1. Chapter 14 Business Presentations
Business Communication: Process and Product, 6e
Mary Ellen Guffey Copyright © 2008

2. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Know your purpose.
Decide what you want your audience to believe, remember, or do when you finish.
Aim all parts of your talk toward your purpose.

3. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Know your audience.
Analyze the age, gender, education, experience, knowledge, and size of your audience.
Decide what organizational pattern, delivery style, and supporting material will work best.

4. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Organize the introduction.
Capture attention with a promise, story, startling fact, question, quotation, problem, or story.
Establish your credibility by identifying your position, expertise, knowledge, or qualifications.
Preview your main points.

5. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Organize the body of your presentation.
Develop two to four main points. Streamline your topic and summarize its principal parts.
Arrange the points logically: chronologically, from most important to least, by comparison and contrast, or by some other strategy.
Have extra material ready. Be prepared with more information and visuals if needed.

6. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Organize the conclusion.
Summarize your main themes.
Leave the audience with a specific and memorable “takeaway.” Tell how listeners can use this information, why you have spoken, or what you want them to do.
Include a statement that allows you to leave the podium gracefully. 8

7. Building Audience Rapport Like a Pro
Effective Imagery
Analogy
A computer and the brain operate similarly.
Metaphor
A nation is a family.
Simile
As bold as brass. As dry as a bone.
Personal anecdote
"I was young and didn’t know better " 8

8. Building Audience Rapport Like a Pro
Effective Imagery
Personalized statistics
U.S. consumers purchase 122 billion servings of Coca-Cola each year. This means that every person in this room consumes 411 servings of Coke annually.
Worst- and best-case scenario
In a worst-case scenario, Kentucky’s 55-year-old Wolf Creek Dam, which holds back the largest manmade reservoir east of the Mississippi, would release a wall of water, inundating towns and cities including Nashville. 8

9. Building Audience Rapport Like a Pro
Verbal Signposts
Previewing
Now we will consider the opposite view. Next I’m going to discuss….
Summarizing
You see, then, that the most important elements are….
Let me review the major problems I have presented….
Switching directions
Up to this point, I have talked only about… now let’s look at….
Those are all good reasons to support the proposal. But let’s also consider the negatives.

10. Building Audience Rapport Like a Pro
© Jon Feingersh / Blend Images / Getty Images
Nonverbal Messages
Look terrific!
Animate your body.
Speak extemporaneously.
Punctuate your words.
Get out from behind the podium.
Vary your facial expression.

11. Planning Visual Aids, Handouts, and Multimedia Presentations
Select the medium carefully.
Consider the size of audience and degree of formality desired.
Consider cost, ease of preparation, and potential effectiveness.

12. Planning Visual Aids, Handouts, and Multimedia Presentations
Highlight main ideas.
Focus on major concepts only.
Avoid overkill. Showing too many graphics reduces their effectiveness.
Keep all visuals simple.

13. Planning Visual Aids, Handouts, and Multimedia Presentations
Ensure visibility.
Use large type for slides and transparencies.
Be sure all audience members can see.

14. Planning Visual Aids, Handouts, and Multimedia Presentations
Enhance comprehension.
Give the audience a moment to study a visual before discussing it.
Paraphrase its verbal message; don’t read it.

15. Planning Visual Aids, Handouts, and Multimedia Presentations
Practice using your visual aids.
Rehearse your talk, perfecting your handling of the visual aids.
Talk to the audience and not to the visual.

16. Overcoming Stage Fright
Symptoms of Stage Fright
Urge to flee!
Pounding heart
Short breath
Sweaty palms
Dry throat
Unsteady voice
Trembling hands
Tied tongue
Wobbly knees
Stomach butterflies

17. Overcoming Stage Fright
Ways to Overcome Stage Fright
Select a familiar, relevant topic. Prepare 150 percent.
Use positive self-talk.
Convert your fear into anticipation and enthusiasm.
Shift the focus from yourself to your visuals.
Give yourself permission to make an occasional mistake.
Ignore stumbles; keep going. Don’t apologize.
Make the listeners your partners. Get them involved.
Just before you talk, practice deep breathing.

18. Improving Telephone and Voice Mail Skills
Making Calls
Plan a mini agenda.
Use a three-point introduction:
Your name
Your affiliation
A brief explanation of why you are calling

19. Improving Telephone and Voice Mail Skills
Making Calls
Be cheerful and accurate.
Bring it to a close.
Avoid telephone tag.
Leave complete voic messages.

20. Improving Telephone and Voice Mail Skills
Receiving Calls
Identify yourself immediately.
Be responsive and helpful.
Be cautious when answering calls for others.
Take messages carefully.
Explain when transferring calls.

21. End