3-part “Toolkit” to prepare and deliver a spectacular presentation | Public Speaking Essentials (Part 1)

2 of 6 quick to-do elements to significantly enhance your presentation; extroverts may find this preparatory toolkit good-to-have, but introverts will find this VITAL:

1.Understanding your audience

Find out the nature of your audience members, do they like to be instructed or told what to do, or are they extremely individualistic and opinionated? Indifferent to your what you’re about to share or highly enthusiastic about it? The tone of your presentation should adjust to the nature of the audience; in essence, give the audience what they want. In a seminar room full of disinterested students, who are more interested in their own presentations later, any attempt at humour or burst of high energy will be certainly met with indifference, silence or worse, irritation and contempt. Contrast that setting with a motivational conference where audience members are craving the energy and enthusiasm, eager to learn and network.

For example: imagine giving a presentation at a job fair or career matching event at a university. The people in your audience are fresh graduates or graduands who aren’t sure what they want to commit to do for a living. Instead of a specific, industry-relevant topic, you may focus on practical, more-universal, and approachable advice, such as “Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid in Your First Job,”. The audience consisting of fresh-faced students will be more receptive towards that rather than becoming bogged down in technical jargon (e.g. compliance issues, code of ethics, data privacy protection policy etc.). However, if you’re speaking to seasoned professionals at a corporate conference, omit the fundamentals and instead provide sophisticated tactics like “How to Negotiate a Six-Figure Salary.” Or “How to PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act)-proof your operations”. Your message will be resonant if you modify the tone and content to meet their expectations.

2.Ladder of Three

Prioritisation of your points is very beneficial. In a group of three points, leave the weakest/ least intriguing and exciting one to the last yet still get your desired reaction. This is exactly why comedians leave their weakest of three jokes to the last but still able to elicit roars of laughter; politicians also leave their least thought-provoking point to the last but still able to elicit applauses. In similar vein, in a group of three presentation points, build up with a strong opening point or insight and leave the least inspiring point to the last. As you can see, it is not just about the power of three (i.e. just having three points), but you can prioritize the 3 points for optimal speech impact.

For example: you are presenting investors with an airline company concept. Make a strong opening statement, such as the magnitude of the market opportunity: “Over the next five years, with South East Asia’s middle class burgeoning and being travel-hungry, our target market is expected to balloon from $2 billion to $5 billion.” A mid-strength point should be used after this: “We’ve prepared ourselves to take full advantage of that by procuring 6 new long-haul Airbus A350 that will wrestle market share from competitors by 30%.”. Once you have established the massive opportunity and pole position to seize the opportunity, you may slip in the not-so-desirable point: “This initial outlay of operating cost and capital expenditure $100 million will be well worth it when we eventually rake in the lion’s share of the market gains in the next 5 years.” When positioned last in this trio, even the “weakest” point will land successfully.

Stay tune for part 2 where we share the tools that you can utilize to 1. Craft your presentation speech and script, and 2. Keep your audience hooked (retention of audience’s attention)!