This document provides guidance on preparing an effective presentation in 3 main steps: 1. Get started by defining your purpose and audience. Do initial research and write a single sentence summarizing your overall message. 2. Get organized by outlining 2-5 main points to develop your central idea. Support each point with 1-2 strong examples. Write your conclusion then introduction. 3. Flesh out each point with a point, support, and application. Conclude with a call to action. Introduce with a story to grab attention. Follow the provided checklist for a successful presentation.

1. Prepare for
impact!
Confident presentation prep
for you!

2. Nervousness = Caring
If you’re feeling nervous about writing and delivering a presentation, it just means you
care about what you’re doing. You care about your topic, your audience, and yourself.
This is good! We don’t want to get rid of that energy (and it’s energy, not nerves—
recast how you’re thinking about what you’re feeling). We just want to harness it.
One of the best ways to harness that energy is to funnel it into effective preparation.
We will give you an overview on how to do that. At the end of this deck you can get a
one-page checklist to remind you of what we talk about here. You can go straight to
the checklist if you want, or stick with us to get the overview first.
The only reason to speak is to change the world, even if just a little. Thanks for letting
us help you do that!
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3. Hello!
I am Donn King
I work with people who want to forge
top-notch speaking skills to increase
their impact and influence.
You can find me at Speaking Impact
or learn about me here.
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4. 1.
First steps
Let’s get you started
the right way.

5. Why are you doing this out loud?
Don’t just sit down and start popping out PowerPoint
slides. Think about why you’re doing this out loud instead
of sending your audience an email or a memo.
Presentations aren’t just to save paper. “Out loud”
excels at big picture, framework, context, and
inspiration. If you want them to remember detail, give
them something in printed form. Use the “out loud” to
make sense of the detail and inspire them to want to
learn it from the handout, the web page, the article,
etc.
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6. Define your audience
in as much detail as
you can.
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7. Effective speaking is audience centered. Find out
as much as you can about your audience in
relation to your topic. What do they already know
about it? What’s their attitude toward it (positive
or negative)? What’s their interest level?
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8. Answer this question for
yourself: As a result of this
presentation, what do I want
my audience members to think,
feel, or do?
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9. Do some initial research
✗ Research is a whole other topic, so this is a quick
shot.
✗ Verify what you think you know.
✗ Collect credible sources to support your expertise
You show your expertise partly by being able to name
other experts. On the other hand, you’re not simply
reporting. You know more about the topic than 90% of
the people in the room. YOU are the primary reason for
them to listen.
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10. 2.
Get organized
Organize for the ear, not
necessarily for the brain.

11. Write a single declarative
sentence that
summarizes the whole
speech.
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12. If you can’t boil the whole presentation down into
a single declarative sentence, you’re not clear on
it, and you don’t stand a chance of making it clear
to the audience.
“Declarative,” not a question. Questions can be
great prompts as you write, but presentations
should generally answer questions, not ask them.
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13. 13
Example:
You can determine the quality of a diamond by
considering its carats, clarity, color, and cut.
This is how you will achieve your specific purpose. Notice
that, as phrased, this central idea naturally suggests four
main points.

14. Write no fewer than two
and no more than five
main points.
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15. Main points develop, explain, prove, or motivate
toward your central idea. You need no fewer than
two because if you can’t break it down into at
least two points, it’s either not truly a main point
or you haven’t thought about it enough. You need
no more than five because if you have more than
that, you risk audience members overloading their
short-term memories and “flushing.”
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16. 16
Remember!
You can only establish about one good solid point for
every 10 minutes of speaking.

17. 3.
Flesh it out
Within each main point:
point, support, application.
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18. Support and develop
each main point…
…but just use one or two strong “bits”
of supporting material for each point.
Go for depth (i.e., impact and
penetration) instead of breadth (trying
to cover it all).
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19. 19
Conclude and Introduce
Write your conclusion next. Then
write the introduction—you can set it
all up most effectively when you know
where you will wind up.
People remember most clearly the
first and last thing they hear. So put
significant time into this.

20. 20
Conclude
Always include a call to action, i.e.,
what do you want the audience to do
next? Again, if they just needed
information, they could have looked it
up on the Internet. They need YOU to
tell them the next step.

21. 21
Introduce
Grab their attention for your topic.
Don’t waste time getting ready to
speak with comments about the
weather. Speak! The best way: tell a
story.

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Get the
checklist!
You can find me at:
✗ @donnellking (Twitter)
✗ Speaking Impact
Click me!

23. Credits
Special thanks to all the people who made some of the
awesome resources used here:
✗ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
✗ Some photographs by Death to the Stock Photo
(license)
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