Hi brandon artisan president of champion strategies with our ongoing public speaking workshop series happy labor day to you as we get ready to take this on for today, because you have things to do so.
What do you do when you’re asked to prepare a last-minute presentation or speak so if you’re invited to speak at work tomorrow? Here’s how to ace your talk even with little time to prepare now, don’t know if this ever happened to you.
But if you stay in the industry, it will happen to you, you’re at your desk, minding your own business.
When your boss, walks by or emails you and says hey, can you do me a favor? Some people are coming in tomorrow and i need you to present our new initiative.
Now we have this stress that can lead to pitfalls when it comes to preparing last minute for content or presentation.
Deadlines can be good for connecting the mind, but in this scenario, two things are likely to happen.
Next you’ll be up all night scrambling to create a new word track and or your boss will slide you a deck that somebody else prepared perhaps badly and you’ll be up all night figuring out how to deliver it.
In addition, you may also have to prepare for some tough q a so.
How can you manage this challenge and ace your last minute presentation, especially with so little time, to get ready? Well, let’s look at the big picture right now.
The easiest thing in the world would have to dive head first into your content, what you’re going to say how you’re going to present it? But successful presentations are not all about the content they’re about establishing a three-way relationship between the speaker, yourself, your audience, and what you’re going to share with what you’re going to tell them? What you’re going to explode? What you want to implant with them to take away! So here are a couple things to do before you jump into thinking about what you’re going to say, take a minute to think about the people you’ll be talking to jump start your last minute presentation by asking yourself.
Well, what’s the story, i want to tell this audience: is it about how you solve the technical problem? Is it about how you innovated and transformed the market? Is it about how everyone is going to benefit? Even an updated presentation tells a story about how well or how badly a project is going.
What do i want them to do differently as a result of my talk and what would motivate them to do it? That’s what we need to be thinking about now, once you do that, take a minute to think about yourself as the person who’s going to be speaking.
Ask yourself: how do i want the audience to view me? Do i want to be seen as smart, confident, helpful, open-minded also what aspects of this situation are likely to trigger anxiety or fear? Some of us feel more vulnerable around strangers or people with more status or better haircuts.
Will your feelings about the audience be an extra challenge shouldn’t be, but it might be second thing you need to be thinking about yourself.
Have i managed public speaking anxiety or fear in the past, it’s comforting to know in advance that if nerves is what you have to deal with, you have some tricks: some techniques up your sleeve for managing them.
So when you’re asked to speak last minute, don’t worry about the content too much worry about what you want to deliver that audience.
If your boss gives you something additional that you had no part in putting together, don’t stress over it, i would just go through the deck and see which slides i do need.
You might find yourself downsizing that deck, that your boss is giving you, but all in all smile, be yourself, have fun and remember, as always in parting, you go out and make it a champion day.
