What is the goal of your presentation and your speech? By the way, throughout this whole course, I'm going to use the term speech, presentation talk, PowerPoint almost interchangeably. I really mean anytime you're speaking to two or more people, and sometimes even one. And it's not just idle chitchat, it's not just at the watercooler talking about last night's game, you're trying to communicate something very specific. So the first thing you've got to do if you want to be an effective speaker, you've got to have a specific goal. It's like that in any other aspect of business or life, you're not going to succeed unless you have something specific in mind.

It can't be just getting through it alive or not looking like a fool that's too low of an ambition. So you need to have a specific goal in mind. It could be getting that sale, getting that contract getting hired, getting budget approval. What is it want people to actually do coming up to you afterwards asking for your card for more information about your service or your product? Or your business, getting funding for your startup? What is your goal?

You need to have a very, very clear sense of exactly what your goal is. Then and only then, can you figure out what to say. Okay, so let me just cut right to the chase the number one problem every single one of my clients has everywhere in the world, and I work with people from six continents in every kind of country, every kind of language. The number one mistake everyone makes is they dump way too much data in their speech, their presentation, sort of, here's everything I know, on this topic. Here's everything we've done for the last quarter. Here's every sales figure for every week for the last two years.

Here's a PowerPoint with 29 bullet points. per slide, and it's 72 slides. So if you want to just hop right up to the advanced level now, and that's been years and years and years of trial by air, all you have to do is this one thing, and that is eliminate the massive, massive, massive amounts of data most people try to convey in their speech. Here's what I recommend brainstorm on every single message point you would like to convey to this audience, then put it in priority and narrow it down to the top five. I'm a big believer that anytime you're giving a speech, you should really focus on just five key ideas, five messages. Why is that?

It's because I actually test audiences all over the world. Here's what I found it every time I go to an organization to do a public speaking training, or give a speech in front of a large crowd. I always ask people So can you think of the best speaker you've seen in the last year last last five years? Now? Can you tell me every message point? You remember from this fantastic speaker, not that they were funny or they walked around the stage a lot.

But I want to know how many messages do you actually remember from this fantastic speaker. Now, sometimes I asked this question, people, so, TJ, I don't remember anything, but he was funny. Sometimes people remember one message, occasionally two, sometimes three. Every once in a while, someone will remember four messages. And once every six months. Some of them will remember five messages from the best speaker they've seen that your or perhaps their lifetime.

Now, all the many years have asked that question that people have never actually had anyone Remember more than five points, five main messages from a speech. So that's why I urge you to focus on just five points. Now, interestingly, the very same people on training in person to say they can only remember two or three or four, or at most five points. Two minutes later, they're getting up to give their speech. And sure enough, what do they have? seven points on the first PowerPoint 18 points on the second, nine points on third.

And now he said, Well, wait a minute, you just said, the best speaker you've seen in your life, you remember, three or four or five points. And now you're trying to convey 72 points in this presentation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, but TJ, my audience is different. Our corporate culture is different. Now, it's not.

You just proved it. You're a part of your corporate culture and you don't really Remember more than three, four or five points. So, if you just follow this one tip, you're instantly going to get to a very advanced status as a public speaker, as a presenter, as a communicator, and emotionally it's hard to do. Because people feel like, gosh, TJ, if I don't tell people every single thing we do, Smithers here might sound left something out. Janet might complain that I was superficial. Harold over here will complain that his pet project wasn't mentioned.

No, I better play it safe. And just dump all the data until everything and put every point in there and then everybody will think I'm smart. Now, you know what everyone thinks when you do that. Teaching is really boring. Now. Let me just checked my email.

That's the only thing people are thinking. So when you junk data. That's the real sign of a very, very insecure speaker. Because what you're really saying is, I'm afraid people aren't gonna like me and think I'm smart. So I'm going to have to tell everybody everything I know. And then they'll respect me.

That is complete, utter nonsense. Too many people think of a speech as an opportunity to get a giant wheelbarrow and sort of go around their office for two months, gathering facts, gathering data points, gathering old PowerPoint slides from other people. And that's the day of the speech and they kind of wheel that wheel barrel into the conference room. And they just start dumping and Wow, look at the time there's not much time I better speak faster because I get so much data to dump. It simply wires out the audience. It numbs them.

You're not impressing anybody. You're not making them feel you're smarter. All you're doing is boring them. Let's go back to our initial criteria of what we're trying to accomplish. We want to look comfortable, confident, have people understand us? Have people remember our message, so they can take the actions they want?

Well, if you've bored people to death in the first few minutes, they're no longer understanding anything you say. They're certainly not remembering it. Because they're not even paying attention. So how in the world are they going to do what you want them to do? If they checked out long ago, you know what, you're not even going to accomplish your first goal of looking confident, comfortable, relaxed, because chances are, you're kind of, you know, wedded to a script, or you're looking at a bunch of slides. So you're really not going to accomplish a single goal.

So that's the great irony. People say we'll teach I need this PowerPoint with all these bullet points. By the way, I'm not anti PowerPoint an anti a PowerPoint with lots and lots of lots of bullet points. I'm not anti using notes, I am anti having sheets and sheets of paper filled with lots and lots of bullet points. People say to me, I need this script as a crutch for me. And I've tried to politely tell them a crutch keeps you from falling down and hurting yourself.

If you're injured. What you're doing isn't keeping you from falling down. It's actually causing you to fail. So don't tell me it's a crutch. It's really a weight that's bringing down your presentation. So that's my challenge to you.

And this is your first homework assignment. You've got to come up with a topic for speech. The first thing I want you to do is write in one sentence. What is it you want your audience to do? Now, it's a little bit different if you're a student, and you're giving just A book report on classic it may be, what you want to do is motivate your other students to think this book is so fascinating that they want to go out and read it. It doesn't have to be about getting more money or getting a direct sale, but you should think of motivating your audience to do something.

So in one sentence, I want to know what your goal is. For this audience. I don't mean your goal of I want them to think I'm smart. Your goal should be something you want your audience to actually do. Then I want you to write down every message point that you could possibly think of, and then put it in priority and narrow it down to just five. That is your homework assignment.

Come up with just five message points. A message point is not a big theme with 72 sub points. And so each point is just one idea. That should be Something with one subject, one verb one object. It's not a long run on sentence with howevers. Therefore, buts, it's just one idea.

Don't be greedy. Focus on one idea at a time. And you should have simply if I want you to type those up on your computer, write it on a piece of paper. But it's critically important. You have this degree of clarity, because without that, you're basically absolutely destroying your ability to communicate successfully, you need a road map for your presentation. You can't drive from Los Angeles to New York without GPS and without a road map typically in just follow streets wherever they go.

You'll end up all sorts of nooks and crannies and you just never get anywhere. You need a road map for your presentation. It needs simplicity, it's going to be easier for you When you're giving the presentation, you know who else it's going to be easier for your audience. They need something easy for them to, to follow. So that's your first homework assignment. Go ahead, do it right now five ideas.

And you need to eliminate the stuff that is only important to you, but isn't important to your audience. You need to eliminate the fluff. You need to eliminate the nice to nose and keep the haften up what is it that you absolutely, positively have to have your audience understanding and remembering. So do that right now.