13.1 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Chapter 13 Giving Speeches and Oral Presentations

13.2 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Chapter 13 Objectives  Illustrate how planning speeches differs from planning written documents.  Describe how to organize presentations and speeches.  Explain the tasks involved in developing a speech.  Discuss using visuals in oral presentations.  Discuss what is involved in designing effective presentation visuals.  Explain ways to overcome anxiety.

13.3 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Three-Step Process for Oral Presentations  Plan your speech or presentation  Write your speech or presentation  Complete your speech or presentation

13.4 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Reasons for Giving a Speech To persuade To entertain To inform To motivate

13.5 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Organizing  To organize your speech or presentation, focus on your audience as you  Define your main idea  Limit your scope  Choose your approach  Prepare your outline  Decide on the most effective style for your presentation

13.6 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Planning  Tailor your material to the time allowed:  Your time is often strictly regulated.  Do your best to estimate how much time your speech or presentation will take.  The average speaker can deliver  About 125 to 150 words a minute  Roughly 7,500 to 9,000 words an hour  About one paragraph per minute (when average paragraph length is 125–150 words)

13.7 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Planning  Whatever amount of time you have, allow approximately  10 percent of your time for your introduction  20 percent of your time to explain each of three points (or 15 percent for each of four points)  10 percent of your time for your conclusion  20 percent of your time for interacting with the audience

13.8 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Organizing  When organizing short speeches, use the direct approach:  Plan your introduction to arouse interest and to give a preview of what’s to come.  Prepare the body to explain the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your subject.  Use the close to review the points you’ve made and to help your audience remember the subject of your speech.

13.9 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Organizing  When organizing longer speeches, organize them like reports:  If your purpose is to entertain, motivate, or inform, use direct order and a structure that is imposed naturally by your subject (based on importance, sequence, chronology, spatial orientation, geography, or category).  If your purpose is to analyze, persuade, or collaborate, organize your material around a logical argument.

13.10 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Organizing  Regardless of length, simplicity of organization is crucial in oral communication:  Explain at the beginning how you’ve organized your material.  Limit the number of main points to three or four (even in long speeches).  Include only the most useful, interesting, and relevant supporting evidence.  Reorient your audience at the end of each section by summarizing the point you’ve just made and explaining how it fits into your overall framework.

13.11 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Organizing  When organizing your speech, a carefully prepared outline helps you  Formulate a starting point for composing your speech or presentation  Stay on task  Ensure that your message accomplishes its purpose  Keep your speech audience centered  Keep your speech within the allotted time  Present a speech from notes by serving as your final “script”

13.12 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Style  A more casual style  Suits a relatively small audience  Encourages audience participation  Calls for simple visual aides  Is complemented by a conversational tone  Allows you to use notes to jog your memory

13.13 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Style  A more formal style  Suits a larger audience  Is appropriate for events such as announcements of mergers or acquisitions, new products, financial results, and other business milestones  Is often accompanied by multimedia presentations

13.14 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Development  When developing your speech or presentation, remember that the major challenge lies in being able to control what happens:  The more you expect to interact with your audience, the less control you’ll have.  You must work even harder to help listeners stay on track.  You must be prepared to shift topics in response to audience input.

13.15 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Parts of a Speech  Your speech has four parts:  Introduction  Body  Close  Question-and-answer period

13.16 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Developing Your Speech Introduction Your introduction should  Arouse audience interest How will this affect them?  Build credibility  Preview the presentation

13.17 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Building the Body of Your Speech  Connect your ideas by  Using transitional words between sentences and paragraphs  Captivate your audience by  Relating your subject to audience’s needs  Using clear, vivid language  Explaining the relationship between your subject and familiar ideas

13.18 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Closing Your Speech  Restate your main points.  Emphasize what you want your audience to do or think.  Describe the next steps if the speech requires action of others.  End on a positive note.  Provide for a question-and-answer period, if appropriate.

13.19 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Questions  When developing the question-and-answer period, remember that you’ll want to  Control the situation  Anticipate questions  If you’re addressing a large group that is hostile or unknown, ask people to hold their questions until after you have concluded your remarks.  If you’re addressing a small group in a working session, encourage comments from listeners throughout your presentation.

