5 Steps to Prepare Your Next Talk

Bringing ease to that final stretch

Summer is over and fall is into full swing after Labor Day. I love the return of routine and also enjoy this time of year as three of my perennial clients all host events this month where scientists will be sharing their research with a primarily lay audience. As I reflected on my tips to each of these groups, I thought it would be instructional for all my subscribers to consider how best to focus their efforts on the final few days before a presentation.

Dr. Kyle Loh and Dr. Fatima Rodriguez at Stanford’s Frontiers in Medicine event. See their full talks here.

First Off: It’s crucial to not make any major content changes at the last minute. You want to stop fiddling with slides and instead focus on delivery.

Yes, you may quote me on that to your boss! We can do damage to a presenter by continually swapping out content at the last minute. It’s best to lock the deck, either proverbially or actually, and turn our prep attention to how we deliver the talk, making it come to life for the audience.

Here then, are five steps to do just that:

1.) Familiarize, don't memorize - you have remarkable content to share, and you have great slides to support you in recalling the order and details that will make your research compelling to an engaged and supportive audience. (See my August 2023 column for more on this topic.)

Dr. Claudia Lugo-Candelas at the 2023 One Mind Music Festival for Brain Health. See her full talk here.

2.) Announce before you advance - as you work with your slides, always try to tell the audience what's coming next before, or as you bring it up. You want to drive the slides; don't let the slides drive you. One way to practice this is to simply page through each slide and say (out loud to increase muscle memory) what the transition is to the next slide. In this mode, don't rehearse the whole talk; just run through the transitions between slides a few times; it may take only a minute or two to do this but can make a marked improvement on the quality of the talk. 

Dr. Carla Pugh at Stanford’s Frontiers in Medicine 2022. See her full talk here.

3.) Trust your hands. When not gesturing, try to let them hang down to your sides. If they creep up to your waist, it's not a big deal—just drop them again when you notice them. This allows the gestures you do use to be bolder and lets you look poised and strong when not gesturing. Don't choreograph what you do with your hands and arms. Just trust them to support you.

4.) Move on transitions — with a large stage, I suggest you try to move at least every two or three minutes within your talk. The very best place to do this is to transition from one major portion of your talk to another. (e.g.: "Now that you understand the depth of the problem, let me explain what my lab and I are doing about it...")

Dr. Ignacio Saez speaking at 2023 One Mind Music Festival & Science Symposium. View his full talk here.

5.) Practice one person/one thought — you won't be able to make direct eye contact with the back row of the audience, but you will be able to see many of them. When you can make eye contact with an individual, sustain it for 4 to 7 seconds. Think about delivering one complete thought to one person in one section, then another complete thought to another person seated elsewhere. Ultimately, your entire talk is simply a series of short conversations with engaged audience members who chose to come to hear you speak.

Whether you are speaking in September, or watching great speakers, (see my post script below), be cognizant of the impact possible with these five steps. Drop me a note below and let me know what you learned.

JD’s Recommendations: what I’m reading, hearing, and seeing:

• Reading: there’s another JDS on Substack! Check out the insightful work of JD Solomon in his powerful and practical newsletter - Communicating with Finesse

• Hearing: Last fall Dan Heath launched his podcast, What It’s Like To Be…, and it’s a treat. He packs a great deal into his half-hour episodes. Check it out.

• Seeing: when last I flew United, I was mesmerized by their new safety video: Safety in Motion. That’s a hard place to engage an audience, but it grabbed me.

Thanks for reading Communication Matters, and please share this with others and invite them to subscribe. We’re consistently reaching more than 1,500 readers with each issue and would love to see our subscribers top that number, too.

As always, jds

P.S.: Apologies to my regular readers, I did not intend to take all of August off from writing my newsletter. But that’s why I choose to call this an occasional publication. I’ve got several great communication topics lined up for the fall as I return to a more regular cadence every few weeks.

Whether you are in the Bay Area, or around the world, consider registering and joining me on Friday September 20 for Rugged Elegance Presents…Discovery: Revealing the Power of the Pause. This free event will inspire you with talks given by six changemaking leaders who’ve harnessed the power of the pause to achieve clarity before moving forward to catalyze their businesses, movements, and initiatives. More on this next week, but registration is open today.