How to Quickly Prepare for a Presentation
How to give powerful presentations.
My friend David spent weeks preparing for a twenty-minute presentation. He didn’t know what to prepare and it scared him silly. Today we’ll explore a simple set of questions that will make preparing fast and easy, so you’ll be done with plenty of time left over to pursue those tuba lessons you’ve dreamt of since you were twelve.
How to Quickly Prepare for a Presentation
They say the number one fear in the world is public speaking (hey! One of my Quick and Dirty Tips buddies is an expert at that!). People are afraid the audience will laugh at them. Except for comedians, who are afraid the audience won’t laugh at them. If that’s really the world’s #1 fear, why aren’t there horror films about it? We see Freddy playing Iron Chef, with tonight’s special ingredient being innocent teenager. But we never get to see Freddy giving a speech at his local Legion of the Damned chapter meeting, only to realize halfway through that he’s actually naked. That would be scary! Bwah ha ha ha ha! (evil laugh) Don’t let this happen to you! In the immortal words of the great Tom Lehrer, Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared, be prepared.
How to Decide the Main Message of Your Presentation
Begin with the end in mind. Start preparing with a few simple questions. Who is your audience? If you’re talking to business people whose company is tanking, and who expect you to save them, that’s different from presenting to nuns, who care about your spiritual salvation and will stop at nothing to claim your soul for eternity.
What does your audience really want from you?
What does your audience really want from you? You might think this is all about you, but people don’t go to presentations to see you. They go to presentations to see Angelina Jolie, but not to see you. They care about what they can get from you. Know what that is and offer it. Your task is to know what the audience wants to get from you and use it to design your offering.
Also decide what they’ll walk away with. What will they be able to do, think, or feel as a result of your presentation? Choose one to three takeaways. If you give too much, people will get overwhelmed and use nothing. If you give too little, they’ll remember nothing but your sequined bell bottoms.
Identify Your Goal for the Presentation
You have to meet your needs, too. Prepare for that in advance! Otherwise, you’ll end up with a happy audience, and an unhappy presenter. A friend of mine gave a speech to the 500 highest-grossing real estate professionals in the country and got a standing ovation. Yay! But she forgot to bring her business cards, and she didn’t put her contact info on the handouts. Boo! She provided for her audience and forgot to provide for herself.
How to Make Your Presentation Relevant
Imagine you’re presenting to high school students. How would you make sure that this presentation is a success?
What do high school students like? Stories are good. Let’s say you are presenting to a group of young entrepreneurs. What do we want our entrepreneurs to take away? Perhaps these three points:
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Control of your cash.
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Produce products your market wants.
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Make it fun to buy your product and people will keep coming back.
Armed with this knowledge of what you want the audience to take away, you’re much more likely to be able to put together a presentation that is relevant for your audience. But is it relevant for you? That’s an important point. Let’s go ahead and ask the other set of questions.
How to Choose the Best Examples for a Presentation
What do you want out of this presentation?
Why are you presenting to aspiring entrepreneurs at all? Surely, it’s not for the money. Maybe because you like helping young people grow up to take control of their lives and become great builders. Good to know, so you can choose stories that excite the kids. Give them examples of how other young people accomplished great things. Make them believe they can, too. Skip the story about Ray Kroc, who founded McDonald’s at the age of 55. That might inspire the nearing-retirement set, but for high school students, it isn’t likely to leave them feeling excited, motivated, and in control of their own destiny.
Talk to them instead about Michael Dell starting Dell Computer at the age of 19 in his dorm room. Or Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard, becoming the richest man in the world, then buying an honorary degree from Harvard (thanks, Bill, for cheapening the degree for the rest of us). Make it easy for them to achieve your goals, which is for them to throw off the shackles of their corporate overlords, start their own businesses, and usher in an economic utopia.
This episode’s transcript includes a link to a simple worksheet you can use to think through your presentation and design what you’re going to say. Who is your audience? What do they want? What do you want? and What are the takeaways to leave them with? And when you get up to give your speech, don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared, be prepared: wear clothes. I also have an episode on streamlining your writing that might prove useful.
This is Stever Robbins. Email questions to getitdone@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email or leave voicemail at 866-WRK-LESS.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
RESOURCES – https://www.steverrobbins.com/getitdoneguy/104-preparing-for-a-presentation.htm Worksheet for preparing for a presentation
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