BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
A SIMPLE STRUCTURE
PREPARE YOURSELF This progression: Self – Material – Audience is not an illogical one and it can help you to prepare yourself and your talks … if you tackle them in reverse order. First find out who will be in the audience and what their expectations of you are. Once this is known you can gather the data you need to construct your presentation and then finally you can make sure you look good and feel OK on the day.
Most people in your audience want, perhaps most of all, to avoid sitting through a presentation where the speaker gets embarrassed and messes up. They will have some concern and sympathy for you as a new speaker but they would prefer to avoid witnessing your failure and having to pretend to you afterwards that it was fine when it was not.
It is vital then to spare your audience any anxiety. You can do this by preparing well and avoiding unnecessary risks. For example you might have a great joke you want to tell. You figure that a good joke can be a great start to a talk. It is however a high return but a high risk option. If you absolutely have to make a joke then make one that is against yourself so that your audience thinks you are mature enough to laugh at yourself sometimes.
Use a simple structure to put across a simple message and confine yourself to just three points. End with a ‘call to action’ and keep the whole thing to 20 minutes or less. If 30 minutes or more is expected of you then build in some participation or a question and answer session. There is a famous old quotation in praise of the brevity of presentations. It goes something like: ‘Stand up to be seen, speak up to be heard and sit down to be appreciated’.
People will feel confident in you as a presenter if you use a simple structure and they will appreciate this even more if you make reference to it – for example. ‘I would like to begin by saying ...’; I would like to move onto my first point now ...’ and ‘In conclusion let me summarise ...’ This technique (known as signposting) is the most under-used one in presentations and yet it makes the speaker sound logical and professional. I recommend it.
INTRODUCTION
Your introduction should indicate your content, your objective and when in the talk you intend to deal with questions from the audience. It helps if you can begin with something topical and relevant to get people interested at the outset.
MAIN PART
As mentioned above your presentation should not have more than three points. You might have just one message but you should seek to establish and reinforce your message with no more than three points or examples. There is research that suggests that quoting three examples is very persuasive. Any less than three seems unconvincing and any more than three could well be seen as unnecessary or a dilution of your key message(s).
QUESTIONS
In my experience the best place for questions is just before your conclusion e.g. ‘Before I conclude are there any questions?’ This prevents any over- enthusiastic questioners from hi-jacking your presentation at the end with irrelevant questions and distracting comments. Let them get it off their chest and then you can summarise and conclude your talk. This way you will stand a much better chance of restoring the audience’s focus on your key message(s).
CONCLUSION
Having dealt with questions you can now make your concluding remarks and summarise your main points for emphasis. The conclusion ought not to contain any new material or surprises. A simple and polite ‘call to action’ can also be very effective at the end, e.g. ‘I hope that we will now be able now to make an informed decision on this matter. Thank you for your time’.
Frank Newberry
www.franknewberry.com
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
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