07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

Three Public Speaking Secrets

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TED Talks certainly holds a library of great presentations given by  some great presenters. Drake Baer share with us in this Business Insider article, “3 Public Speaking Secrets from the Most Successful TED Talks”, what he finds as the 3 public speaking secrets from TED Talks presenters.

We’ve been taught various tactics for how to deliver a great presentation, and you’ve heard all of this before.  And although it’s best for presenters to incorporate everything we’ve already learned in MP and throughout our career and education, for a novice presenter like myself, this article really highlights to me the three most important things to focus on when developing my presentation skills, from a public speaking perspective.

1. Tell them a story

This article states that you connect with people on an emotional level when you tell them a story- it helps to build a connection when your audience is able to relate to what you’re saying.  Gallo believes that the most successful TED Talks are 65% story, 25% data, and 10% building credibility.

2. Create “emotionally charged events”

An “emotionally charged event” is described in the article “as an incident where you experience shock, surprise, or fear”. This creates a trigger in your brain that remembers this experience.  We learned a similar technique called creating urgency in our presentations. Do we all remember the trailer from “An Inconvenient Truth” about global warming to create that urgency?  The article recommends that in every presentation, you create a way to present the information in a way that is new, novel, and unexpected.

3. Use the rule of three

This rule has probably been engrained in us for a while. This will help structure the presentation as well as help people remember it, since it is easier to remember information given at 3-4 chunks at a time.

Even from a presenter perspective, I believe that these three “secrets” will be very helpful when preparing as well as presenting the presentation.  Stories help connect with the audience, but it help better organize and build on or relate back to the story throughout the presentation.  Creating urgency or “an emotionally charged event” will allow you to remember why you’re am presenting in the first place, as well as help with transitions when structuring the presentation. Using the rule of three will also help with the organization and flow of the presentation.  It will also help me to be sure to touch on three key points for every topic I have.  One of my goals is to rely less on my rehearsed and memorized presentation, and not get caught up in missing a word that I should have used. Instead, I want to be able to focus on preparing the  delivery of my three key points.  I think focusing on these when first preparing my presentation, as well as developing my presentation/ public speaking skills, will be very helpful.
Do you agree with these three secrets to successful presentations? If you could add one more “secret” to public speaking, what would it be?

Link to full article: http://www.businessinsider.com/public-speaking-secrets-from-successful-ted-talks-2014-3

2 thoughts on “Three Public Speaking Secrets”

  1. If you have ever listened to presentations, either in person or via video, what are the major takeaways that you remember days/months/etc. down the road? It tends to be the first and last things that were mentioned during the presentation as well as the story or emotion that was conveyed throughout the presentation. Sometimes the value of a presentation comes more from the emotions or actions that you take away from the presentation rather than the content itself. Take for example a manager who is trying to help increase sales for his business unit. If he/she is trying to create urgency in his employees, does it really matter that they remember that sales dropped by 8.6%? Or that they are losing market share and are falling to the #2 supplier in their region? What’s more important is the manager motivating his/her employees and creating that sense of urgency.

  2. I think a #4 secret to presenting is to give the audience something that they can use in their daily life as a takeaway. For example, my favorite TED talk is David Logan’s talk on tribal leadership (http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership). I’m a firm believer that you are a product of your environment, and one of the best ways to gain a skill is to emulate people that have that skill until it has become ingrained. I’ve used his descriptions of ‘levels of leadership’ to try to gauge the leadership abilities of potential future managers when taking on a new project or job.

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