TJ Walker (host) advises that the primary goal of most presentations—especially business presentations—is to communicate specific ideas that motivate audience action (buy, invest, hire, or partner). He cautions presenters and coaches against focusing on superficial metrics (avoiding ums/ahs, slide aesthetics, theatricality) and urges speakers to define explicit outcomes and the essential ideas the audience must grasp. The clip ends with a call to state goals clearly before each presentation or coaching engagement.
Chapters
When it comes to public speaking, what is your actual goal? I know that sounds like a simple, even simplistic question. Doesn't sound like it's advancing anything. But you can't lose sight of what your goal is. Your goal is not to get through a speech without saying uhs and ums. That's not a goal. Your goal cannot be for someone to be listening to you, looking at your slides and thinking, wow, those bullet points are all the same size. Your goal. Unless you're entering some contest for PowerPoint slides, your goal isn't to avoid negatives. Your goal isn't to impress people with the quality of your voice unless you're on a voiceover. Now, the reason I say this is there are millions and millions of consultants out there professing to be public speaking experts. And truth be told, there are no accreditations that are meaningful. There's no certificate. It's not like you need a plastic surgeon and you're going to make sure someone has a medical degree and is board certified. It's just not like that. And there are many good presentation coaches out there. I don't want to sound so arrogant, like, oh, I'm the only one who knows anything. No, it's not that. But I have found that so many people who come into this business are bringing all their baggage from their past and relying on your own experiences. Nothing wrong with that. But I see frustrated actors trying to become presentation coaches, and they spend all of their time telling corporate clients and CEOs to just think about their feelings. Well, if I'm a CEO, I don't want to think about my feelings. I want to communicate messages to my audience so they buy my product or invest or give me venture capital. Likewise, I see graphic arts experts come in and give all sorts of lectures of all the colors that are needed for the slides and the perfect font size, losing sight of the fact that that isn't why someone is giving a presentation. They're not going to win art awards, graphic design awards. They're trying to communicate. Every presentation is a little different, and there are always exceptions. If you're going to a Toastmasters convention, your goal may be to be really theatrical and get a tear from people and have them say, oh, and that may be your goal. That's perfectly fine. But most business presentations aren't about that. It's about, here's a set of facts, numbers, data points, concepts, themes, benefits of my product or service, and you need to know it so you can decide to work with me, work for me, purchase me, invest in me. That's the point of most presentations. So I'm asking you before every presentation, certainly before you engage in the services of any kind of coach, tell yourself, tell the person that you're working with exactly what your goals are. What is it you want the audience to do after speaking to them, and what is it your ideas that they have to know in order to motivate them to act? That has to be the focus. It can't be simply, oh, I spoke for five minutes and my eyes didn't flutter and I didn't touch my nose. Don't focus on avoiding the negatives. Focus on what your goals actually are. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me in this session. Stay tuned for more next week.
