Building a Presentation – Part IV
“Movement is the only way you have of affecting the world around you.”
- Daniel Wolpert
As you near the end of construction, whether it is a structure or a presentation, you will begin to add the parts that will breathe life and endless possibilities into your project. A house or an office building will seem cold without the walls being painted, the rugs, the lighting, the art work and the furniture. Just like in a presentation, without the finishing touches your talk will seem drab and colorless. When you add these to your finished piece a normal looking structure, or talk, will become a million-dollar work of art.
This is Part IV of my four-part blog on how to Build a Presentation. Find the first three at my website:
Chris Carlisle (thecoachcarlisle.com)
My first three parts are in the blog section of the website.
Building a Presentation — Chris Carlisle (thecoachcarlisle.com)
Building a Presentation – Part II — Chris Carlisle (thecoachcarlisle.com)
Building a Presentation – Part III — Chris Carlisle (thecoachcarlisle.com)
The last three parts are about:
Step 8: Finding a memorable way to close your presentation that will have a dual purpose. First, you want to finish in a way that will allow them to tie of the topic in a nice tight. Second, you need to let the audience know its okay to breathe again.
Step 9: Choreographing your talk. Static speakers put people to sleep. Speakers who move will take their audience through an experience.
Step 10: Using your voice and your body to make your talk come alive right in front of the audience.
Step 8: Building a Close:
The closing of a talk is the easiest to do, hence it is the last part of the presentation body to be spoken about. As I wrote in Step 7, the introduction comes in after you have your stories, examples and the transitions set up. Once you have completed your “show” you want to close the presentation by briefly reminding the audience of the highlights of the talk.
This is done by using a one or two words to restate each of your steps, so that the audience will see the big picture. Closings are one to three minutes at most. If you did your job in the body of your talk you can neatly put a bow on your presentation. This will allow you to finish to a rousing round of applause.
In the closing you can:
· Restate your topic (thesis).
· Quickly list off the focal points of the talk.
· Lead them to your website and your book to learn more.
· Thank whomever you need to thank.
· And walk off the stage to a standing ovation.
If there is to be a Question-and-Answer period, there needs to be a time limit. This will depend on if the event is running behind or on time. If they have given you 15-minutes for Q&A and you look at the event organizer and they are saying “Hurry up”, tell the audience you have time for one or two questions. If they are telling you to stretch it out, maybe the next speaker is not ready to speak, then calmly open the floor for questions.
When I am closing a show and I have a few minutes for questions and I’ve done my job, there might not be any hands raised. If this happens, I will remind the audience that I am the “King of Stupid Questions”, that one question might answer 10 more questions. Usually, I will get a brave soul to ask a question. At this point you are trying to help an event organizer not have any dead time. They will remember this and will call the next time they have a need for a speaker. Make an event planner look bad, you might not speak for a long time, that profession is very connected.
Dependent on the time you have will also shape your answers. If you have time for one or two questions make your answers short. Make sure you reference your webpage or your book to learn more on a subject if you are short on time.
Step 9: Choreography: Movement
I hate standing behind a podium. I want to move and speak “to” the audience, not “at” them.
The difference between TO and AT is simple. When you speak TO the audience you are having a conversation with them. Walking around the stage speaking to each section of the audience. Being able to answer questions when hands go up makes the whole event much more inviting.
When you stand behind a podium you are speaking AT the audience. It is more formal. There isn’t a way to become one with the audience. There is you – “hiding” behind the podium – and there they are – sitting and waiting for you to finish so they can either eat, move to their next session or leave.
When you know your talk, you will know how to move around a stage. This will all be completed during your rehearsals. If you have a timeline in your talk, you can walk them across the stage as you move through your timeline. The earliest period is on the left and the present is in the middle and future is on your right as you face the audience. When you have a reference of time on the stage you won’t need to remind them where you are at in your life. They will remember.
If your talk is made up to emphasize three ideas, you can split the stage in thirds to make each point. Again, start on the left front of the stage and make your first point. Move to the middle front of the stage to make the second point and then to the right front part of the stage to make your third point.
Use the middle of the middle of the stage as your home base. If you use the same spot as your second point it can confuse your audience. So, have a home spot, where you start your talk, make your transitions and then close your talk.
The stage is not only lateral it is linear. By lateral you can move side to side as you speak. When it is linear you can move forward and backwards. When you want them to feel you, you can move to the front of the stage. When you are building transitions, you can stay in the middle. But at no time do you just anchor your feet and speak.
Movement brings a flow to your talk. When your movement has reason. The one thing you can’t do is to wander aimlessly from one side to the other. This can become distracting. Make sure when you move you are either taking the audience from one point to another or you are moving towards or away from them to make a point.
Step 10: The Heart: Vocal and Body Infections
Not only do your feet help tell your stories and make your points but your hands, face, body and voice will bring emphasis to whatever you are saying.
Watch a great comedian. Many of them are laughing during their routine. They make it sound like they are just thinking this stuff up. What they are doing is priming you for your response. It’s like the old “rim-shot” that emphasized the joke of a stand-up comedian. Now they use their bodies, their hands and their voices to carry the joke.
Sebastian Maniscalco uses his EVERYTHING to bring his humor to the stage. His body, his voice, his legs, and the kitchen sink. To me this makes him funnier. If another comedian told the same jokes, and stood in the middle of the stage, the jokes and stories wouldn’t be nearly as funny.
Country music star Kenny Chesney uses the entire stage, plus scaffold, ramps, rope ladders and anything at his disposal to turn his concert into a show. He could stand in the middle of the stage and hide behind the microphone stand and talk to his band, but this isn’t a show. It’s like watching a human juke box. The music might be great, but the show will bring you back.
When you use your body to help tell the story it brings your audience with you on your journey. As you move and gesture and change your tones of your voice you give the listener something else to focus on.
On the other hand, if you stand in one spot, gripping the sides of the podium like it was going to fly away and speak in a monotone voice, you will lose your audience, no matter how good your message is.
Before I end this discussion, I want to warn you that your movements, gestures and tones must be natural.
I just watched a talk be a major politician. Her movements were robotic and over emphasized. Her movements did not draw you in, they actually worked against her. The hand gestures seemed like someone was in her ear reminding her to lift “show strength” or “make that a definite ‘no’”. I was so focused on her movements that I kept looking for the strings that the puppet master was using to manipulate her, that I couldn’t tell you what she was saying.
Be natural in your movements and have fun when you have an opportunity to present a topic.
Moving On
The other day I was speaking to a potential client and they said that they had never paid this much to have a speaker do a talk to their company.
I understood this completely. It seems like a lot of money for the time I am working with the audience. What they fail to consider is the time that they don’t see. It is the three to four months of preparation, that goes into putting a presentation together, out of the view of the client, that makes the talk possible.
Each step along this path from working with the client to get a feel for what they are looking for, to developing a storyline, weaving the examples into the story, building the bridges of transitions and of the other parts of the talk take time and effort.
Great talks don’t just fall out of the sky. They are built from the ground up in order fit the client’s needs.
Have an amazing day!
