How To Create Great Content For Your Public Speaking Event

THE CONTENT

Your audience will influence what you are presenting and how you are presenting it. The first thing (after knowing your objective and audience) is to get your content together. I suggest you create a bullet point list, mind map, use post it notes or whatever works for you, listing all the things you need to cover. Then put them in a logical order. How can you put them into sections? What headings can you use to make it clear what you are talking about?

Next, you can create the slides with the headings and start filling them up with content using bullet points (see next section about the ‘Right mix’).

Some people need to write out every sentence that they will say. If you want to do that, now would be a good time. Write out your script in a document and match it to the slides or use the notes section in your presentation software.

Now you have your content, you can start designing your slides (see also next section). What do you want on each slide? What images can you use? How much information do you want on the slides? Tip: You don’t have to have everything on the slides that you are saying, but you should say everything that is on the slides.

Your presentation is ready and you have your script. Get rehearsing! Think about if you need notes? How will you print the notes, what font size are they etc.?

THE RIGHT MIX

We go more into this in the next step but everyone has a preferred way of taking in information. That might be visual, auditory (hearing) or kinaesthetic (touching). As you most likely don’t know everyone’s preferred way or you have a mixed audience, ensure you are talking to all of these. Use the right mix. This means using bullet points/text, images, sounds and maybe something that they can touch/look at/do. It will make your presentation more interesting as well.

If you want to learn more about how to become a better presenter and get into public speaking, check out my book ‘The Public Speaking Formula’.