13.20 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Completing Speeches and Presentations  To complete your speech or presentation, you revise it and carefully proofread any handouts or other visuals, but you also pay particular attention to  Designing and producing visuals  Practicing actually delivering your speech

13.21 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Visuals  When you use visuals in your speech or presentation, they  Create interest  Clarify important points  Increase your audience’s ability to absorb and remember information  Help you remember the details of a message  Help you appear better prepared and more professional

13.22 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Visuals  Visuals support your message; they are not the message itself.  Visual aids come in two types:  Text visuals consist of words and help your audience follow the flow of ideas.  Graphic visuals illustrate your main points and help your audience grasp numerical data and other information that would be hard to follow.

13.23 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Types of Presentation Visuals Handouts Chalkboards Flipcharts Overheads Slides Electronic presentations Whiteboards What are Advantages and Disadvantages of Each?

13.24 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Features of an Electronic Presentation  Templates  Sorters  Animation  Multimedia  Links  Handouts  Speaker’s notes

13.25 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Visuals  For effective text visuals,  Include no more than six lines, with a maximum of six words on each line  Produce them in large, clear type, using uppercase and lowercase letters  Include extra white space between lines of text  Make the type large enough to be seen from any place in the room  Don’t use script or decorative fonts that are hard to read from a distance  Limit the number of fonts you use  Phrase list items in parallel grammatical form  Use telegraphic wording without being cryptic (include both a noun and a verb in each item)

13.26 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Designing Effective Visuals  Limit each visual to one idea.  Illustrate your main points, not your entire presentation.  Use borders, points, and boxes to highlight important information.  Use clip art sparingly to add color and excitement.  Avoid visuals that conflict with your verbal message.

13.27 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Delivering Your Message Memorizing Speaking from notes Reading Impromptu speaking

13.28 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall  To build confidence while preparing to speak,  Become thoroughly familiar with your subject so that you know what you’re talking about – OVER PREPARE  Practice  Check the location of your presentation  Consider using an interpreter for audiences that don’t speak your language

13.29 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Overcoming Nervousness  Think positively.  Prepare more material than necessary.  Rehearse.  Arrange your notes and visuals before you speak.  Take deep breaths before you begin.  Memorize the opening statement.  Use visuals for assistance and audience interest.  Use nonverbals for emphasis.

13.30 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Using Visuals  When presenting visuals, make sure of a few things in advance of your speech:  Check the equipment to make sure it’s in good working order.  Have a backup plan in case the technology fails.  Be sure that all members of your audience can see your visual aids.

13.31 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Using Visuals  Avoid focusing on your visuals instead of on your audience:  Don’t read your visuals to your listeners  Keep your eyes on your audience, not on your visual.  Don’t put up a visual until you’re ready to talk about it.  Give your audience five seconds to look over your visual before you start talking.

13.32 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Using Visuals  Using Visuals (con’t.)  Remove the visual as soon as you’re finished talking about it.  Try not to put up another visual right away.  When you use a pointer put it away out of sight when you’re not using it.  If you must dim the lights to show your visuals, stand in a lighted area.

13.33 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Question-and-Answer  The question-and-answer period gives you a chance to  Get valuable feedback  Emphasize points you made earlier  Work in material that didn’t fit into the formal presentation  Identify and try to overcome audience resistance

13.34 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Handling Questions  Focus on the questioner.  Respond appropriately.  Maintain control.  Stay cool in the hot seat.  Encourage questions from the audience.  Conclude your speech positively and professionally.

13.35 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall Concluding  To conclude your speech,  Prepare your audience for the end  Halt the question-and-answer period  Summarize the main idea of your presentation and thank people for their attention  Look around the room and make eye contact  Gather your notes and leave the podium

13.36 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall  What are the three steps in planning an oral presentation?  What is the purpose of defining the main idea of a speech?  Why do you have to limit your scope when planning a presentation?  What do you want to achieve with the introduction part of your speech? With the close of your speech?  What six types of visuals are commonly used in presentations? Let’s Discuss Test Your Knowledge

13.37 To accompany Excellence in Business Communication, 5e, Thill and Bovée © 2002 Prentice-Hall  What are five key rules for designing effective presentation visuals?  How does impromptu speaking differ from speaking from notes?  As a speaker, what nonverbal signals can you send to appear more confident?  What can speakers do to maintain control during the question-and-answer period?  Why is simplicity of organization important in oral communication? Let’s Discuss Test Your Knowledge continued