A Very Long Article About Preparing For a Public Speech or Presentation

I love public speaking. I’ve loved it since I gave a speech in fourth grade on the outback. I still have a vivid memory of nine-year-old me, putting on the voice of what I imagine a true-blue Aussie farmer to sound like (because even then, I was a bit theatrical). I recall feeling that rush of adrenalin and a touch of nerves and the pure joy that only comes from speaking to a group with a microphone.

I’ve since spent much of my adult life talking a lot. Then, I eventually realised people could pay me to do it, too.

That’s not to say I’ve never gotten nervous, of course. I still feel butterflies, especially if the presentation is important to me or in front of people I care about.

It’s certainly something I love, and something I’ve spent a lot of time doing. And yet, Jerry Seinfeld has a joke that public speaking is the number one fear of all people – even more than death – so if you’re at a funeral, you’re better off in the coffin than doing the eulogy.

For many, our new world of virtual communication means they now have to present in an even higher-pressure environment than normal. Firstly, in a virtual presentation, you do not have the physical presence of your audience to feed off – and this energy usually propels people forward with confidence. Also, in most cases online, you also have to watch yourself doing it on the screen in the corner, which can make you more self-conscious and nervous.

For others, speaking in public will come up at some stage. Whether it’s a presentation to clients, to management, to the team, or even a toast at your mate’s 30th, being able to get up in front of a physical or virtual crowd will serve you. Heck, maybe you just want to start making some cool things on YouTube or lift your TikTok game with some talking head videos.

And there’s a lot of theory thrown out there about how to do it well. Frankly, I completely disagree with some of the standard advice. I think for some reason we continue to perpetuate the myth that public speaking is a natural gift, and not something that can be taught. Sure, some people naturally enjoy the limelight more than others. But everyone can be a great public speaker. It’s not a mystical blessing bestowed upon some by the gods. It’s far more methodical than that.

So, perhaps you can enjoy, after my very long-winded entry into this article, a few insights around what I personally do to prepare for an important presentation. I was going to do tips for speaking in general too, but it got too long, so this is focused on the development stage:

Preparation is everything.

I should qualify this – if you are a new public speaker, I think preparation is the sole determining factor for how well you will speak.

As time goes on and your skills develop, they can help you ‘cover’ yourself if you are underprepared. But preparation is always the preference.

If I am putting together a new seminar or talk, this is what my general process looks like:

1.     Brainstorming

I let my brain run wild here, and use this initial stage to think up all the possible themes or ideas I might use. For me, it’s often a smorgasbord of cool quotes, stories, data that might be relevant, as well as general theme ideas or key messages that I can sum up in a short sentence.

Needless to say, it’s important that you research your topic and have all the resources you need to do this in the first place. If you have to research on top, it’s going to add a lot of time. And if you see yourself doing a lot of future talks (or writing pieces, because this works for writing too), it’s good to keep something close by at all times to reference cool things as they come up.

I am a bit messy, but these days I keep a notebook by my bed, a notebook in my handbag, and use my notes app on my phone and computer. Any time I read something amazing, or think of a new idea, I store it on one of those mediums.

When I first started as a trainer, I would always use post-it notes for the brainstorming stage. Each post-it would represent a single idea, reference or line, and I would put them up onto my wall. That was effective because post-it notes are easy to move around, so when I was starting to order my ideas I could do that visually too. It also alleviates pressure, because you can let your creativity run wild knowing that if the idea sucks you can literally throw it out later.

Although, I must say, the post-it note method comes with a warning: When people come to your apartment and see that half of the living room walls are covered in coloured paper, you may look a bit like a conspiracy theorist trying to solve a murder. Expect “are you alright?” questions from those who love you.

2.     Structure and Form

These days, I often use a word document to brain-dump everything onto a few pages that I then print out. I use the printed version for reference to structure everything – taking things out, moving things around, deciding one particular idea is the key one that connects the others, and so on. It’s like you have all the ingredients for your hamburger from the brainstorm, so now you’re layering them onto a bun to create a fully formed meal.

The post-it note equivalent is moving each post-it idea around until you find an order you like.

When I have this structure set out, if it’s a training session or a seminar that has visual aids, I make the training booklets or aids then. I find it helps to ensure my visual aids tie to the core messages I want to provide.

3.     Write it up

This is when the script writing begins, and it leads to my next incredibly important (but apparently controversial) belief.

Ignore the haters, scripts are your friends.

