Have you ever been listening to a talk, speech or presentation when about half way through you begin to think to yourself “What on earth is this person trying to tell me?” I know I have and it’s infuriating. Sitting through any talk where the presenter isn’t clear what they are trying to say is painful.
Last week we had the first of a series of four discussion groups on presentation skills at the University of Hong Kong. (See Master-Speaking.Com for more details.) The one thing that came out of our discussion again and again was the need to have a clearly defined objective for a presentation.
Audiences will typically forget 95% of any presentation. In order to make an impact you must state clearly what the one or two things are that you want the audience to take with them at the end of the session.
If this is stated right at the beginning of the talk and then again at the end (and if the rest of your talk is used to back up your objective) chances are the 5% that your audience remembers will be the 5% you want them to!
Not only that but having a clearly defined objective will also prove to streamline the rest of your talk. Once you have your objective, everything in your presentation should be used to reinforce that objective. If it doesn’t do that then it probably shouldn’t be included.
Define your objective, don’t leave your audience to question what you are talking about.