Preparation is fundamental for a successful presentation. Decide on your primary and secondary objectives, create a take-home message and research your audience. Learn practical ways to generate and organise your ideas.In this chapter:

preparing in stages
setting your objectives
creating a take-home message
researching your audience
generating ideas
planning your presentation mind gap

The deadline approaches and you finally sit down to prepare your talk, unable to find any more excuses for putting it off. You search for inspiration and desperately seek an opening line. You struggle. Nothing seems appropriate. You try three or four openings and they all end up in the waste-paper bin.

Eventually inspiration comes and you begin writing. ‘Good morning, everyone. When Terry asked me to present I thought…’ and off you go. Is this a good way to start? Probably not. You are running with what comes off the top of your head. This is likely to be haphazard, lack structure and may not be related to your audience’s needs.

The place to start preparing a presentation is not your opening – although that is the start when you finally deliver.

You need to start with why you are delivering and what you want to achieve.What is required is a route or map that shows where you want to go and how you want to get there, and of course you must know why you want to go there. Before you start ask yourself these questions:

Why am I speaking?
Whom am I speaking to?
What do they need from me?
What do I say?
How do I construct my message?
How do I deliver it?

Preparation Is Key

The casual, seemingly effortless presentation is likely to be the result of a great deal of planning, research and hard work. If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. In the same way as you build a house in stages, so you can develop your presentation in a structured, layered way.

The planning and research phase is like laying the foundation. Although never seen, the final product stands, cracks or falls because of it. On this foundation you lay the bricks for your presentation by generating ideas and structuring what you are going to say. The rooms can be your key ideas. And, of course, you need to decorate the rooms – the visual aids, anecdotes and supporting evidence.

You might pay particular attention to the front view people get of your house … how you open your presentation. And finally add those finishing touches, which come from your unique personality and style.

Preparing In Stages

Don’t expect to sit down and write your presentation in one sitting. Before you write your presentation, you will need to clarify your objectives, understand your audience and research your topic. Only then will you be in a position to structure your message, decide on your key points, put an opening and a closing together and add supplementary material for impact. After that you need to prepare yourself as the speaker, practise delivery and get yourself into a confident state to present.

Setting Your Objectives

It will be easier for you to decide what to say in your presentation if you know:

your primary objectives;
your secondary objectives
your take-home message; and
something about your audience.

Your Primary Objective

The most fundamental thing in preparing your presentation is to have a clear objective. Unless you know where you are going, how can you begin the journey? It is essential that you are clear about what you want to achieve. What is your goal? Why are you presenting? If your objective is unclear, you are likely to end up where you don’t want to be. Like any good navigator, once you are clear about your destination, you can more easily identify the route to that powerful presentation.

In clarifying your primary objective, think in terms of your listeners and how you want to impact on them. After your audience have listened to you, how do you want them to:

The more specific you are with your answers, the more helpful your objectives are likely to be.

These are not objectives:

You may wish to think ahead to your next presentation by writing your objectives in the box below.