How to Present, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 4Design your presentation

Now that you have analysed your audience and have understood the 4MAT System for structuring your message, it's time to design or write your presentation. As the Chinese philosopher Confucius said, ‘Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure'.

Please be careful not to misunderstand what is meant by ‘design' in this book. The design phase of a presentation is commonly misunderstood to be the creation of slides. In fact, while the design phase does include the creation of some slides, the essential component of the design phase is nothing to do with your slides. Design is where you work out what you are actually going to say when you present. It's the creation of what many people might call your script.

TIP

Michelle says,

‘Designing your presentation has very little to do with the slides you are creating; it's all about carefully selecting the right words to say to influence your audience to change their thinking and behaviour.'

How much do you actually enjoy preparing what you're going to say? When it comes to designing your presentation:

• Do you procrastinate? Do you find yourself unearthing every other possible job, no matter how small and insignificant, before sitting down to design your presentation script?
• Do you find the design phase of presenting unenjoyable, arduous and the least fun part of preparing your presentation?

If either of those sounds true for you, you will ...