The building blocks of presentations

How many times have you sat through a presentation without understanding where the presenter is trying to take you? How many times have you become confused when a speaker continually chops and changes what they are talking about? When you cannot follow the trains of logic because there is no structure to the presentation?

I thought about this yesterday when structuring a new 3 day public speaking course and structure is paramount to everything in speaking. We were hanging all our timings on a structure and we will be explaining structures to delegates very early on.

There are many structures that can be used such as tell them, tell them, tell them or AIDA. You could use a storyline or a Then, Now and How approach but the structure very much depends on what outcome you are looking for. The tell them x 3 would be used to educate or inform whereas the AIDA style is more a sales approach.

What structure do I tell budding new speakers to use when putting together their first speeches? I suggest a simple structure with signposting as follows. Start with a small introduction of about 45 seconds which introduces the subject and tells the audience to expect three short sections of detail. Then I suggest that the subject is broken down to three things that need to be told. Each of which is given 1 1/2 minutes to convey. And finally I say to summarise or call to action at the end in 45 seconds. This is a simple 6 minute speech structure that I think anyone can use to look like a competent speaker.

Introduction - 45 seconds

Topic 1 - 90 seconds

Topic 2 - 90 seconds

Topic 3 - 90 seconds

Summary / call to action - 45 seconds

Total = 6 minutes

?Don't be the one that confuses people. Be sure to use a proper structure when writing material for speaking in public. Structures are what I call the building blocks of presentations because once you have a structure it becomes easier to build a speech or presentation.

There is a chapter all about structures in my book called "Banish the fear: Present Professionally" available on Amazon for ￡8 and less for the kindle version.

I'd be keen to hear your views in the comments below. Maybe you've sat through an unstructured presentation? Maybe this has inspired you to rewrite an upcoming speech?