AN INTRODUCTION, BODY AND CONCLUSION
You may remember this outline form from writing essays in English class. It’s an easy and effective way to ensure that your presentation has a beginning, middle and end. This outline is also known as “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them.” In the introduction, capture the audience’s attention, introduce your overall message and remind them how long you’re going to speak. In the body or main part of your presentation, include your supporting points – examples, data, etc. In the conclusion, summarize your points, give one final reminder of your message and explain any expected follow-up actions from you or the audience.
HAVE AN OVERALL ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE
The overall organizing principle is the link which ties all your points together. For example, you might present a specific number of points: three goals the team has achieved, four major project risks or three reasons you outperform your competitors. Or, you could present a timeline of events, debunk myths about your topic or present a series of dos and don’ts. It helps you focus and sets the audience’s expectations for what comes next. And sometimes, you can even include the organizing principle in the title of your presentation. For example, the title of my upcoming presentation at the National Speakers Association annual convention is “Improv Comedy Rules! Applying the Five Rules of Improv Comedy to Make Your Presentations More Powerful and Engaging.”
BE THE GPS AND ROADSIGNS
When you’re driving someplace unfamiliar, how do you know how far you’ve come or if you’re going in the right direction? The road signs and your GPS (Global Positioning System) tell you how far you’ve traveled and how many more miles or kilometers you have to go before you reach the end of your journey.
When you’re presenting, you have to be the GPS and the road signs for your audience, especially at the intersections and transitions between points where they can get lost. One sentence is all it takes to get the audience safely from one point or section of your presentation to the next. For example, you might say, “The fourth and final major project risk is…” or “Now that I’ve summarized the history of the company from our founding to the initial public offering in 2003, let’s look at what has happened since 2003.”
Following these four tips will help you create a presentation that is clear and organized. Your audience will be grateful for the clarity – and a grateful audience is more likely to understand and remember your message. If you do nothing differently other than organize your presentation, you will still be a better presenter!
When you are making a speech or presentation, you need to be aware that your gestures can support or detract from your message.
Learn to become aware of what your hands are doing while you speak.
If necessary, make yourself hold them still.
Many people have habits that are terribly distracting and yet they aren’t aware of what they are doing. They click or twiddle a pen, play with their hair or their clothes, hold a microphone with fingers unconsciously making a rude gesture, take glasses on and off, put hands in pockets and take them out.
All of these things are not necessarily detrimental in themselves, if the audience is absolutely focused on the speaker and the message. But if there is any reason for the audience’s attention to stray (and we all have short attention spans) then they will become fascinated, at best, and possibly annoyed at whatever it is that the speaker is doing with their hands.
Think of your Speech Title as if it were the Title of a Book Display on a shelf at Barnes & Noble.
When someone is eyeing the selections on the shelf where they have an interest, yours should jump out at them!
The Title should jump out so much that the person actually takes the book from the shelf, reads the back cover, and opens it to read the front and back flaps.
After “investigating” the book (i.e., your speech) because the title grabbed their attention, they “buy” it; that is, they come to see you speak because they want to learn more!
Unless you’ve given this lots and lots of thought, pencil the title to your speech in. Remember, this must be something that will make people want to come and see you speak.
The Title of your Speech is your: newspaper headline, title on the spine of your book, and the verbiage in the ‘Subject Line’ of your most important email, all rolled up in one.
Just like the title of a new movie might get you to go online and look at the trailers, your speech title needs more consideration than many people think.
Editors know if the Headline of a newspaper article doesn’t get your attention, you probably won’t read the article. Likewise, the Subject Line of an email that doesn’t immediately grab the recipient’s attention, might be deleted without opening it.
Until someone quotes you on national television or radio program, a great title that draws people to your presentation wanting to know more, is your best chance at filling the auditorium.
Realistically, you may have been assigned, or asked to do this talk by your boss or other official. Still, give it the thought it deserves. It may be after completing the development of your speech that the ‘Ah Hah!’ title will come to you.
You want the title to whet the appetite of the person who sees it. Whet it enough for them to want to know more, to see if it’s something they could benefit from.
You may even find it’s easiest to write your speech first, and then come up with a title. Have several titles in mind and bounce them off friends and family before deciding on one
The same holds true for a subtitle. It explains more about the contents and goals of the speech, and is an integral and important part of the title.
The Title is an integral part of your Speech. Give it the same thorough thought and attention all the other parts and elements of your speech are getting. Then the Title will fill the seats in the audience!
Fred E. Miller is a speaker, coach and author. His book, to be released later this year, is: “NO Sweat Public Speaking!” How to Develop, Practice, and Deliver a ‘Knock Your Socks Of!’ Speech with NO Sweat!
