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Every successful presenter has a plan; a recipe if you will for success. The recipe has consistent ingredients and has been tested in a kitchen for flavor and appeal. As the chef, you begin by understanding as much about your prospective audience as possible. Here are three great questions to ask of an event organizer or key members of the audience. • Who will be in the audience, and what are their concerns? • Why are they coming to listen? • What do they hope will be different as a result of hearing me speak? Here are four great questions you should be able to answer for yourself before you speak. • How can I give them something valuable and unique? • What commitment am I willing to make to them? • What commitment am I asking them to make to themselves? • What commitment am I asking them to make to me? Along with this plan, you will want to have a dynamic strategy for reaching the largest percentage of people within your audience. This strategy will have some base elements or themes that are universal in their appeal. The “dynamic” portion of your strategy is adaptable to your audience. Based on the information you gathered from the “Key Members” questions above, you’ll know how to mold stories, anecdotes and critical facts to meet the needs of your audience. Whatever information you wish to communicate, or action you wish to compel, it must be easy to understand and relatable to the individuals in your audience. Broadcasters on television would go crazy if they approached a presentation as though they were speaking to 2 million people at once. What makes us love (or despise) a particular broadcaster or speaker is that they seem to speak to us directly. In front of a room of 5 or 500, you reach people on a deeper and more meaningful level when you speak to them as individuals. Putting together a presentation is not easy. In a business setting, you’re often asked to communicate facts, figures, and compelling reasons to take action, all in a very short period of time. Making matters more complicated is that different people learn and absorb data very differently. I can’t make heads or tails out of most pie charts and graphs; tell me a story about the impact of those figures on people’s lives and experience, and it makes sense to me in a very real and personal way. What follows is a template that I use to help structure presentations other than keynote speeches. You’ll notice the color designations next to each element. The colors relate to colored index cards that have notes on them. All my stories are on GREEN index cards, this allows me to identify the current phase of my presentation, and where I’m going next. Mike’s Presentation Template RED – Ice breaker comment. Speakers differ on whether this is valuable or not. Based on my “advance intelligence” about the audience, I’ll either keep or drop this. Unless you’re a trained, professional comedian, DO NOT OPEN WITH A JOKE. BLUE – The Point. Why are you here? GREEN – A Story. Aesop created his fables for a reason; stories tell us truths without lecturing us. Aesop didn’t rely on Power Point either. ORANGE – Data/Relevant Proof. For the people in the audience who wonder why you just told them a story. WHITE – Exercise. Adults learn most effectively through experience. This gets your audience engaged and pushes them to think differently. This can be particularly effective in a sales presentation because it’s not what your audience expects. GREEN – A Story. This should be a “seal the deal” illustration. Topical, current and uplifting, it helps create or reinforce a vision of success and progress. The purpose of this story is to orient your listener’s mind toward making a commitment to action. BLUE – The Point. Recap the main point and position next steps. RED – Finish. It’s true, you can’t reach “all of the people all of the time”, but you can make an effort to connect in a meaningful way with your audience. Imagine having a thousand puzzle pieces scattered across your dining room table. They’re all face-down, and the box that they came in that shows the completed puzzle’s picture is no where to be found. Pretty daunting, isn’t it? Now flip all the pieces over, and start to identify the flat-sided edge pieces. More form comes into view, and you can begin to lay out a strategy for putting the darn thing together. Next, you realize that you are sitting on the box. You prop the box top next to you, and three eager children arrive to help out. That’s the way it is with presenting thoughts, ideas and information. With a vision of the outcome clear, a strategy in place to get there, and some help along the way, you can be the presenter you wish to be. More great tips on Great Communication are available in Mike Faber’s free weekly email newsletter, Great Communication. To subscribe, please send an email to mike@fabercomm.com, with the words “Presenting With Confidence” in the subject line. Copies of this article may be reprinted with appropriate attribution to Mike Faber and Faber Communications LLC. To learn more about Faber Communications keynotes and coaching, call toll-free 877-262-2402.
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