Keys to Organizing a Speech or Presentation - Step 2: Prepare

Step 2: Prepare

You are going to do a presentation and are in the process of putting it together. You have a plan for the presentation and now it is time to prepare the material you are going to present. Preparation occurs in the following areas:


Knowledge
Materials
Delivery
Appearance

The first rule of preparation is to know your subject. You may be presenting yourself as an expert and are planning to inform your audience. You may be intending to amuse and entertain or you may be attempting to persuade a group to give you money or to adopt your way of thinking. No matter the purpose of the presentation, you have to know your stuff. You may be an expert in your field and require very little research to bolster your knowledge base, but current scenarios and statistics will help establish your credibility. So, research and refine your facts and supporting material.

Once you feel confident in facts you are going to present, it is time to narrow the amount of material you are going to use so that it is pertinent to the subject and can be spoken in the time frame allotted. This takes some real work that includes constructing the speech and timing the presentation. When you have the presentation fitted to the timeframe, prepare the audio visual aids and handouts that will accompany the talk. Then practice again with the additional materials to make sure your presentation falls within the specified timeframe.

Then, practice again. If possible, have someone critique the presentation for clarity, content and delivery. If there is no one available to do that, record yourself and listen carefully to the results, Delivery includes having the right tone, speaking clearly and appropriately framing the content for the audience and the size of the room. You can have terrific content and lose your audience through boring or inaudible delivery.

Finally, make sure everything looks good. Materials should be neat and clean. Visual aids should be clear and uncluttered, in large enough print that is surrounded by sufficient white space to make it visually appealing. And you should prepare to be appropriately dressed and neatly groomed.

Now you are ready to get out there and wow your audience. While you are doing that remember the rules of presenting that we will talk about in our next installment.

Beverly & Kristen
www.keytransitions.net

Keys to Organizing a Speech or Presentation - Step 1: Plan

Step 1: Plan

We have been asked to speak to a professional group on organizing speeches and presentations. This should be a no-brainer for us, since we have both been talking from a very early age and have a steady stream of opinions and ideas to share with whomever has a mind to listen. As we consider what information is appropriate to include in our presentation, it occurred to us that we are all in the business of making presentations to the public. It might be a Sunday School lesson for your church or an impassioned plea to City Council to install a stop sign. It could be a synopsis of the latest selection for your book club or the introduction of a speaker at the motorcycle club. Whatever the subject or the setting, there are certain stages and methods of organizing the presentation that make you confident and successful in imparting the information.


We call them the three Ps:

Planning
Preparation
Presentation

First you plan by determining the answers to these questions:

What is the topic? If you are lobbying for the stop sign, it is not “The city is unsafe”. It is “We need a stop sign at the corner of Sixth Street and Lincoln Street because there is a history of accidents there.” Once you know exactly what the topic is you can gather the information you need.

Who is my audience? It is important to know who your audience is because it dictates the style and content of your presentation. If they are a group of elected officials, you will want to appeal to their ability to get re-elected. If they are fiscally conservative, you will want to make sure to touch on cost-effectiveness. If they are children, you want to use age-appropriate vocabulary and keep the time to their attention span.

The size of the audience is also important. For large audiences you need to consider what kind of electronic equipment will be used. You also need to decide what, if any, visual aids will be needed to deliver your message.

Gender and background can also be issues to consider in planning. Anecdotes should be appropriate to the group. You will use different stories and analogies for young mothers than you would for retired engineers or personal trainers.


What is the venue?
Is it an informal gathering in a home or restaurant, a council meeting in community meeting hall, or a convention in an auditorium with a jumbotron? The location and size of the presentation site dictates your dress and your methods of presentation.

What is the date and time of the presentation?
You want to mark it on your calendar and give yourself enough time for preparation. You also want to be prepared and arrive early when it is time to present.


Your final plan for your presentation can be summed up with the following statement:

I am presenting on the topic of ______________

for the audience of ___________________

which will number approximately________________________

which has the following important characteristics____________________________

I will give my presentation at _____________ (place) __________ (date) ________ (time)

Now you are ready to prepare the presentation.

We will talk about that next time.

Beverly & Kristen
Key Transitions
http://www.keytransitions.net/
KeyTransitions@cox.net
PO Box 5383
Suffolk, VA 23435-0383
(757) 642-3193