At some point in your career, you’re going to have to give a presentation. You may be asked to speak before your boss, a safety committee at work or a civic organization. Whatever group it is, you need to be prepared. Let me share with you a few tips and techniques to help you do that.

Now when I say presentation, I’m talking about a prepared speech. Development of a safety training program would follow many of these same steps, but the time necessary would be much longer. I’ll show you how to do that in another article. But first, let’s cover the presentation basics.

5 Key Questions to Ask Before the Presentation

You’ve been asked – or told – to make a presentation. What to do? Well, first you need some information. Ask the person who’s requested the presentation these five questions:

1. What is the date and time?
2. Where will this presentation take place?
3. How big an audience is expected?
4. Who will be in the audience?
5. How much time will I have to speak?

Let’s look at why the answers to these questions are important.

1. What is the date and time? Naturally, you want to make sure that there are no conflicts with other appointments in your calendar. You also want to ensure that you’ll have enough time to put the presentation together.

The time needed to prepare your presentation really depends on your subject, how well you know your subject and how much time is allowed for your presentation.

For example, if I asked you to talk for four or five minutes about something from your childhood or high school days, you could probably do it without too much hesitation. If, on the other hand, I asked you to explain a complex scientific theory, you would have to do a lot of research, interview some people, put it into a format so you could explain it to your audience and be prepared to answer questions about it!

If you give presentations frequently, then it might only be a matter of a few minutes for you to revise one of your previous presentations, review it and be ready to speak.

A beginning presenter, however, should ask for as much time to prepare as possible. Once you get comfortable with making presentations, you’ll be better able to estimate how much lead time you need.

2. Where will this presentation take place? You’ll want to know what type of “arena” your presentation will take place in. Will you be on a grand stage, a raised platform or in the middle of your audience? Each venue requires different actions on your part.

Being on a grand stage implies that you’ll be making a formal presentation, while being on a raised platform could be either formal or informal. Presenting in the middle of your audience is an informal type of presentation because you’re close to your audience – it’s almost like talking one-on-one to the person in the second row and then to the person in the fourth row.

3. How big an audience is expected? If you’ll be making a presentation at work to a group of 5-20 people that’s one thing, but if you have several hundred people at a civic or association meeting, that’s something else.

With a smaller group, you can be less formal. If you’re using graphics, you can be detailed. On the other hand, if you have a large audience, you need to consider how well your images will be understood by those in the back row. Knowing where the presentation will take place and how big an audience you expect will help when you design your visuals.

Let me tell you a true story.

I was scheduled to make a presentation to the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida’s Convention Center in 2000. The week before the conference, I called ASSE and asked how many people registered for my session. I was told 600. I was flabbergasted! My presentation was scheduled for Rooms A, B, C, D and E.

Fortunately, my presentation was the first session of the day, so I was able to get to the rooms about two hours ahead of time. After setting up my computer and props, I did a dry run of my presentation. Using a remote control, I sat in the last row in Room E. My visuals were too small to be seen. I was also going to use some props – they were also too small to be seen.

I quickly had to revise my presentation, cutting some of my slides in half so that I could increase the font size and raise everything up to the top half of the screen to be seen by those in the back rows. (We’ll talk more about visuals in later articles.)

My presentation went off without a hitch and the evaluations confirmed that.

Conclusion

One presenter I know says that he likes to get to his presentation venue early. He looks around, picturing all of the seats filled and imagines himself giving his presentation. This visualization helps him to improve his “performance” and to work though any imagined obstacles. Next week, we’ll look at the two final bits of information you need to fulfill your vision of a great presentation.

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