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- Your listeners want you to be organized,
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really organized, because
they want to remember
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what you said and be able to walk away
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with something useful after
you're done presenting.
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So, let's talk about how
to organize a presentation,
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intro, body, conclusion,
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and all the component parts, coming up.
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(bright music)
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Hello friends, my name is Alex Lyon,
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and Communication Coach
is here to help you
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increase your impact to lead your teams
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to higher levels of excellence.
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Presentation skills are one of those
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got to have leadership skills.
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Most leaders learn how to present well
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because it's part of their job.
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You're gonna be doing it all the time,
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and one of the best things you can do
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is come in with a really clear structure,
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so that everybody can
follow what you're saying.
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So, we're gonna talk about
the introduction, the body,
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and the conclusion, and
all the parts that you need
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in those three parts.
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So, the first section
is your introduction,
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and this is only gonna be about
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five to 10% of the time that you devote
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to your entire presentation.
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So, let's just assume a
10 minute presentation,
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you are going to be
doing your introduction
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for about a minute, not much longer.
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You want to keep this concise.
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Most of your time is gonna come out
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in the body of the presentation,
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and your introduction needs to do a couple
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of important things.
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It needs to, first of
all, follow what I call
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a funnel philosophy,
where you start general
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and you narrow down to the specific issues
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that you're going to be talking
about in your presentation
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that day, and your introduction
following that funnel
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should have five main parts.
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First, you grab your audience's attention.
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Second, you establish why
your topic is relevant
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for those particular listeners.
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Sometimes I call this the
audience benefit statement.
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Third, you want to establish
your personal credibility.
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You talk about your
experience on this topic,
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talk about any research,
and how you first became
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interested in it, and by
the way, if you're being
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introduced before you speak,
if it's one of those occasions,
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make sure that the person
introducing you has
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all that information and
then you don't have to do it
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in your presentation in the introduction.
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You can just move forward.
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But that's the third part.
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If you're not introduced,
you have to establish
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why you're the person
there talking about it.
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What's your connection to the topic?
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Fourth, give your thesis statement.
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We call it a thesis statement in college
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and academic settings.
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In business you might
call it your main point,
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or your central idea, your bottom line,
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and then the fifth part
of your introduction is
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your brief preview statement.
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This is where you give
a very concise road map
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of the main points to come,
and it has to be concise.
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You don't want to get
into any detail here,
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because it's gonna sound like you
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just started your presentation.
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So, you want to pare it
down to single words,
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or really brief phrases with
a little pause in between
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each of those main points.
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So, let's say you have three main points.
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You say, I'm gonna talk
about one, two, three.
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Talk about tents, backpacks,
sleeping bags, really concise.
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Now, a couple of other
tips on your introduction.
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You want to avoid any kind
of chatter beforehand.
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So, let's say you're being introduced,
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or you're just about to start.
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The first thing out of
your mouth should be
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that attention grabber.
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You don't want to fill
up with, oh, where's my,
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is my technology working?
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Oh, where did I put that stuff?
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Or, oh, yeah, yeah, and
don't, nothing that distracts
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from your attention getter.
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So, as soon as, the first
thing out of your mouth
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you start with that nice
quotation, that crisp story
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that you were gonna tell.
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You ask your rhetorical questions.
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You go right into the content,
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and a little bit of showmanship here.
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You don't want to be messing around
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with anything that distracts from that.
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You also don't want to
re-introduce yourself.
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Most people are gonna know who you are
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and you don't want to say like they said,
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my name is Alex Lyon.
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Skip over all that.
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If you need to introduce
yourself, or re-introduce yourself
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you can always establish
that in that third point
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in that funnel which
is where you're talking
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about your personal
relevance to the topic.
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So, you don't want to do any
of these distracting things.
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You don't want to be long-winded.
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Really stick to your time there,
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so you're only speaking for about a minute
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or about 10% of a 10 minute presentation.
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Let's now talk about the body.
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(rock music)
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You just finished your
introduction, and now you're about
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to go into the body of the presentation.
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By the way, once you
preview in your introduction
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the main points in the
body of the presentation
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you've got to go to your first main point.
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There should be no kind
of filler in between
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your intro and your body.
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You have to go right to it.
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It's gonna be very
confusing for your listeners
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if you preview your main
points and then you do
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anything other than go
to that first main point.
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So, the body of the
presentation will take up
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about 85% of your time.
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Again, assuming a 10 minute presentation,
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you're gonna be speaking for
about eight minutes or so
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in the body of that presentation.
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All the details come out here.
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So, you have to have
really clear main points
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in the body of a presentation.
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You have to.
