How can you use advanced speech techniques to structure your presentation?

Whether a presentation is clear, coherent, and captivating depends, mainly on the speaker’s ability to successfully communicate and connect with the audience. The best thing a speaker can do is know their audience, know what that audience needs, wants or is looking for and delivers that clearly in 1,2 or three points.

While speaking in front of other people, what I find useful is making and keeping eye contact. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you look at a crowd, especially if they are strangers. When you make eye contact with specific persons in that crowd, you start thinking of the experience as speaking to individuals versus speaking to invisible listeners. The advantage of doing this is the feedback you receive from the people you focus on. Their eyes, facial expression, body language, and attention lets you modulate your content and tone, thus increasing their enjoyment. As you move on to the next person to focus on, then the next, you start understanding the mood of the crowd as a whole, increasing your confidence even while you are speaking.

This is a wonderful framework for raising ideas in meetings. If you stick to the outline, you'll be succinct and clear. The exercise will also only likely take a minute or two in the margins of your notebook.

This PREP framework is quite useful for sticking to the point of what you are going to deliver to the audience, also this method is used to convince others about your thoughts or recommendations. Initially in this framework, you emphasise your point at high level, step by step, you are giving some real-time or how to come out from a pain point with some examples. Finally, you are delivering why you would like to advise or go with this approach. Also, we can relate this framework with What, Why and how... Here the reason and example may be quite a lot. This method is used while speaking with C-level executives.

I like the Monroe method, because I truly believe keeping your audience engaged, excited, participating, creating a need and then closing the deal while they're into your presentation and engaged...while the iron's hot as they say...if not now, when? Create a situation (problem)need /solution and urgency. Before any of that takes place you need to make a friend, get them comfortable and tell them you will be asking for their business TODAY... plant the TODAY word in their mind. Don't be afraid to ask for the money. They will not be approaching you with a master card stuck to their foreheads?? LOL. Sales is a finess either you have it or you don't... its not for the faint hearted... I actually love it, the rush of adrenaline, and challenge.

The beauty of Monroe's Motivated Sequence is that it not only hooks the audience and involves them in your reasoning, but also it gets them to visualize the benefits. Once visualized, the outcome is concrete, something attainable that you want to have.

This is a brilliant way to narrate a story about your yourself, about work or even your product. The hook, while important and powerful, can only retain the attention of your audience, if they are able to empathise with the need it raises, and join you on the journey of finding the solution to that need. It is the job of the speaker to help their listeners imagine the benefits of the work or product, in a way that feels like these listeners are a part of that future where, for example, climate change no longer exists because you have solved for it with perpetual solar-powered self-driving cars. The only step your listener now needs to do to become a part of that reality, is commit to it. And that, my friends, is a great story.

I like this framework even more for interview questions. We all know about "Tell me about a time when..." and if applied correctly, this works every time. I prepped for interviews by having 2-3 examples for every role on my resume. Then I could adapt slightly based on the interviewer's question.

In my opinion, all of this is way to complicated and heady. To start writing/ crafting your talk (which is only the first step) you need three pillars ???? What So what Now what -What are we talking about? -So what? Why does this matter to me as the audience member. -Now what do you want me to do? What’s my action step?

Can’t beat the original format of: Stand up Speak up And shut up! Have headline notes and practice! Taking bookings …..

Knowing any counterpoints and questions that can be asked ahead of time, will better equip the presenters. This can be gleamed by practicing with an audience of those uneducated with The subject material, as well as a few who are aware. Practicing in this manner, helps the speakers for both techniques and questions they may encounter.

In my experience, do it for the sole purpose of educating others on something you know about and ask nothing in return. If people leave asking more questions or adding to their own intellect, then it is a successful speech. I like to start with asking the audience what they are hoping to hear so that iI can make sure my prepared information covers it all and if not; I now have 50 minutes to prepare what I will say on that topic while I am on autopilot with the speech in front of me (i.e. know your material where it comes naturally and do not read a script or your slides).

Above all else, most speeches should fit onto a notecard. Why? Using an outline and delivering a presentation based on your knowledge and passion is a proven method for exceptional results on both the content and execution fronts.