The majority of what I present in training is, or once was, scripted and practised as a script. And although I hate to ruin the illusion, at this stage I (along with probably many other trainers) am basically a robot where I can press ‘play’ on most of the modules, stories, jokes, studies, or ideas I’ve told before, maybe with a little prompt to start me off.

 One of the most irritating pieces of advice thrown out into the virtual sphere is that scripts don’t work. “We shouldn’t use scripts. It’s less authentic, it’s robotic, you’ll mess it up, your life is doomed”, and so on.

This is absurd, and my view of the reality is this: Scripts only suck when you write one but don’t learn it.

What happens in that situation? You try to present a scripted talk, but you don’t know it very well so you sit there with a piece of paper over your face that you only glance up from every 20 seconds to ‘show eye contact’. Or, you try to do it without a big fat piece of paper so as soon as you fumble once you’ve lost your place and the room collapses under all of the anxious doom seeping from your body. Your voice has no memory of the talk so you can’t recover from interrupting the flow.

We have all been in these scenarios before, and I concede that they do indeed suck.

But if you learn a script properly, it doesn’t sound robotic, because you know your content so well that you can put even more effort into your delivery. A script learned well leaves space for performance, whereas a person who doesn’t know their content is so focused on that they often deliver terribly. If you learn a script well, you can incorporate ad lib on the fly, because you know exactly where you are and you can bring it back when you need to. You have so much more freedom when you’re not trying to manage your base content and delivery at the same time.

So can everyone please stop hating on scripts okay thank you I appreciate that.

4.     Refine, Rehearse, Edit

Ages ago I watched a documentary on Jerry Seinfeld’s creative process. I remember that he had his jokes on little lined note-cards, all compiled carefully in a briefcase. They were all carefully annotated too.

It’s easy to assume that performers, speakers and comedians are making things up on the fly. I love the comedy scene, and in pre-covid times my friend and I were regulars at local comedy nights. (In the audience, to be clear). Sometimes, we’d see a comedian we’d seen before deliver a familiar set.

Most of the time, their delivery didn’t change. The sighs, pauses, subtle move of an arm, emphasis on a word. Even when it looked like they were responding in the moment, when you’d seen them do it before you could tell that this was all by design rather than luck.

And this is why practice is so important. Saying it aloud, over and over again. Figuring out the performance side – how it flows, where you pause and emphasise different points. If you want to learn it even faster, record yourself saying it and listen or watch back. I also used to tape new scripts onto the back of my shower screen so every time I had a shower I’d be forced to see them again.

Say it, say it, and say it again. Sing the script to whatever song you’re listening to. Make the script the only thing in life you think about. It’s your family now.

Is this sexy advice, repetition? No. Is it more enticing than “hey, scripts are less authentic, just wing it so it’s more you and more natural”? Of course not. Because this method actually requires work, and not blind faith in the universe blessing you with sunshine and a great speech. But it’s worth it, promise.

As speaking has become more and more prominent in my life, this process has shortened, in part because I am often giving the same talks over again, in part because I am more confident with my speaking abilities now so I don’t stress if I don’t follow my script to the tee, and in part because I think, like any habit, if you do something enough times it gets easier along the way – so memorising a talk now is not as hard as it may have been five or ten years ago. At the same time, if I go too long without putting proper effort into my prep stage for new talks, I have to sit down and check myself.

If you applied this whole process to say, prepping short videos, you would probably not get many done, so apply as much diligence to this stage as makes sense in the context of it. If something is going to be filmed and edited, you have an opportunity to cut and splice different takes so there’s maybe less emphasis on getting it all perfect in one go.

In this part of the process, you will also start to notice content that doesn’t quite work – so you want to create a cycle of rehearsing, editing content, and refining performance. And do this as much or as little as is needed before you feel good about showing it to someone else.

5.     Present it to another entity

In my first training job, whenever I was booked to present a new session I used to say to my boss as I left, “Okay, going home to present to my couch now!”

She always used to laugh at this, because it sounds ridiculous.

But the final stage is presenting to a beta audience. I always used to start with the couch because it never gave me any negative feedback (ba-dum-tss). After that, if it was important I would graduate to pets (dogs are always great supporters, cats a bit more critical), and then family members or close friends.

So now we have our content down, and we’re pretty confident with our delivery. But this stage is different to the last, because not only am I refining the vocal performance of my presentation, I’m also considering my sense of space – where am I standing, when do I move from one side of the stage to the other, when do I stop and pause. How do I ensure its inclusive to the audience and my movements are impactful rather than nerve-driven or arbitrary? (I wrote a full article specifically on body language while presenting, here).

