Preparing Your Presentation

Last month, we introduced you to the basics of public speaking. We offered tips and techniques on overcoming nervousness, dressing appropriately, and finding a comfort level with your audience.

Now that you know the ins and outs of how to be a more confident public speaker, it is time to learn how to structure your presentation so that you deliver appropriate content in an appropriate manner. You may have important information to convey, but unless you keep your presentation focused on the content and present it in the proper method, your message will be lost.

One of your first steps toward determining appropriate content and delivery is to determine the overall purpose of your presentation. Some of the main reasons to give a presentation are:

• to inform
• to educate
• to convince
• to inspire
• to entertain

As a facility manager, it is likely that your presentation will be focused on either informing, educating, or convincing. These three methods are among the easiest types of presentation to offer, because they are reality-based and driven by factual information.

Once you determine your presentation purpose, you must analyze the audience and the situation. Suppose, for example, you need to give an educational presentation to your staff regarding an upgraded piece of equipment scheduled for installation. Clearly, your audience will already have some level of familiarity with the topic, so you will not need to spend a lot of time on background and basics of the equipment. You will still want to have a brief introduction as part of your presentation, but you will be able to quickly move into the technical aspects of the upgrade, and you will be able to convey a lot of information in a shorter period of time.

Similarly, you may need to give a presentation to your tenants informing them of new security procedures. You will need to provide them with enough information so they fully understand what is required of them. At the same time, you don’t want to overload them with technical details that are important only to you and your facilities staff. Further, you want to avoid industry-specific terminology that tenants may not understand. For example, while you and your staff may refer to entrances and exits as ingresses and egresses, tenants may not know those terms. It’s best to use the words that are familiar to your audience.

Regardless of your audience, it is likely that you will need to take a broad topic and focus on one or two aspects. It is easy to get sidetracked and relay unnecessary information. The best way to avoid this is to organize your presentation into three main areas-opening, body, and conclusion. By creating an outline based on the following format, you can feel confident that you are offering appropriate content for your audience.

Opening

The opening of any presentation is designed to capture your audience’s attention and lead them into your topic. Depending on the topic and your audience’s level of familiarity with it, your opening can be brief or a bit more expansive.

Body

The body of the presentation is where you will convey your key information. You will present your main arguments and offer facts and figures to support your discussion. You can use effective visual aids to further emphasize or enhance your arguments.

Be sure to state your first point, and follow it up with a statement of fact and some material to support the fact. Once you have sufficiently justified your first point, you should then move on to your next, and so forth. The following outline format offers a general guideline to develop one point of a discussion to tenants on new security practices:

1. Building security has become a greater concern for property management (first point.)
   1. Thefts have increased (statement of fact)
      1. police reports (supporting material)
      2. list of specific items stolen from job site (supporting material)
   2. Building location next to a federal facility increases possibility of exposure to terrorist action
      1. damage to buildings in the area of Pentagon and Twin Towers (supporting material)

For your presentation to be effective, you must have credible facts and figures to back up your arguments. As much as possible, use actual data you have generated based on building information. The value of research from reliable sources cannot be overemphasized. While the Internet can be a useful tool, keep in mind that anyone with a home computer and a basic working knowledge of software packages can publish to the World Wide Web. If you choose to use facts and figures from online sources, be sure to verify the author. For example, you need to incorporate the latest statistics on the cost of cleaning products. You do some Web searching and come across a site with numbers that show a certain line of cleaning products is significantly lower than any comparable items. This seems like a solid resource. However, you look a little further and find that Web page is part of the lower-cost product manufacturer’s corporate Web site. Instead of finding reliable data, you’ve found a thinly veiled advertisement for cleaning products disguised in the form of a statistical presentation. You would do better to find reliable statistics by looking to associations that represent the cleaning products industry and work from there. The ease of Internet publishing has put new emphasis on the phrase “don’t believe everything you read.”

Conclusion

Your conclusion should be brief. It should summarize the points you have made throughout your speech, and issue any calls to action. You may also reemphasize any critical issues at this point. No matter what your subject may be, try to end your presentation on a high note. If you have presented “gloom and doom” information that will continue unless specific actions you recommend are taken, acknowledge the negativity, but be sure to point out that you have offered resolutions. The conclusion is also the time to open the discussion for questions.

By effectively organizing your thoughts, finding reliable documentation to support your arguments, and targeting your speech to your audience, you should feel confident that you are achieving your presentation goals. In combination with last month’s general tips on public speaking, you are well on your way to becoming a polished, professional public speaker!