And the first part of any speech or presentation is to gain that attention – arouse it, focus it and keep it.
Don’t waste your breath on the expected or the blah.
If you must begin with something like “Good evening”, then make it different, or unusual. Here in Australia, we might say “G’day!” That would be unexpected.
Otherwise use your voice and body language to make the greeting unusual, challenging, noticeable.
Use pause here.
Then use an opening that grabs the attention.
You can use a question, a joke, a comment about the people or surroundings or event.
You can make a statement, use a quotation, or simply use body language or gesture. But choose that opening to grab attention, to align with the audience and their needs, hopes and aspirations, and to lead into your message.
Olivia Mitchell has written a great post on “How to craft a memorable key message in 10 minutes”. Her post is an excellent model of how this works. It gives us 9 ways that the key message can be created – all incredibly relevant and useful. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded, like this, to stay focussed.
Nick Morgan looks at three US Presidents’ speeches in times of great tragedy. He defines what is needed at these moments and analyses the speeches in terms of those needs. The latest instance, of course, is Obama’s response to the Fort Hood events. There is much for us all to learn, though we may not be political leaders, in Nick’s analysis.
Every so often we are called upon to make a difficult speech…you know the kind I mean. It might be a speech informing your employees that budgets are being cut by 25% and layoffs are required; it might be one where you communicate that the incentive trip everyone worked so hard for is canceled; it might be announcing to your faithful supporters than you are withdrawing from the campaign.
How do you deliver these kinds of messages with grace, poise and confidence?
by Peter Jeff
End your speech with an attitude, not a platitude.
Instead of firing off a perfunctory “thank you,” consider launching fireworks of final passionate thoughts from the podium.
Want to look confident? Want to hold your audience’s attention? Want to make your point stick? You can do all the tricks and tropes out there, but these six phrases, in my experience, almost always grip the listener, make the speaker look strong, save her from a world of trouble, and invite real connection with your audience. Keep these in your back pocket for a stronger speech:
[ By Stephanie Leibowitz]
When we travel to another country and do not know the local language or have only rudimentary foreign language skills, we expect that some of what we say may not be understood by the other party (the native speaker). We are prepared for potential misunderstandings and may even see these exchanges as a source of humorous anecdotes with which to amuse our friends, families, and colleagues upon our return to familiar ground (literally and figuratively).
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
• Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
• Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
• Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
• Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
• Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.
When we travel to another country and do not know the local language or have only rudimentary foreign language skills, we expect that some of what we say may not be understood by the other party (the native speaker). We are prepared for potential misunderstandings and may even see these exchanges as a source of humorous anecdotes with which to amuse our friends, families, and colleagues upon our return to familiar ground (literally and figuratively).
However, it’s no laughing matter if your prospects/clients, colleagues and employees, strategic partners, or other important stakeholders and constituencies don’t fully understand or misunderstand what you want and need them to know. This is particularly critical in today’s multicultural work environments and global marketplace. A dictionary will give a word’s definition (and a Thesaurus will give you synonyms), but your ability to communicate successfully also depends on the nuances to word usage that can mean the difference between getting your point understood and creating a communication blunder with tangible negative consequences. We sometimes mistakenly assume that two parties who ‘speak the same language’ – that is both parties are native speakers of the same language, such as English – receive the same message when they hear/read the same word(s). Experience shows that if you ask your management team, staff, and clients to define familiar terms such as leadership, value, planning, strategic, communication, and performance, you will get responses that vary greatly, not in the literal sense, but in the interpretive sense. Context and perspective act as translation filters and these filters determine whether our intention has been communicated in addition to any facts.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your intended messages are received:
• Understand your audience’s perspective on the topic. This helps you identify what part of what you want to communicate will be perceived as most important / of interest, the level of detail you will be expected to provide, and what you want the recipient to do with the information (read and file for future reference vs. take specific action).
• Understand the cultures of your external audience’s organizations. This gives you clues about preferred communication styles as well as how they speak about their organizations. You want to mirror that.
• Know your audience’s preferred vehicle for receiving communication as well as what you have determined to be the most effective one (defined as more people understand your message, less or no need for repeat communication and clarifications).
• Clearly communicate what you mean when you use a specific term or phrase. For example, when you tell others that the goal is “effective communication” or “sound financial performance”, it is up to you to define what behaviors demonstrate this, quantitative and/or qualitative examples of what these look and sound like.
• Speak/write using simple words. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. The same acronyms/abbreviations can mean very different things to different groups. I’m sure you’ve conducted an internet search on an acronym only to find many results that are not the one you expected.
Remember to start by asking “Why is it important that I communicate this particular content to this specific audience?” When you communicate with purpose and clarity, your audience won’t need a translator.