Clear objectives, clear plan, clear signals: the secrets of presentation success

Any presentation requires a clear strategy or plan to help you reach your objectives. The aim is not to pass away twenty minutes talking non-stop and showing a lot of nice pictures. It is to convey a message that is worth hearing to an audience who want to hear it. However, how many speakers really hold an audience's attention? What is the secret for those who do? First, find out about the audience and what they need to know. Plan what you're going to say and say it clearly and concisely.

A good speaker uses various signals to help hold the audience's attention and make the information clear. One type of signal is to introduce a list with a phrase like There are three things we have to consider. The speaker then says what the three things are and talks about each one at the required level of detail. For example: 'There are three types of price that we have to think about economic price, market price and psychological price. Let's look at each of these in more detail. First, economic price. This is based on production costs and the need to make a profit ... and the speaker goes on to describe this type of price. After that, he goes on to talk about the market price and so on.

Another signalling technique is to give a link between parts of the presentation. Say where one part of the talk finishes and another starts. For example, a well organised presentation usually contains different parts and progression from one part to the next must be clear, with phrases like That's all I want to say about the development of the product. Now let's turn to the actual marketing plan. This technique is very helpful to the audience, including those who are mainly interested in one part only.

Another type of signalling is sequencing of information. This usually follows a logical order, perhaps based on time. So a project may be described in terms of the background, the present situation and the future. Key words in sequencing information are first, then, next, after that, later, at the end, finally, etc.

Still another technique, which helps to emphasise key points, is careful repetition. Examples are As I've already said, there is no alternative but to increase production by 100 per cent or I'd like to emphasise the main benefit of the new design – it achieves twice as much power with half as much fuel.

A final point concerns timing and quantity of information. Psychologists have suggested that concentration is reduced after about twenty minutes without a break or a change in activity. Furthermore, audiences should not be overburdened with technical details or given too many facts to remember. It is claimed that to ask people to remember more than three things in a five-minute talk is too much. Some say that seven is the maximum number of any length of presentation. Any such calculations are probably not very reliable, but every speaker needs to think about exactly how much information of a particular type a specific audience is likely to absorb and to plan accordingly.

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