Every great presentation carries a foolproof presentation structure, and this is it . . .
Foolproof Presentation Structure to Win the Day
Whoa. Let me rephrase.
Your presentationought to have this framework, or you’re already in deep trouble. Here it is . . .
Beginning – Middle – End.
Every presentation, whether individual or group, should be organized according to this especially powerful presentation structure.
Don’t be deceived by its apparent simplicity. This is the source of its power.
Beginning . . . Middle . . . End
If you’re engaged in a group presentation, each segment of the show has this structure as well.
Your segment has this structure.
In fact, every member of a team has this same task – to deliver a portion of the presentation with a beginning, middle, and an end.
In other words, when you are the member of a 5-person team and you are presenting for, say, four minutes, during that four-minute span, you tell your story part that has a beginning, middle, and an end.
In the diagram below, each of the boxes represents a speaker on a five-person team delivering a group presentation. The first speaker delivers the beginning. The second, third, and fourth speakers deliver the middle.
The final speaker delivers the conclusion or the “end.”
Note that each speaker uses the same beginning-middle-end format in delivering his portion of the show.
Your foolproof presentation structure is simple and sturdy, smart and strong
This framework is not the only way you can build your presentation. You can be innovative, you can be daring, fresh, and new.
You can also fail miserably if you plunge into uncharted “innovative” territory just for a false sense of “variety” or “fresh ideas” or self-indulgence.
Sparkle and pop spring from the specifics of your message and from your keen, talented, and well-practiced delivery. Sparkle and pop do not spring from experimental structures and strange methods that swim against the tide of 2,500 years of experience that validate what works . . . and what fails.
Foolproof Presentation Structure
Beginning-middle-end is the most reliable and proven form, tested in the fires of history and victorious against all comers. I suggest you use it to build your presentation structure in the initial stages.
You may find that as you progress in your group discussions, you want to alter the structure to better suit your material.
Please do so.
But do so with careful thought and good reason. And always with the audience in mind and the task of communicating your main points concisely, cogently . . . and with über focus.
One way to think of your part of the presentation is material sandwiched between two bookends. You should Bookend your show.
This means to make your major point at the beginning and then to repeat that major point at the end. Hence, the term “Bookends.”
And in-between, you explain what your “book” is about.
Build your story within this foolproof presentation structure and you’re on your way to an especially powerful business presentation.
Have lunch with a colleague from a different discipline.
Time to Dabble . . . Just a Bit
How to give an interesting presentation? Expand your Context.
Dabble a bit in architecture, engineering, art, poetry, history, science.
We sometimes cloister ourselves in our discipline, our job, our tight little world. We forget that other fields offer insights.
For myself, while teaching in the LeBow College of Business‘s management department this semester, I sometimes sit in on a course sponsored by another college’s history Department “Grand Strategy.”
What a leavening experience: Thucydides, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Lincoln, and many others . . .
How does this help in preparing my own classes? In surprising ways. Linkages appear, and the dots begin to connect themselves.
That’s the beauty and potential of it.
I do know that it will enrich my store of knowledge so that my own presentations continue in 3-dimensional fashion, connected to the “real world” – textured, deeper, and richer than they otherwise would have been.
It will do the same for yours, and it can aid in your developing into an especially powerful presenter, imbued with professional presence.
For more on how to give interesting business presentations, click HERE.
Cicero was doubtless as good at business presentations as he was at arguing before the Roman Senate
Before computers.
Before television and radio.
Before the bullhorn and all of our multifarious artificial means of expanding the reach of our unaided voices, the public speaker stood tall and apart.
The public speaker. The Business Presenter.
The Business Presenter
From out of mists of time, of the earliest Greek history came the public speaker as especially powerful citizen of the state, a persuader, a doer, a person imbued with almost magical powers to sway the crowd . . .
From the time of Corax in the 5th century B.C., public speaking blossomed and developed into what was considered close to an art form.
Some did consider it art.
Public speaking – or the “presentation” – was the province of four groups of people: Preachers, Politicians, Lawyers, and Actors. The first to save your soul, the second to take your money, the third to save your life, the fourth to transport you to another time and place, if only for a short spell.
Other professions utilized the proven communication skills of presenting – carnival barker, vaudevillian, traveling snake oil salesmen.
