The simplest of tips for preparing your presentation, speech, or keynote.

The most important thing about any presentation or speech will be mapping out your structure. Working out what you want to achieve and what you’ll say to achieve it. If you’ve attended a good public speaking course or any speaker training, you’ll have a checklist of things to prepare which should include:

• First words and first impressions
• Audience engagement
• Your introduction and the subject introduction – and its importance to this audience
• Main point
• Substance
• Conclusion and repeat of main point including audience engagement.

Let’s assume you’ve done this and you’re ready to bolt it together. Most people (who haven’t done a media training session with me) start the process by typing the first words of their speech. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is wrong – but I would say there is a better way that will give you a better outcome when you’re actually presenting it in front of an audience.

When writing a speech, an introduction, even your MC notes – I suggest recording them as audio before you type them. I use the Voice Memos app on my phone and I simply talk. I make mistakes and keep going, I try sentences and see how things sound. I just talk through all the things I think I want to say. Things sounds different in our head than they do out loud – I learnt that a long time ago writing TV scripts.

Then I use one of the many transcribing apps to convert my audio to text. I use Temi. It’s not free and probably isn’t even the best, but it’s cheap and simple and I’ve been using it for ages to transcribe long documentary interviews for TV. I also think it’s accurate enough for my needs. You’ll probably find a heap of better ones (and let me know when you do)!

Then I go through the transcript and fix it up, delete things that didn’t feel right. Shuffle the structure around a little until I’m happy with my speech or presentation.

This means my ‘script’ is written the way I talk – rather than trying to talk the way something is written. Of course you’re not reading your ‘script’ when you’re in front of the audience anyway, but you’ll find it’s all so much easier to remember when it’s crafted in your ‘speaking’ style.

This trick ensures I sound more natural when I deliver a keynote or speech. It means I sound like me!

One of my trainees in a presentation course last week (who by the way, was awesome) said he felt so much more confident when he realised he had the licence to be himself. Yes! As a media and communication trainer, that’s winning.

Try this trick to make your next speech sound more authentic, your audience will thank you for it.