Whatever your job or your field of work, like it or not speaking to an audience is a fact of life. Did you know that the fear of public speaking is really so common that we actually have a term for it? The technical word for being afraid of public speaking is Glossophobia, and over 75% of people report getting anxious before we need to speak in public. However, we can overcome some of our fear by being well prepared for the presentation. Really knowing who, what and where you'll be presenting. And by organizing the information in your presentation in a well thought out, easy to follow manner. In this video, I'll summarize some of the excellent advice given in Communicating At Work by Adler, Elmhorst and Lucas, on how to prepare for and plan a business presentation. So, by the end of this video, we hope you'll be able to successfully prepare and plan for your future presentations. I'll present you with a plan to first analyze the situation you'll be presenting in, then I'll ask you to set both general and specific goals for yourself in the presentation. Next, I'll ask you to think about what your thesis or main idea is so you can articulate this to your audience. Then I'll introduce you to a three step method of planning of the content of your presentation. So let's get started. Right, before you even begin to even prepare the first sentence of your presentation, it's important you first analyze the situation in which you'll be speaking. For any presentation to be successful, it needs to be on target in terms of the audience, who you are as the speaker, and the occasion you'll be presenting. Having a good idea for a presentation isn't enough. It isn't enough to guarantee a successful presentation. You have to present this good idea in a way that your listeners will actually understand and really appreciate. Preparing and planning a presentation without considering who you'll be presenting to is not a great idea. Instead, you need to think about who you should create and adapt your material and presentation style is. So you can match your audiences' interests, needs, and backgrounds for this. Answering the questions on this slide will help you to focus on your audience so you can then adapt your content and presentation style to fit them. When you're preparing and planning for your presentation, it's also important to think about your own goals. Why are you speaking about this topic? What do you want your audience to think or do, after listening? You should also honestly consider how much you know about the topic you're going to present. Hopefully, you'll be lucky enough to present on a topic you're an expert on. But if you do need to do some extra research to get more information on the topic, it's better to over prepare beforehand instead of looking silly during the presentation by giving inaccurate or insufficient information. And lastly you need to seriously consider how you feel about what you're going to present. Are you enthusiastic about it? If not, this will be hard to hide. It's better to alter or change the topic to one you're more passionate about so your enthusiasm can be felt by the audience. In addition to doing an audience analysis and making sure you're presenting on a topic that's interesting to you, you also need to think carefully about the circumstances at the presentation. For example, what kind of room will you be presenting in? Will there be enough seating for all your audience members? What kind of equipment will you need to use to present? Will there be any distractions in the rooms in terms of noise or visuals? Check the room or facility in advance. And be prepared for any potential problems well in advance, so you can adapt your presentation. Related to this is the issue of when you'll be presenting. Will it be early in the morning, in the middle of the day, or at the end of a busy day on a Friday. A presentation given at the end of the day, at the end of a busy work week will be much more active and entertaining than a presentation given in the beginning of the day, when people are fresh and rested. Also, think about any time constraints you've been given for your presentation. Even if you haven't been given a time limit, seriously consider how long it would be wise for you to speak without boring or alienating your audience. Next, after you've completed an analysis of the situation surrounding your presentation, you need to clearly identify and define what your goal is for this presentation. What do you want to accomplish? You need to recognize, focus on, and remember your goal throughout the process of preparing for and presenting your speech. The general goal behind your presentation will usually be one of three things. To inform your audience of something, to persuade them to do something as a result of your presentation, or to get your audience to just relax and be entertained. You need to recognize which of these goals you want to achieve in your presentation. So, deciding on the specific goal for your presentation, would mean deciding on what specifically you will have achieved if you attained this specific goal. One way to decide this is to ask yourself, who do you want to influence in your presentation? What do you want these people to think or do? And how, when and where do you want these people to do this? Trying to make a statement like this of your specific goals in a presentation will really make it much easier for you to create a presentation that achieves these things. Remember that thinking about and articulating the general and specific goals for your presentation is a way for you to be clear about what you really hope to accomplish. Most of you probably associate the phrase thesis statement with academic writing. But you also need to think about what your key idea or central idea is for a successful presentation. The thesis should be a short sentence that you can say to your audience to give them a clear idea of what you're trying to communicate to them in your presentation. An example of a thesis is something like investing in our new program will save you money in the long term. Or a project is now behind scheduled but we can work together and finish on time. A thesis is something you should be saying many times in a presentation, in the introduction, throughout the body and again in the conclusion. It really helps your audience to know what you're focusing on in your presentation. And once you've done all the work of analyzing the situation you will be presenting to and setting your goals and key ideas, it's time to organize and plan the content of your presentation. There's a three step method which we can use. This is a very effective basic way of organizing your presentation. First, in Step 1, you briefly tell the audience what you're going to see. Then in Step 2, you say what it is you're focusing on. You tell them. Then you briefly tell the audience what you have said, you review the information. This three step method can also be used within each main point in your presentation. For example, as you can see on this slide, you would begin each main point with a preview of the main idea for that point. Then you would give the body of the main point, and finally at the end you would review the main point or points you've covered to remind your audience. Once you finish this review of Main Point 1 you can move on to the preview of Main Point 2. And this really helps the audience to keep track of the information you're giving, as it's more organized. The preview and review sections of your presentation, whether they're in the introduction, in conclusion of the whole presentation, or in the beginning or ending of each main body point. There really very important. They really do help the audience to follow what you're saying and to help you fully utilize these important steps, here are a few phrases you should try to incorporate into each of these steps. Take a few minutes to think about how you could use these phrases to preview or review information in a presentation. All right, we have really covered quite a bit of information in this lecture. So let me briefly review. The key objective of this lecture was to help you successfully prepare for and plan a presentation. To do this, I've presented you with a plan to first analyze the situation you'll be presenting. Then I asked you to set both general and specific goals for yourself and the presentation before then thinking about what your thesis or main idea is so you could articulate it to your audience. Then I introduced you to a three step method of planning out the content of your presentation. Business people give an average of 26 different presentations a year. So if you want to progress in this field, it's important to be confident in your ability to prepare for and plan these presentations. After preparing and planning your presentation, practice the content until you know it. Also remember that everyone else in the room probably also feels nervous when they present. Especially in public. And usually, they're not your enemy and are much more supportive than you realize. So really practice and good luck in your future presentations.
