Do this before your next talk or presentation
By: Kesavan Murali
Tags: Public Speaking, Communication Skills, To Do List, Presentation Tips

A quick checklist for your next gathering.

When you are giving a presentation or small talk, have you ever

Thought that this could be quite boring for your listeners? Felt like you need to rush to the complete or end it ASAP? Contradicted your own principles/thoughts?

Then you have landed at the right place to make your next attempt a successful and satisfying one.

With the abundance of virtual connectivity and lack of face-to-face communication, it is a very important life skill for anyone to be able to Inform, Convince and Impress people with your words, besides your actions. Irrespective of where you want to be heard, be it office, college, or a community, the fundamentals of public speaking are the same.

The following checklist is going to be really handy for the preparation of your next presentation or talk.

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The title-Card

“Choosing the right topic” is the most fundamental aspect of any successful talk. By right topic, you must not misunderstand it as a fancy-catchy word or a phrase, but a soul of your talk.

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All the confusions pop-up when you have the freedom to choose whatever you want to speak upon. People always tend to choose the hot/rocket-science type of topic, on which the speaker has little-to-no knowledge and assumes that it impresses the audience.

So, it is always important to choose a topic, which you think is so important to yourself first or what you are already doing very consistently, from which the listeners can benefit too. Even if it is the silliest of all the things, it comes from your heart and you are not pretending. Believe me, people really love simple things and they could relate them to themselves seamlessly.

Many times, the topic might already be given, especially when you are at work. So, it is seemingly easy there. But, it is not the case unless you spend a good amount of time for yourself to get comfortable with it. Most of people assume that they will be able to manage it once they get into the talking. Yes, they do. But what about the listeners? Did they manage to understand what you are up to? Often not! That leads to our prep and prac section.

The Prep and Prac

Take any greatest player of any game, they are great not just because they performed extremely well in a single game. They would have been proving their greatness consistently every time when they get an opportunity.

This is how they get to the status of a legend. Although the game time is very important for them to in their form, their training and practice before the games do really have an impact on their performances. Could you find a single player who comes out to the field without any preparation or practice? Probably, never.

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The same goes with presentations and small talks, consciously spending time helps you organize your thoughts and make everyone’s time much more valuable.

By preparation, it is not meant to write each and every sentence and memorize it. If you take this route, you will be really a good chanter, but not a speaker. So, always have notes for your talk and treat them as an aid to your flow. That's why choosing a topic, on which you have good hands, is important. And it must always flow from the heart.

If possible, pull in a friend or a well-wisher, who can listen to you talk. Although he./she may mock you at first, they can give the best of suggestions, which will drastically help your talk to be more lively.

Prefer examples over facts

If you are able to make them feel what you feel, then you may consider yourself as one of the most influential speakers.

Be infectiously enthusiastic. You show your enthusiasm when you talk, letting the listeners know how interesting and important the subject is, this emotion is spread like a wildfire. Surely, the listeners would reflect your emotion, whether it be joy, sadness, or excitement.

Giving lots of facts may help in very few circumstances. But it does not help much in getting the listeners to your wavelength. If you have a real-world example case on the topic, then narrating it to your listeners will get them on board on the topic. That’s where your personal experience with the subject is very important. Recreating your past experience with specific details is really going to be an important aspect of your delivery. Mix a little bit of dramatics(of course, stick to the reality), to keep it more interesting.

Visualizations over Numbers

Eyes are more connected to the brain than our ears. So, you must explore the visuals aspects of your subject, as much as possible, to engage the listeners.

Especially, if you are trying to impress a set of listeners with your idea, then you should probably not miss out on this, as it could be one of your Brahmastras. Always make use of visual tools like graphs, pictures, short clips, and so on.

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Make your Listeners the hero

Keep your talk audience-centric. Remember, everyone in the world is selfish in one or another way. People really feel happy when someone is talking about what they are experiencing. Throughout your talk, never talk about a third person to illustrate something. Use the word “You” judiciously to get the listeners into your talk. If you are talking about a futuristic/made-up scenario, involve them as much as possible. That would make it more realistic. That way, they will be able to relate to the subject a lot better. BTW, don’t put them into any negative scenarios; that may offend them.

What-In Returns

Nobody is likely to do anything for nothing. They need something in return.

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If you are reading this, you are looking at ways to improve your communication. Similarly, throughout, your talk, you must touch upon the benefits that your listeners get if they follow this. Don't give them everything at one shot, reveal them one by one to keep listeners attentive.

And you may summarize the benefits that they get before your conclusion along with a call-up-for-action.

Action Time

People really appreciate the abstract in art forms, like movies or paintings. But, in talks and presentations, it is not the case. Nobody wants abstract

answers here. Give them the immediate/specific steps to avail of those benefits concisely.

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The last few words spoken would have a greater impact than your whole talk itself. So ensure you nail it with your conviction and passion.

Hope these few points help your next presentation/talk. Striving for improvement and constant learning is the best skill for anyone to possess. Don't restrict these ideas to your presentations and talks, try to apply them to every conversation you ever have, as this article asks you to talk only the truth and do it the right way. And whatever you learn, it is always good to share with others. For this purpose, I believe this article might do justice to what I have learned from Dale Carnegie’s “The quick & easy way to effective speaking”.