Prepare for your public speaking emergency

Speaking
Written By Liam Sandford
Prepare your 'event of a lifetime' with no time

You have little time, a presentation to deliver, and you have negative experiences with public speaking. I recently took on a coaching client who presented this situation to me. ‘In 20 days I have the event of my life’ and the task was to get them ready to deliver at their best.

It got me thinking of countless presentations where I ran out of time to prepare or I actively avoided preparing because it was hard and I didn’t want to deliver the presentation. Sound familiar? This situation is more common that it first sounds.

Although learning to speak effortlessly is a long term process, there are some short term things you can (and should) be doing to prepare for your ‘event of a lifetime’ even if you hate public speaking or don’t feel like you are any good at it. This should not be a substitute for building the foundations of a good public speaker but it will help get you over the line when you need it most.

Deliver on the audience promise

Everything in your presentation should be about the audience, not you. This shift begins with ensuring you deliver the thing that you promised you would give them. Sometimes that can be as little as finishing on time. Often it will be delivering the key messages.

Stand in the shoes of your audience. Think about what they want and how they want to receive it. If you were sitting in your audience how would you like it to be presented?

It is easy as the speaker to get caught in the preparation, but it should all be about the audience. Bad speakers make it about themselves, great speakers make it about the audience.

Simple preparation, simple delivery

Simple and systematic is how you should prepare. And when I say prepare I don’t mean just put some slides together. I mean preparing what you are going to say, when, and delivering in an engaging way. With a short period of time before you deliver you might already know your main points. For every point you should know:

  • How you will open

  • The main point (if you can’t deliver in one sentence it is not clear enough)

  • A story that helps the audience remember your main point

  • How you will transition to the next point/close

When you keep your preparation simple you are making it easier for yourself to remember your main points and transitions that will help take your audience on a journey. Always aim for simple over complex.

When you prepare, always focus on the hard bits first. It is easy to focus on what you already know and ignore the bits you are unsure on. The challenging bits are where you need to spend time. Prioritize what you don’t know before going over and over what you do know.

Recent reps

This is the essential piece of the puzzle that helps you deliver at your best every time. You need real public speaking reps in the bank that you can easily recall. Confidence is success remembered.

The more recent your rep is, the easier it is to recall. That recall = the level of confidence you have to deliver.

Important to note: this is not a recent rep of practicing your presentation but a recent public speaking rep. Join a Twitter Space, use the nano speech to ask for directions, get used to being on camera (if your presentation is virtual) — speaking is everywhere so there is no excuse not to deliver at your best every time.

If you have 2 weeks until the big event, aim to speak in public every day for just 5 minutes. Using the open, body, close structure you will start naturally using the structure of your presentation. When you come to deliver you will have 2 weeks worth of successful reps in your back pocket to call upon.

Actionable takeaways

  • Always identify and put necessary steps in place to deliver on the audience promise. Be specific in what that promise is.

  • Keep your preparation simple and your delivery will be simple. This makes it easier for you to deliver and easier for your audience to understand.

  • Start preparation with the hardest parts, not the bits you know. Don’t avoid some bits because they are hard — this will create more discomfort when speaking in public.

  • Get recent reps behind you. Use the 2 weeks before to get short 5 minute public speaking reps in to ensure you walk into your presentation as ready as you can be to deliver.

More from me

Liam Sandford
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