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If you just ramble, people
are not gonna follow you
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very well, and also you don't
wanna have 10 main points.
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I would say you need
three or so main points,
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and you have to work hard sometimes
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to get it down to three, to
organize it in such a way
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that you end up with three,
but if you have more than that,
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people are gonna have a
hard time following you.
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You don't want to see a presentation
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with 10 main points, right?
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You're not gonna remember anything.
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That's why phone numbers
are grouped in threes
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and fours that are much easier to remember
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than a long string of numbers.
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People remember things in chunks,
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and a chunk of three is just about right
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for a presentation.
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So you have to have clear main points.
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The next tip is you also want to signal
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that you're talking
about those main points.
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So, you want to say first, second, third,
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when you get to those main points.
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A lot of times people go, oh,
you really have to say that?
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Well, you certainly have to say something.
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I talked in another video
about transition statements.
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Maybe your points spell out an acronym,
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a word or something like that,
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and that's okay, you can do that.
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But otherwise, you wanna
say first, second, third,
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so that everybody's really
clear on what you're saying,
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and if they lose track then
every time you remind them
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of that main point they
can get back on track.
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Other people say, well, do you have
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to say first, second, and third?
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Can't you say something else
like first, next, finally?
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Yes, you can, however, I have noticed that
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when people use first, next, finally
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when they say the word
finally it sometimes
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makes people think you're
on your conclusion.
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So, there's a little
bit of confusion there.
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So, I just say first, second, third,
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if I don't have a better way to say it.
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Now, in your body this is
where you're going to have
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to figure out how you organize
your main points logically.
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You have to have some
organizational pattern
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that makes sense to listeners.
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So, if you're doing a
persuasive presentation,
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you're going to do probably
problem, solution, benefit.
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That's the classic one,
two, three main point
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for our persuasive presentation.
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We're not gonna unpack
all of that right now.
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I'll make a separate video about that,
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'cause it's a whole other topic.
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But you could do that if it's persuasive.
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Another way to do it is chronological.
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Sometimes people call it sequential,
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where you have first step,
second step, third step.
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Let's say you're teaching
somebody how to do something
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and there are a few steps to it.
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That's just chronological.
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You start at the
beginning, then the middle,
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and then the end.
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You might have spatial.
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This is not typical, but
let's say you're talking about
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I used to live on the East
Coast and then I'm gonna talk
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about when I lived on the West Coast,
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and now I'll talk about
when I lived in the South.
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That's spatial arrangement,
and sometimes topics
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make sense to do that way.
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Other times, you might have,
let's say you're talking
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about something medical,
and the common way to do
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things in the medical
world is to talk about
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the causes, the symptoms,
and the treatments.
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That's a natural way to
think about illnesses
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and disease and your physicians will often
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talk to you that way.
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You may not be realizing it,
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but that's what they have been doing.
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So, there's lots of ways to organize,
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and if it doesn't fit any of the ways
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that we're highlighting
here, you're gonna have
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to go into what's called the topical style
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of organizing your main
points, and I'll make
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a whole other video on this
to dig down deeper into it,
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'cause it's not the easiest thing to do.
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But in short, you have
to look at your topic
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and figure out some logical
way that makes sense
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for that particular topic.
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If it doesn't fit the
chronological, so forth,
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you have to still figure
out a way that people
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are gonna listen to it and it makes sense.
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So, let's say you're
talking about camping.
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I love camping.
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I talk about it in a few different videos.
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You might talk about sleeping in a tent.
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You might talk about sleeping bag,
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and then the other cooking gear.
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So, tent, bag, cooking gear.
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Or if you have a fourth main point,
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maybe you'd talk about your backpack.
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So, you have different types
of gear that you're getting at,
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and that's a logical way to do it,
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but it's by the topic.
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And so, every topic is
gonna be a little different.
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If you're talking about
different styles of martial arts,
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you might talk about striking styles
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which are more like punching and kicking.
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You might talk about
ground fighting styles,
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which are like grappling
and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
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You might talk about more acrobatic styles
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that involve flips and things.
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So, those are different topics.
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They're not chronological.
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They're not problem, solution, benefit.
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They're just topics.
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So again, I'm gonna
make a whole other video
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and I'll put all the
links to all the videos
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I'm talking about in that section below,
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so you could follow up.
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But that's one of the ways
you might have to do it.
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So, you've got your main points organized
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in some logical way.
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The next thing you need
is supporting details.
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So, if 85% of your
presentation is in the body,
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what are you gonna be saying?
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This is where your examples come out,
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your data, your statistics, your stories,
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any kind of quotations or testimony that
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you're bringing in from
people to build your case.
