When delivering a presentation, keep things simple. To help the audience remember what you say, focus on one idea for your listeners to take away. As you prepare your speech, keep in mind the one idea you want the audience to remember, such as your expertise that will help the client’s business. In a presentation I often deliver, “Be Present When You Are Present,” my main idea is to pay attention in a multi-tasking world.

          Don’t take too long to get your message across to your audience. History supports the principle that audiences prefer short speeches. One of the greatest speeches of the 20^th Century was John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Inaugural Address—only fourteen minutes long. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s obligatory two minutes became famous as the Gettysburg Address. Edward Everett, a well-known orator and a former Senator, presented the two-hour keynote address that day at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg.  Everett wrote to President Lincoln after the event, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” 

          Less is usually more in delivering a presentation. Don’t overload the minds of your listeners with too many pieces of data. The audience won’t remember much, but if they feel you are giving them too much information they will tune you out and remember nothing.

          Never use three words when you can say it in two. Leave out clichés, filler words, and hackneyed words such as “You know,” “OK,” and “All right.”  Leave out phrases such as “Let me be honest/blunt/frank.” (Have you not been being honest before that point?) Speak in short sentences, short phrases, and short words. Word choice should be instantly clear to an audience. Make it a goal that every word will have impact in your speech. Use language that triggers specific action. Begin a sentence with “Here is what I want you to do as a result of my presentation…,” or, “Remember this one piece of information….”

          Ask the introducer to keep your introduction brief; in fact, it is best to type out an introduction and give it to him or her to read. Include only vital information that qualifies you on your topic. Your life history is not necessary in the introduction.

          Finally, don’t tell all you know about the subject. The content of your presentation should be from the overflow of your knowledge. Only say what’s necessary to fulfill your purpose. The content of your presentation should influence the audience to want to come back for more, and you should know more than you’ve given.

          As communication professor and researcher Josh Boyd wrote, “In physics, power is defined as work divided by time. In other words, more work done in less time produces more power. In the same way, a speaker’s message is most powerful when he or she can deliver a lot of good material in a short amount of time.” 

          In a culture where time is in demand, a speech presented simply enhances the audience’s acceptance of the content. At the least, a simple approach will encourage the audience to pay attention to your message.

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Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is Professor of Speech Communication, College of Informatics, Northern Kentucky University, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He works with organizations whose people want to speak and listen more effectively to increase personal and professional success. He can be reached at 800-727-6520, or visit http://www.sboyd.com for free articles and resources to improve your communication skills.

“…an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea” is the description once given to the speeches of President Warren G. Harding. We do not want to have that effect on our listeners!

All of us are somewhat uncomfortable with the unknown. Whether facing a severe storm, an uncertain economy, or being lost on a journey, uneasiness accompanies unfamiliar situations. The same is true in listening to a presentation. As audience members, we like to know where the speaker is going and how he or she is getting there.  Whatever the type of presentation, the speaker has a responsibility to provide a sense of direction.

The speaker must provide a sense of direction in the opening of the speech. In the introduction, we might tell what the main points are going to be or give the central idea of the talk. Audience members are reassured by hearing, “I plan to cover three main points and they are….” Another way of accomplishing the same goal is to tell the audience what you expect them to take away from the presentation. We might say, “By the end of the presentation you will have an understanding of…” The first two minutes of your presentation should include a clear skeleton of what you plan to cover.

A sense of direction is also important in telling a story, relating a case study, or giving an illustration. A story is simply a narrative about a connected series of events. In order for the audience member to pay careful attention, we must proceed through the narrative at a reasonable clip. Most narratives should take no more than two minutes. If the story is longer than two minutes, decide what material can be omitted. Include only what is necessary to make your point. One way to accomplish brevity and clarity is to stick to answering briefly the “W” questions: “When,” “Why,” What,” Who,” and “Where.”  We can all recall times when a speaker took so long to tell a story that we lost interest before he or she finished and thus had no memory of the point made.

Another guideline in providing direction in a presentation is to avoid telling all you know. We should relate only the information that is essential for the audience to get the point. As experts on our topics, we sometimes give too much detail. All we need are essential facts that will help the audience member understand or be inspired to decide.

In using humor, remember to provide direction. Make sure the humor relates to the point. Do not use humor just to make people laugh or chuckle. Humor should reinforce our points and help the audience remember. A joke contains a set-up, body, and punch line. The joke does not need information beyond these three elements. For example, an elderly gentleman on a cruise was on deck when a storm came up. A woman leaning against the ship’s rail lost her balance and was thrown overboard. Immediately a figure plunged into the waves beside her and held her up until a lifeboat rescued them. To everyone’s astonishment the hero was the oldest man on the voyage. That evening there was a party given in his honor. “Speech, speech,” the other passengers shouted. The older gentleman rose slowly and looked around at the enthusiastic gathering. “There’s just one thing I’d like to know,” he said testily. “Who pushed me?”  In this joke you have the three necessary ingredients and no extraneous information.

Also show a sense of direction near the end of the presentation. Because people remember best what we say last, we must be sure to include significant reminders here as we summarize. We want to leave the audience with a strong memory of the content of the speech.

When we say we are going to conclude, we must keep our word. Within a couple of minutes, we should be sitting down or we will show that we were misleading about ending the speech. At the end, summarize, include an appropriate move-to-action step or a memorable quotation, and sit down. Too many speakers end in something of a daze by mumbling, “Well, that’s all and I’ll be glad to answer any questions.”  Such endings may remind us of T. S. Eliot’s phrase “not with a bang but a whimper.”

President Reagan exemplified a memorable and powerful ending to a speech when he honored the Challenger astronauts who lost their lives on January 28, 1986:

“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

All audiences want the speaker to have a clear message specifically related to them. When we provide a sense of direction throughout the presentation, our audiences are more likely to receive the message clearly and succinctly.

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Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is Professor of Speech Communication, College of Informatics,  Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, Kentucky. He presents keynotes and seminars to corporations and associations whose people want to speak and listen effectively. See additional articles and resources at www.sboyd.com. He can be reached at 800-727-6520 or info@sboyd.com.