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© by Bonnie Budzowski, President of InCredible Messages, LP. 
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Four Ways to Give Your Presentation Away

By Bonnie Budzowski
President, InCredible Messages, LP

A successful presentation is one in which audience members are changed by what we say or take action because of it. If audience members go away disinterested or unmoved, we still own the presentation. Don’t allow this to happen. Design your speech to be given away.

Here are four techniques you can use to hand ownership over to your audience:

Use a Matching Model

Speakers often unwittingly prepare from their own vantage point, without thinking of the audience’s different point of view.

For example, a speaker who has managed a technical project for a year is prone to begin chronologically—with more background than the audience wants or needs. Audience members prefer to start with project outcomes or benefits. If they must suffer through tedious background, audience members become bored and tune out. At the end of the day, the presentation still belongs to the project manager. She failed to give it away.

Prepare your presentation to match audience member’s perspectives and goals. Take time to research and to interview audience members (formally or informally) as you prepare. Find out what challenges them and what frustrates them in the area of your topic. Acknowledge or address these concerns in your presentation.

Match the level of detail in your presentation to the listeners. If you are speaking to executives, give an executive summary, highlighting key points, decisions, and financial information. If you are speaking to technical personnel, give the detail needed to answer the audience’s key questions. Even in this case, avoid giving more information than the audience can process in the presentation’s time span.

Distill Your Key Point

Force yourself to distill your presentation down to one take-away sentence. Nick Morgan, author of Working the Room, calls this the elevator speech for your presentation. Here’s how Morgan describes it:

If we think of a speech as a very limited act of persuasion, then it follows that we need to be very clear what we’re trying to persuade the audience of. The elevator speech will help us do that. It is, simply, a one sentence expression of the main reason you are giving the speech—on the audience’s terms.

For a distillation of your key point to be memorable and convincing, it must be crisp, and it must be audience-centered. Morgan suggests crafting a sentence that contains a benefit for audience members and includes the word you (showing audience focus). Morgan also suggests your sentence make some reference to emotion. Emotional, vivid, and visual content engages listeners far more than linear, intellectual information does. Such content makes the listener more likely to remember and to respond to your presentation.

Repeat Yourself

Just as a musical reprise creates pleasing echoes and connections in a song, a short phrase of repetition creates echoes and connections in a speech. For an example, think of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Nearly every American has some recognition of this speech, delivered nearly 40 years ago. Not only did the speech connect with people emotionally, it had a repetitive phrase. “I have a dream” connected a series of vivid pictures that envisioned a better future for America.

Doug Stevenson, author of Never Be Boring Again, Make Your Business Presentations Capture Attention, Inspire Action, and Produce Results, would describe King’s “I have a dream” as a, “Phrase that Pays.” To craft such a memorable phrase,” Stevenson suggests the following:

• Make it short and sweet.
• Make it alliterative. Examples include “Make your move,” and “Watch your words.”
• Turn it into a call for action, starting with a verb. Examples include “Seize the day” and “Think big.”
• Repeat it. Say your “Phrase that Pays” up to six times in a 60-minute talk.

Link, Annotate and Cheat

Another way to give a presentation away is to give a copy of your slides, a web link, or an annotated handout for audience members to take with them. Provide some kind of link to information or other resources that audience members can use in their own timeframe.

A checklist or a one-sheet overview of your main points works well. For example, when I work with companies on business writing strategy, I end with a “business writing cheat sheet” that matches key points relevant to the group’s particular challenges. Clients tell me they post these “cheat sheets” on their bulletin boards and refer to them when writing.

Remember: A successful presentation is one in which audience members are changed by what we say or take action because of it. Don’t hold onto your presentation. Design it to be given away.

Permission is granted to reprint this article when the following contact information is included: © 2008 by Bonnie Budzowski, President of InCredible Messages, LP. For more free articles, go to www.IncredibleMessages.com or contact Bonnie at info@IncredibleMessages.com.

Imagine yourself in a situation in which one professional shows you how to incorporate the insights of three perspectives into your business communication:  marketing, persuasion, and visual design. 

Imagine an interactive session with an entertaining and inspiring speaker.  Do you like what you see?  You’ve just envisioned working with Bonnie Budzowski, President of inCredible Messages, LP.

Contact Bonnie to learn more about how she can guide you and your team to create compelling business messages or call 412-361-1490. 

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