At this stage, it’s also good to take any feedback on board from people close to you, especially if they are familiar with your intended audience. By now, you are so connected to this presentation that it is a part of who you are, and you need to consciously separate your emotions from the feedback you’re getting. Usually, outside critique at this point is pretty valuable. At the same time, if they are neither your audience nor familiar with your audience, use it more to practise in front of other humans than anything else.

Chunk down your reference points

By this time, you should know your speech really well. At the same time, it’s still good to have some points of reference.

Now this is when having a complete written speech in front of you is not optimal. You have the muscle memory now, so you shouldn’t need prompting to recall long lines of script. Instead, if you haven’t already, you want to chunk it down.

I will often use a coloured sheet of paper (usually pink or yellow – this adds nothing practical that I know of but it looks nice) to jot down either key phrases for each point, or the start of the sentence for each point. For example, if I have a whole point about a study on the analysis of marriages that I talk about, I might write down ‘marriage study’ as my prompt.

In other words, you take your script and turn it into a series of quick key phrases that become your new notes to refer to as needed. This process by itself actually aids retention too, because you’re interacting with the material so it’s even more likely to stick.

6.     Showtime

You’ve practised, you’re ready, and you feel good.

The very last preparation moment is right before you step onto stage or to the front of the room.

Now for this part, it’s important to note that everyone deals with nerves differently, and everyone has their own mechanism for dealing with it that works best for them.

It’s like when you’re in uni and about to do an exam – you know, that half an hour or so before the exam starts where people are congregating by the assessment venue. There are different kinds of people in this scenario.

For some people, they like to pair up with someone else and frantically talk through their subject – that’s what makes them feel better. For others, they need to forget about the exam completely, and prefer to chat and joke around with a group, talking about anything that isn’t the imminent test. And for others still, they tell you, “I’ll see you in there” and disappear into their own little zone, where they can review their notes one more time, or meditate, or sip on a coffee and contemplate their existence before heading in to start.

The same is true for speeches. If you think back to a time when you were nervous, you will probably be able to identify what works best for you.

Before I do a talk, I like to have a few minutes alone. Frankly, nothing throws me off more than if I’m having an unrelated conversation with someone and then suddenly called up onto the stage. I prefer to get into my own ‘zone’, where I can have a little look over my notes one more time, and start to envision a positive outcome. Often being more prepared can help you to minimise nerves too.

If you’re really nervous, it’s a good idea to look up some breathing exercises to do right before you get on stage. Breathing has an enormous impact on our performance and our mindset, and when we’re nervous we often move into more shallow breaths that amplify our nerves even more. Simply slowing this down physically will have a positive effect on your mind. And, if you can’t stand to look at your notes right before, listen to a song that pumps you up instead. It will almost always lighten the mood.

And then, off to the races we go!

Some people will say that my process is a bit much for preparing for a public speech. Maybe it is. I’ll admit, as the years of doing this consistently for work have gone on, the preparation process has gotten much shorter, and like any skill the more you practice the easier it becomes. The more comfortable you start to feel on stage or at the front of a room, the less preparation time is required to feel confident. But certainly, each step is important: brainstorming, structuring, script writing, practising, rehearsing as though it’s live, and editing along the way.

Perhaps you can use this article as a prompt to consider how you prepare for your presentations, and whether there’s an additional layer you can add to your process to give yourself the best chance for success.

The other awesome thing is, preparation not only helps you to deliver a great performance and feel good about your presentation, it also gives more respect to your audience. People can tell when their speaker has put a lot into their speech.

And don’t get me wrong. Sometimes you’ll stuff up in public speaking. It happens to everyone. No one is immune to that. I have periods of time where I start skimming over stages of my process, and that’s usually when I notice my performance decline. If you prepare, you’re more likely to present something magnificent, and feel darn good doing it too.

And if you’re still the person that I have seen a hundred times in class thinking, “I’m a great public speaker, I don’t need to worry about this,” I can tell you with confidence that your confidence is misplaced. You might be a good speaker, but you will always be better when you apply yourself to the task. And I can say that without exception, the person in class who says this never gives the best presentation of the group. Ever. They might be up there, sure, but they are always beaten by the person who put in more work.

Because work trumps talent every single time.

How do you prepare for a presentation? Would you like to see more content on public speaking?

Sonia

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