Archive for June, 2010

I respect your decision to not make it your goal to become a world-class professional speaker. It’s okay, really. But I do want to leave you with a story of a young man who was quite similar to you. Many decades ago, he was in college and had to take a public speaking class. Public speaking really wasn’t his thing, and he certainly didn’t consider himself to be a natural-born presenter. Sure enough, he went through the course in the way you would expect. He slogged through the course and got a C. (I guess you could say his teacher considered him good enough to give a “pretty good presentation.”)

The funny thing is that this same guy went into a career where he had to speak a lot. And then one day he went to Washington and gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” and went down in history as having given the greatest and most influential speech of the 20th century. So if you think of yourself as only capable of giving a pretty good presentation, then you are in good company; Martin Luther King, Jr., was also in the same boat. There’s nothing wrong with giving a pretty good presentation, but you already have all of the innate skills you need to be a great speaker.

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Be Interesting

I’m often asked, “TJ, any final tips for me? I have to give a presentation tomorrow, and I still don’t know exactly what to say or what I am going to do.”

If you want to give a pretty good presentation, the answer is simple: just make sure you have one interesting idea in it. You may be thinking,
“That’s ridiculous! I have dozens and dozens of ideas, facts, and numbers in my presentation.” Yes, but how many of them are interesting, significant, or memorable?

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Things you will be tempted to do because they seem like they will make your presentation easier but are actually TERRIBLE IDEAS:

1. Have a glass of booze. Yes, it might appear to make you more relaxed, but it will make it harder to recall information, make you appear sweaty, and people will smell your breath and form a lifelong impression of you being a drunkard.

2. Wing it because you want to seem fresh and not over rehearsed. Horrible idea. You are likely to go blank, stammer, and then drone on with boring information. Don’t do it.

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One Day

If I Have Only One Day to Prepare for a Presentation, What Should I Do?

One hour: Research and gather as much information as possible on the topic on which you’ll be presenting. You will be tempted to spend many, many hours more than this on research, but that’s a huge mistake. Additional research this late in the game is just an excuse for you to avoid doing the hard work of preparing, refining, and rehearsing your presentation. If you don’t stop gathering facts after one hour, you will doom your presentation because you will waste the time necessary to do the remaining (vital) tasks.

30 minutes: Make a bulleted list of points—10 words or less each—of every major message point you might want to communicate to that audience.

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