Making a presentation is something most managers have to do occasionally. Some of them need to do it frequently. As with report writing, it is an area where both success and failure can have a significant effect on your career, being public and highly visible. While some managers thoroughly enjoy public speaking, others suffer agonies beforehand and the relief of having endured the experience is tinged with a sinking feeling that they did themselves less than justice.
In preparing a speech you should list precisely your objectives. If you write down what you hope people will tell those that couldn't attend and make that the central theme of your speech, you are more that half way to ensuring a good presentation. Having decided your objectives, you then need to decide how to reach them. Will you amuse your audience, shock them, intrigue them, frighten them, instruct them or entertain them? Know the facts, but don't make the speech too dull or heavy.
Make sure you have as much information as possible about the audience. The level is important, especially if you are speaking on a technical subject. They may be young sales people or IT directors - pitch the speech at the appropriate level. Public speakers are not born - it is an acquired skill. However, it is clear from a number of sales presentations, seminars and conferences I attend that very few of those called upon to speak have been trained in any way. There is a mistaken assumption at board level that because a manager is good at this job, and confident in a one to one situation, that he can easily pick up the techniques of speaking to a large number of people.
The working hours lost through audiences sitting through inappropriate or ineffective presentations must be beyond counting. If your experience mirrors mine, common faults include: the speaker is inaudible; the slides are illegible; the speaker's voice is a hypnotic monotone which sends the audience to sleep; the entire address is read from a prepared script; content is so muddled that it is impossible to follow; the speaker jumbles his notes and spends most of the time trying to find out where he is; half the slides are upside down or are out of order; you know the content already; you don't want to know the content; the room is hot, cold, stuffy or otherwise uncomfortable... the list is endless.
Work out a plan for the speech which is sensible and lively. Write out five or six sentences you want your audience to remember and build the speech around them. Bear in mind the amount of time available for delivery. Have a good opening. Never apologise for speaking as an opening. Take some trouble over the title of the speech - use your ingenuity, think out the human angle. Never mislead the audience with the title. Once you have avoided the risk of shooting at the wrong target, think about your aim, your delivery must be appropriate. Think about the impact, contact, holding the audience, dominating the audience, the element of performance.
You must avoid distracting or antagonising your audience by your mannerisms or style of delivery. Instead, use your manner to make the message carry a force beyond that possible with the written word. Pace your delivery so that the audience can easily absorb what you say. Instead of going slowly through the obvious then rushing through the more complex, adjust the speed to the difficulty of what you are saying.
It is said that the best speeches are made by first telling the audience what you are going to tell them; then telling them, and finally telling them what you have told them. Do bear in mind this third part. The audience usually doesn't know the subject as well as the speaker. They do like to be reminded about what they have heard, provided the reminder comes in a strong finish and draws together all the themes developed by the speaker. Have a clear idea of what you want the audience to think when they leave, you may want them to do something. You may want them to take some action as a result of the speech, and then you should tell them at the end precisely what they are asked to do. If you have stated your case well and it is a good case, some may go out and do it. Over and over again you will hear good speeches which were really a call to action, but they faded away at the end and the audience ambled out and nobody did anything at all.
You may include a 'question time'. Questions can be enormously helpful, or wreck a presentation entirely. It is safest to restrict questions during your presentations to those seeking clarification, leaving more substantive questions to the end. It is all too easy to be side tracked from your main argument, and to lose the chance of sticking to your planned timetable. Be sure in postponing your answer that you do so positively and courteously. A questioner who feels put down may be disruptive.
Most people are nervous the first few times they have to stand up in front of a group of people and talk. Good speakers always retain a slight tinge of nervousness - they find that gives the performance an edge. The factors which can help you here are practice, exposure to similar situations, relaxation techniques and most of all, confidence through detailed preparation.