After spending hours digging deep and doing research, you’ve finally chosen a topic for a public speaking engagement you were invited to.
Having found your subject, you feel an incredible amount of excitement since you’ll be speaking in front of an audience who is interested in what you have to say.
Since you’re filled with so much passion, you start mapping out your talk, thinking about the core themes and the various subtopics you’ll cover.
You even think about how you’ll start and close your talk, and how you’ll present yourself to your audience.
A day or two passes by and you finally have a rough outline of your talk… and in that outline you have a long list of topics you think your audience will want to hear about.
… but wait. At this point, you have to pause and allow yourself to slow down.
Why?
If you don’t slow down, you might end up creating a talk that can overwhelm your audience!
Image from Creating Impact
You see, once you’ve settled on a topic and decided on what your major focus will be, you need to identify what you will cover and work within those limits.
Trying to cover every aspect of a topic is a mistake that will lead to a bloated talk.
We get it. In our eagerness to present, there’s a temptation to leave nothing out of a planned talk.
However, an audience can only absorb so much before tuning out completely due to information overload. So, as a speaker, you have to limit the scope of your subject to avoid this from happening.
Another benefit of limiting your scope is you’ll be able to create a well-paced presentation where it will be easier for your audience to understand and digest the information you’re feeding them.
Then, once you’ve narrowed down your scope, what should you do next?
According to Dale Carnegie, author of the book, “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking,” you should ask yourself the following questions to deepen your understanding of your topic and build your authority on the topic you’ve chosen:
- “Why do I believe this?
- “When did I ever see this point exemplified in real life?”
- “What precisely am I trying to prove?”
- “Exactly how did it happen?”
Carnegie says these questions call for answers that will enable you to build your authority as a speaker and craft a talk that makes “people sit up and take notice.”
As an added benefit, these questions would be of great help in narrowing down your topic since they require you to dig deep and focus on what you really need to discuss during your talk.
—
You see, it can be tempting to fill your talk with so many details especially when it’s about a topic you’re deeply passionate about.
However, you don’t always have to fill your discussion to the brim to deliver a killer talk.
Most of the time, a presentation that’s limited in scope is more than enough to leave a mark on your listeners.
Should you encounter a situation where you’re struggling with what to include and exclude in your talk, you shouldn’t be afraid.
Why?
All you need to do is to take a pause and remember the insights we shared with you.
… and once you do, you’ll be able to find out what you really need to discuss to your listeners!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Thursdays: Speak on the Shoulders of Giants”
In a meeting with one person…
… a boardroom with five people…
… or a huge venue with hundreds of people…
—whatever the situation or setting, it’s very important to learn and eventually master the art of public speaking.
No matter what, you always need to effectively get your message across.
What good is a presentation with awesome content if you don’t deliver it properly?
Every Thursday, we publish different tips, insights, and secrets on how you can improve your presentation skills to captivate your audience and lead interesting discussions.
The need for great presentation skills applies EVERYWHERE.
(Small meetings with your team, big meetings with your boss, an important marketing pitch, speaking engagements for events with a big audience, etc.)
Learning these skills is not just for the corporate world. Being in other industries such as the Arts, Information Technology, Medicine, and Education while knowing how to communicate and present well will definitely give you an edge.
Have that advantage.
Hope you find this week’s public speaking tip interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Thursday’s “Speak on the Shoulders of Giants!”
Cheers,
Henry Desai
Managing Director
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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