One of the big challenges that we have to overcome as speakers is thinking that if we don't get the audience to understand EVERYTHING that we know about the subject that we are speaking on, then we have failed as a speaker. That is an impossible standard to live up to, but it is what most of us have in mind when we are designing our presentations.
For most of us who write our own business presentations, we begin to design our presentations by thinking about everything that we know about the subject that we are presenting on, and then we try to catalogue all of that information either on paper or into a PowerPoint presentation deck. Once we get everything written down, the next step is to try to figure out how to get ALL of that information into the timeframe that we have for the speech. At that point, we will typically start to cut out slides, ad we end up with a detailed, data driven presentation that is cut up like Swiss cheese and hard to deliver in a confident way.
This type of preparation makes it very difficult for your audience to come away with a concise understanding of what you covered, and makes it extremely difficult to deliver. (By the way, it makes you BOOOOORING too.)
One of the things that we know about the human mind is that we like to compartmentalize things, and the brain likes to focus on just a few key pieces of information at a time. So instead of trying to pack your presentation with a ton of data, instead, focus on just a few key items at a time.
The brain can comprehend one item pretty easily. Two items are not so tough to remember. Three items give a balance between variety and precision. Four or five items in one sitting are okay, but make it more difficult to retain the information. Once the information that you are covering exceeds five key points, it will be extremely difficult for your audience to remember the items that you covered. Since that is the case, limit your talking points to just a few key concepts, and then back up those key points with data, stories, analogies, etc. to add some meat to your presentation.
The easiest way to determine exactly what to cover in your presentation is to ask yourself the question, "I someone in my audience only came away with ONE thing from my speech, what is the MOST IMPORTANT thing that I could cover?" Once you come up with that concept, make that point number one. Then determine what is the second most important concept, and then the third. If your audience is only going to remember two or three things that you say, should those items be the absolute three most important concepts that you could cover?
In public speaking, less is more!
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Doug Staneart is a
keynote speaker in Dallas, Texas and the President and CEO of The Leader's Institute. He is author of the best-selling books
Fearless Presentations and 28 Ways to Influence People and Gain Buy-In. Free video tips are available on his website.
