Before you get up in front of an audience, or even create your super-engaging opening, take some time to understand your PAL™.
PAL.™ stands for Purpose, Audience, and Logistics. Let’s look at each element in some more detail.
Purpose
Your purpose is the reason you are giving a presentation. We always ask coaching clients their presentation purpose. One response we received was, “I have to speak for 30 minutes before everyone goes to lunch.” That’s not a purpose; it’s a logistic.
Here are some questions to help you identify your purpose:
- What do you want your audience to know, feel, or do?
- What specific result do you want to achieve?
- What information must be conveyed to the audience?
Audience
Every presentation involves an audience. It could be your manager, a prospective client, or your colleagues. In order to effectively hook your audience, you need to know who you are presenting to and what interests them.
Understanding your audience will help you engage them from the beginning and throughout your presentation.
Here are several questions to consider about your audience:
- Who is in the audience?
- What are their roles?
- Why are they attending your presentation?
- What are their demographics?
- What is their attitude toward your objective?
- What knowledge do they have already?
- What knowledge do they need?
Once you understand your audience, you can plan an opening that appeals to their interests, values, or priorities.
Logistics
As we mentioned above, logistics includes how much time you’ll have and where your presentation fits into the larger context. If your presentation is right before lunch, people might be hungry – or anxious to check their email if they’ve been in a conference all morning. How will you adjust your presentation to address these distractions?
Logistics also includes the size of the room, number of people in the audience, and equipment that will be available. All of these play a critical role in how your presentation will be received.
Here are some logistical considerations:
- How much time do you have to present? Make sure you don’t have 45 minutes of content for a 30-minute session.
- How interactive will your presentation be? The more interaction you have, the less material you can cover. For a highly interactive session, plan to speak for only about 25% of the session; for moderate interaction, 50%; and for light interaction, 75%.
- Will there be a Q&A during or after your presentation? Build in time for it.
- If you’re part of a panel, what will the other speakers be discussing? Consider how your part will complement the other panelists.
- How large is the audience? The audience size will impact your delivery dynamics as well as your approach to interaction.
- What time of day will you be speaking? It’s hard to keep an audience engaged right after lunch or at the end of the day. If this is your spot, be sure you have some audience interaction, not just lecture.
- What AV equipment do you need? What will be available? Bring extra cords, slide advancing remote (clicker), and anything else you need. Be prepared to speak even if all equipment fails.
If you’d like to learn more about how to plan your presentations, contact BRODYpro today.