These were not the earliest examples of America’s business presenters, but they surely were the last generation before modernity began to leech the vitality from public speaking.
Began to suck the life from “presenting.”
Skills of the Master Business Presenter
The skills necessary to these four professions were developed over centuries.
The ancient Greeks knew well the power of oratory and argument, the persuasive powers of words.
Socrates, one of the great orators of the 5th Century B.C. , was tried and sentenced to death for the power of his oratory, coupled with his unpopular ideas.
In our modern 21st century smugness, we likely think that long-dead practitioners of public speaking and of quaint “elocution” have nothing to teach us. We’ve adopted a wealth of technological firepower that purports to improve, embellish, amplify, exalt our presentation.
Yet the result has been something quite different.
Instead of sharpening our communication skills, multimedia packages have served to supplant them, providing barriers between speaker and audience. Each new advancement in technology creates another layer of insulation.
Seize every opportunity to deliver a powerful and persuasive business presentation, and you’ll find your personal competitive advantage increasing
Today’s presenters have grasped feverishly at the notion that PowerPointis the presentation. The idea is that PowerPoint has removed responsibility from you to be knowledgeable, interesting, concise, and clear.
The focus has shifted from the speaker to limp fireworks, and this has led to such a decline to the point where in extreme cases the attitude of the presenter is: “The presentation is up there on the slides . . . let’s all read them together.”
In many cases, this is exactly what happens.
The presenter pivots, shows us his back, and edges away from the stage to become a quasi-member of the audience.
PowerPoint and props are just tools. That’s all. You should be able to present without them.
When you can, finally, present without them, you can then use them to maximum advantage to amplify the superior communication skills you’ve developed.
In fact, many college students do present without PowerPoint every day outside of the university. Some of them give fabulous presentations.
Most give simply adequate presentations.
They deliver these presentations in the context of one of the most ubiquitous part-time jobs college students perform – waiter or waitress.
On the Job Business Presentation Training
For a waiter, every customer is an audience, every welcoming a show.
The smartest students recognize this as the opportunity to sharpen presentation skills useful in multiple venues, to differentiate and hone a personal persona, and to earn substantially more tips at the end of each presentation.
Many students in my classes do not recognize the fabulous opportunity they have as a waiter or waitress – they view it simply as a job, performed to a minimum standard.
Without even realizing it, they compete with a low-cost strategy rather than a differentiation strategy, and their tips show it.
The Waiter as Business Presenter
Instead of offering premium service and an experience that no other waiter or waitress offers, they give the standard functional service like everyone else.
As a waiter, ask yourself: “What special thing can I offer that my customers might be willing to pay more for?”
Your answer is obvious . . . you can offer a special and enjoyable experience for your customers.
In fact, you can make each visit to your restaurant memorable for your customers by delivering a show that sets you apart from others, that puts you in-demand.
I do not mean putting on a juggling act, or becoming a comedian, or intruding on your guests’ evening.
I do mean taking your job seriously, learning your temporary profession’s rules.
I mean crafting a presentation of your material that resonates with confidence, authenticity and sincerity, and then displaying enthusiasm for your material and an earnestness to communicate it in words and actions designed to make your audience feel comfortable and . . . heroic.
It means becoming an especially powerful business presenter.
The Hero in Your Audience
Yes, hero.
Every presentation – every story – has a hero and that hero is your audience. Evoke a sense of heroism in your customer, and you will win every time.
I’ve just described a quite specific workplace scenario where effective presenting can have an immediate reward. Every element necessary to successful presenting is present in a wait-staff restaurant situation.
The reverse is likewise true.
The Hero in Your Audience
The principles and techniques of delivering a powerful presentation in a restaurant and in a boardroom are not just similar – they are identical.
The venue is different, the audience is different, the relationships of those in the room might be different.
But the principles are the same.
So, back to the early practitioners of oratory and public speaking. Here is the paradox: a fabulous treasure can be had for anyone with the motivation to pluck these barely concealed gems from the ground, to sift the sediment of computerized gunk to find the gold . . . but few bend to pick them up.
Adopt the habits of the masters. Acquire the mannerisms and the power and versatility of the maestros who strode the stages, who argued in courtrooms, who declaimed in congress, and who bellowed from pulpits.
They and their secrets offer us the key to delivering especially powerful presentations.
