I recently delivered a talk at Nedbank’s retail and franchise seminar entitled “ 4 Habits To Build Your Business.” A number of attendees’ approached me thereafter to ask if I could provide any guidance on how to deliver persuasive presentations, and I am happy to now share some of my best pointers on the topic.
Here are some insights that I shared with a group of business owners during the meeting:
If you are uncertain of how to structure your message, try this simple but effective format
Inform the audience of the status quo;
- Explain what has changed, and what the reasons for the change were.
- Explain how things might look in the future, whilst expanding on the most likely scenarios.
- Finally, inform them what they can do about it.
You can refine this framework with your own insights, or with what’s relevant to your own industry or scenario. I suggest you add your own stories and examples to make it come alive.
This simple structure is the core of all thought-leadership presentations and will serve you well. What makes this routine effective is that it encourages the presenter to speak with an Audience-Interest adaptation. You become the mentor; the audience becomes the mentee.
It’s simple and easy to remember, and you can apply it in a broad range of persuasion scenarios.