How to Give Better Speeches & Presentations – Part II
People continually place public speaking as one of their highest ranked fears, and yet public speaking can be an extremely rewarding and valuable experience. Learning the skill of giving excellent speeches and presentations can help you do better in most every area of business and life.
Beyond the direct skills you learn by giving speeches, you also work on expanding your comfort zone. As you expand your comfort zone in this area it becomes easier to expand in other areas as well.
Last week, in Part I, this series started by looking at some of the things you need to know as part of your preparation work, in order to give a better speech or presentation. These included knowing your objective (why you are giving the presentation), know your audience (who you are giving the presentation to), and know your information (what you are speaking about). Part II will focus on tips that will help you organize your information in such a way that will allow your audience to stay connected to you, and your material, and follow effective throughout.
4. Have a Strong Introduction with a Clear Main Idea
The first minute or two of your presentation are critical. You need to look for ways to immediately grab the audience’s attention. The introduction is so important that I recommend having a more detailed outline of it written down. You need to know how you will connect with the audience and lead into your topic.
There are several good ways to grab the audience’s attention. One great way to start is to use a story or illustration. A good story or illustration will help the audience to relate to you and to your topic and will get them focused on what you are saying. Humor is another powerful way of starting a speech. The challenge is to make the humor appropriate for your audience and in some way connected to your topic.
You also want to use your introduction to share why your subject is important. Connect your topic to your audiences needs. You can do this with your illustration or by providing shocking information or statistics. Knowing your audience allows you to make this connection more clearly.
Finally, your introduction needs to make your overall main idea is clear. By the time your introduction is over the audience should understand exactly what you are going to be speaking on and what the main thrust of your presentation will be.
5. Be Sure Your Main Points Are Clear
As you work through the body of your presentation you need to make sure that your transitions between your main points are clear. Unfortunately many presenters move from one topic to another without providing any clarity that they are doing so. The audience is left looking for connections in their material. Your transitions can be obvious, even stating things like, “the first topic we will cover is….”, “secondly, we look at…” etc. Clear transitions allow the audience to follow the thrust of your argument, to take effective notes, and to mentally transition between topics.
When writing your presentation, be sure to limit yourself to three to five main points. This will help to make your material more memorable, and prevent your audience from getting lost in your speech. You may want to mention your main points in the introduction so the audience can easily follow throughout your presentation.
6. Build in Attention Grabbers
No matter how effective of a speaker you are, the attention of your audience will be continually drifting. Because of this you need to look for ways to continually grab their attention. You can use similar attention grabbing techniques to the introduction. These include telling stories or using humor. Humorous stories are often the best combination. You may also want to use powerful statistics, shocking information, or say something else that is unexpected.
If you are using PowerPoint or some other presentation software, you can use vivid images to reconnect with people and get their attention back. Remember that slides filled with lots of text will have the opposite effect. Limit the amount of text you put on your slides and instead use the slides to show photos or other images that can connect emotion to your message.
7. Develop a Strong Conclusion
How you end your presentation will determine how your audience remembers you. It is vital that you end well with a strong conclusion. Because of this, you should take significant time in developing your conclusion.
The first thing you want to do in your conclusion is to tie up your main points and reinforce your main idea. You can do this by summarizing the main points in a cohesive manner that brings everything together. Sometimes an example or illustration will allow you to make connections between the points that may not have been obvious the first time they heard the points separately.
You also need to know how you are going to end your talk. I have seen many speeches end awkwardly with the presenter fumbling around and saying something like, “well, I guess that is all”. Instead be sure to end firmly. The ending should be clear. In fact, everyone in the audience should know the ending when they hear it. Your ending should naturally trigger the applause you deserve! You may want to end with a quote or a story but frame it in such a way that it clearly is the last thing you are going to say.
Another way to avoid a fumbling ending is to write out your final sentences. Add these to your outline that you will have in front of you. That way, no matter what has happened, you know exactly how you will end.
These points will help you prepare a good presentation. Having a strong introduction, clear main points and a strong conclusion all interspersed with attention grabbing techniques will allow you to effectively deliver the presentation. Coming soon, Part III will look at several tips related to delivering the presentation that you have prepared.
Written by:
Danny Gamache – The Success Professor
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