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Presenting your Ideas

with IMPACT
Claire Doole
Helping people become compelling 58 articles Follow
communicators and storytellers

October 31, 2016

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Many of the people I coach in the art of powerful

presenting are highly intelligent and articulate. They are
medical doctors, academics, bankers and lawyers.

But they are not journalists, like myself. They often don't
have an innate sense of storytelling or they know too much
and struggle with getting the level of detail right.

This is where structuring your thoughts for maximum

impact comes into play. I recommend two ways to structure
your thoughts that will guarantee the audience is focused
on the key messages, and not on trying to decipher
meaning in a disorganized presentation.

IMPACT

All trainers love mnemonics - memory devices. Here is one

to help you structure a presentation.

Introduction - get the audience's attention with a bang and

make sure the benefits are clear.
Main messages - outline your purpose and your key
messages - what do you want the audience to take home
so that you achieve your purpose? Do you want to inspire,
sell, persuade or inform?

Points - what are your main points? How are you going to
structure them? Chronologically, most important to least
important, geographically or thematically? Remember to
support your points with facts, data and stories.

Associate - make sure your supporting examples are

relevant to your audience.

Conclude and recap - summarize and repeat your key

messages.

Take-away - finish with a bang. This can be a call to action -

what do you want your audience to do, feel or say as a
result of your presentation?

It follows the old adage - tell them what you are going to
tell them, tell them and then tell them what you have just
said. Believe me repetition in spoken communication helps
make your messages stick.

MINTO PYRAMID

All communication involves an element of persuasion.

Barbara Minto developed the pyramid principle in the
1960's. It is effective if you want to persuade someone with
an argument. It works well when writing or presenting
proposals or recommendations, making an elevator pitch or
responding to a busy executive's question.

You start with an introduction that takes your audience

through the following steps:

Situation - describe the situation so it is easy to

understand. This can be something that the audience
already knows or you know that they will agree with.

Complication - introduce the issue or issues that make the

situation problematic.

Question - ask the question that leads to the answer you

want to give in your proposal or recommendation. It can
also be the answer to the question the executive wants
answered such as "what should we do?"

Answer - this resolves the complication you identified.

The body of the presentation deals with the solutions you
are proposing. As you know, people rarely remember more
than three points so divide your solutions into three, and
for each ensure you have supporting information to make
your case.

At the end you can recap the solutions, your key messages
and either end with call to action or outline next steps.

As this is not a mnemonic, it will be easier to understand

visually.

Call to Action

As I said earlier, it is vital that you and your audience know

what you want them to do as a result of listening to your
presentation.

So, as a coach/trainer, who walks the talk, if you would like

to find out how to structure your thoughts clearly and
compellingly, please do get in touch.

In my next monthly blog, I shall be sharing tips on how to

use stories to get your message across.

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Claire Doole 58 Follow

Helping people become compelling communicators and storytellers
Published • 6y
articles

Do you struggle presenting your thoughts in a logical but compelling way? Here are
two models which will help you structure your ideas so that you hold your audience's
attention right to the end of your presentation#publicspeaking
#presentation#writing.

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Olatunbosun Adeniyi • 3rd+ 1y

 Collaborative team sets an achievable goal with respect to organizations
priority, they improve learning and leverage on constructive critics to deliver a
valuable product

excellent! insightful piece.

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Hamza Suharwardi • 2nd 6mo

Research Associate| Agile Methodologies| Compositional I Corrosion
Inspection| Formulated Ore Reduction| Optimized B.M for 75% Growth|
Streamline for SMEs.| Nanocomposite Research| Let's Discuss Your Materials
Sci Needs.

really a life savior article.

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Claire Doole
Helping people become compelling communicators and storytellers

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