Should I outline all of my key points at the beginning of my speech for the benefit of my audience?
The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.
Should I outline all of my key points at the beginning of my speech for the benefit of my audience?
Your Speechwriter: “Yes, this shows order and structure.”
Your Public Affairs Director: “Yes, this is a very logical way to proceed.”
You: “Yes, my audience will be impressed with how thoroughly I have prepared, how logical I am, and the well I have planed.”
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Your Audience: “We hate outlining. You remind us of a boring school teacher when you do this. When you tell us about all of the points you are going to cover later in your speech you are reminding us that now would be a good time to check our email. We won’t miss anything important because you’re going to cover it later, right? It’s OK for college teachers to outline for us because we had to write everything down in class. Why did we write down what the teacher outlined? Because that professor was going to test us two weeks later and if we failed the test we would get kicked out of school and have to go wash dishes for the rest of our life. Our college professors could bore us to death with data dumps and outlines and we were motivated to listen and write it all down. But you, my friend, don’t have that power over us. Instead of outlining, just tell us each point in a manner that is so interesting, visual and memorable, that we can’t forget even if we tried. Then, there will be no need to outline.”