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This is where you, this
is where essentially
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the bulk of your presentation comes out.
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All of the information rich
content that you want to share
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comes out in the body.
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Typically you don't put a
whole lot of new information
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in the intro and the conclusion.
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That's just setting up and
finishing your presentation,
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and by the way, I have a
whole other section that
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drills down just into how to
open and close a presentation.
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There's not a lot of new things happening.
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If 85% of the time you're
talking about the body,
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then that's where most of
your information comes out.
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And the last thing you need
is clear transition statements
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between your main points.
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People have to know when
you're done talking about A
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and you're moving on to B.
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You've got to, and the longer
your presentation gets,
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the more important these are.
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Again, a whole other video
in that section below.
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So, check out those transition statements
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to add a little bit more style to it,
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but make sure they're super clear.
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So, that's how to talk through
the body of a presentation,
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and speaking of transitions,
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let's transition to the conclusion.
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(rock music)
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So, you've done your introduction,
you've done the body,
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and now you're into your conclusion.
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Your conclusion is the
last five, maybe 10%
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of your presentation.
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Do not drag out the conclusion.
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Once you are done, close it
down, and here's how you do it.
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Here are the parts.
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You have to signal the end.
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You have to.
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You have to say in conclusion,
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in closing, in summary, something.
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I don't know why people don't
want to say these things.
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Perhaps it sounds too
typical, but you must come up
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with some clear way to
tap those brake lights
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and let people know you're
coming in for a landing.
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They want to know that you're ending,
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because if they missed it in the intro
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and they missed it in the body
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now's their last change to get it.
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It really puts people
at ease when they know
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you're going to finish.
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So, even though this is
a short little phrase,
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in conclusion, it really stands out,
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in closing, that stands out.
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You want to tap the brake
lights verbally for people.
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The next thing you wanna do is reinforce
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your central idea, your thesis.
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Restate it in a concise way,
really make it stand out.
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This is their last chance to hear it.
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You can also, if it makes
sense for the body points
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of your presentation,
recap those main points.
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Sometimes you don't need to.
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It's already pretty well
captured in the thesis statement,
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but if your topic lends itself to this,
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and would benefit from it,
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very briefly recap your main points.
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Don't drag it out.
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The fourth part is a call to action.
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If you're doing a presentation
that's persuasive in nature,
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this is really important,
not quite as important
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as an informative presentation,
but it's really important
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in a persuasive presentation where
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you're calling people to action.
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You want them to sign that petition.
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You want them to donate money.
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You want them to commit a
certain action in the workplace.
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Whatever your call to action
is, this is where it goes,
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and you have to be really
clear and ask them directly
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for what they, you want
them to do right there.
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They're probably not gonna get a hint
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if you just beat around the bush.
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Now, the very last thing
you do is sometimes called
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a clincher, that's what I call it.
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This is where you actually
close the presentation.
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It's the last thing you
do, and you want to echo
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the attention getter that you did,
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the attention grabber in the introduction.
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So, if you started with a quotation,
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then you can bring that
quotation back around,
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and remind us of it, and wrap it up.
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If you started with a story
maybe finish the story
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right there in that clincher.
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If you started with some illustration,
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bring that illustration back around.
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You want to add those nice bookends.
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I talk about this in a whole other video
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about how to open and close.
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Very psychologically
satisfying for listeners
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to hear things come full circle.
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Now, once you're done with your clincher,
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you finish with that great
quotation, now you have
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to zip your mouth, smile,
nod and say thank you,
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pause for two seconds, and then walk off.
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Time and time again I
have seen speakers do
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a great presentation but they
don't know how to end it.
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They do their conclusion,
but they haven't practiced
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the actual moment where
they close their mouth.
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So, the universal signs
for I'm done presenting,
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now it's time to clap, if that
makes sense for your context,
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is you close your mouth,
you say thank you,
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and you nod, wait two
seconds, and you walk off.
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All right, you're all done.
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That's how you do it.
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So, those are the three major sections
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and how to organize a presentation,
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your intro, body, conclusion.
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There are very important
component parts in each of them.
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I highly recommend you review these steps
00:13:50
if you're putting together a presentation.
00:13:52
If you have a 10 minute
presentation, you need all of these.
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If you have a one or
two minute presentation,
00:13:57
you can slim it down and
pare it down to the basics.
00:14:00
So, question of the
day, what are your tips
00:14:02
for organizing a presentation?
00:14:04
I would love to hear your
comments in that section below.
00:14:06
Until then, thanks, God bless,
00:14:08
and I hope your next
presentation goes awesome.