In some recent episodes we looked at how to open the presentation. Today we are going to look at designing the main body of our talk. The design process of our talks is counterintuitive. We always start with the end, then do the main body and then the opening last. The close defines the key message we want to impart to the audience. The opening breaks through all the competition for our audience’s attention. The main body is made up of the chapters of the talk. In a thirty minute to forty minute speech, we can probably get through three to five key points, to back up our key assertion. This is where we make our case, so it has to be well planned.
In the main body we need a lot of evidence. We will deal with evidence in much more detail next week. The key is to focus on the strongest supporting arguments to back up our key message. There will be many choices about how to make the main argument, but we have limited time, so only choose the strongest possible content. I support the Japan Market Expansion Competition (JMEC) here in Japan. I advise teams on how to write and present their business plans, in order to win the competition. Often, I notice that there are real gems, actual diamonds in their main body, but they are being trampled into the mud and you have trouble noticing or appreciating them. We have to identify our strongest points supporting our contention and then give that evidence pride of place, so that the listener gets the point immediately. We should never make the audience work hard to understand what we are saying. Audiences have decreasing levels of concentration, so we need to get the gems up the front, to hook the listener’s interest. This keeps them with us for the rest of the talk.
Like a good novel, the chapters need to logically flow one into each other. We have to make sure the audience can follow our line of reasoning. The way we navigate the story for the listeners is critical. Using stories to illustrate our points is a must. Dry statistics and facts are not enough. People won’t remember them, but they will remember a gripping story. Try to get people, places and seasons into the story, preferably those already known to the audience. Our objective is that the audience can picture the scene in their minds.
Remember, we are all being fed a steady diet of videos, films and novels where the power of the story is taken to the greatest heights. In the visual media, writers for these works are often crafting away in high powered teams and getting paid a lot of money to find ways of drawing us into the story and keeping us in their grip throughout. Then we occasional speakers turn up to give our little talk. We have to understand we are competing with the professionals and the audience is expecting us to be professional as well. If we cannot match their expectations, then our personal and professional brands are damaged.
The unveiling of the main body has to be well thought through. Each chapter needs a change of pace. It might be raising our energy or going the other direction and lowering the tension. It doesn't matter which way we go, but we cannot keep going at the same pace throughout the whole talk. We need variation to keep people with us. In sales, we talk about designing hooks to jag the interest of the buyer. Presenting is the same. We need hooks that will jag the interest of the audience and they will be wanting to know what comes next. This doesn’t happen by chance. We need to carefully design these hooks.
For example, we might start a chapter of the main body with a statement, “Losing ten million dollars was the best education I ever received in business”. Everyone hearing that wants to hear the rest of the story. What happened to you? Why did you lose the ten million? Why was it such a great education? What happened next? This is an example of a power hook. We need a series of these scattered throughout our chapters. If we can do that, then the main body will never be a drag on the attention of the audience. If we do it well, they will be on the edge of their seats, eager to find out what we are going to say next. If we don’t, the audience will be reaching for their phones, to escape to the siren call of the internet.
The main body does all of the heavy lifting to make our case. It is also the segment which occupies the majority of the time for the talk, so it must be crafted extremely well. Break it down into segments or chapters and pile on the evidence. Don’t just read out a bunch of dry data points. Get the data assembled into stories which will resonate with the audience. I once had to read the Australian Ambassador Ashton Calvert’s speech in Japanese, when I was Consul General in Osaka, as he couldn’t make the event. These types of speeches are prepared by Embassy staff for the Ambassador. It was a classic tale of trade statistics and no stories. I was giving this speech, thinking to myself, we could have done a lot more with this content to make it more engaging and grab the emotions of the audience. Departing from the script in that type of case would get you fired, so you have to do it word perfect. An opportunity gone begging, was my conclusion and a good lesson for me when preparing my own talks.
The main body has the advantage of following your grabber opening, so you have everyone’s attention. Don’t blow it. Keep the hooks coming in the chapters of the main body and keep the audience with you right through to the end.
