One of the first things I do, when I take on a client that needs to develop a presentation, is to ask them what they are trying to accomplish. Why are they giving the presentation?
Far too often, they tell me they are doing it because they were either asked, or told, to speak, as if speaking itself were the goal. When I press them to tell me what they want to happen as a result of their presentation, they often fall back on some variation of, “I want the audience to think about …..”
It is certainly possible to use the time and attention your audience has granted you to induce them to think about a situation, to trigger doubts or to evoke emotions. That is an improvement over having no purpose at all, but it still falls far short of what you could accomplish.
Why set your sights so low? When you speak, you have the power not just to get your audience to think, but to tell them what to think.
You have the power to tell them what the facts mean, how they affect your business strategy, what they indicate about emerging trends, how they fit into the historical perspective or what they imply about the future.
You can plant your ideas, your very words, into their minds and shape how they understand not only the situation at hand, but even how they understand future events.
All it takes is a plan. Once you know what you are trying to accomplish, the structure and the words tend to come fairly easily. The presentation virtually writes itself. The hard part is deciding what you want.
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