Present Beyond Measure

8Translate Your Content into a Persuasive Outline

“Without a solid foundation, you'll have trouble creating anything of value.”

—Erika Oppenheimer

This is a critical juncture in the conceptualization process. You've assessed your audience's needs, identified your core message, gathered supporting insights and put them in story format, and suited up your recommendations for action. It might be tempting to fire up PowerPoint, but I ask you to resist the urge to crank out a slide deck this early, and I'll tell you why.

There is another invisible force present in every memorable and successful presentation: a narrative structure. No, I'm not referring to the narrative arc from Chapter 5. They are different.

Whereas the arc shows the rising and falling of action and resolution within each story point and the overarching story as a whole, narrative structure organizes and arranges all the presentation's content into one cohesive and persuasive framework.

If you think of your presentation storyline, data points, and recommendations as a car's internal components (the engine, carburetor, fuel tank, and so on), the narrative structure is the chassis. A chassis is the vehicle frame that holds each component in its rightful place so the car doesn't embarrassingly fall to pieces when you pull out of the driveway.

Ideally, a narrative structure guides an audience through a message and story to arrive at a recommendation or request, which requires organization and influence. In my experience, ...