Define Goal and Message

As a speaker, what is your purpose? What do you hope to achieve? What message do you want to get across? This is the raison d'être, the basic object, of the presentation, and yet it is frequently unrealistic, or not clearly understood.

Three steps are involved: defining the basic purpose, end product, and main message or theme.

1. Basic Purpose

Frequently presenters either lose sight of their purpose or have not thought through clearly enough what their purpose should be. The result is often an inappropriate presentation or a confused audience. With the proviso that a presentation may have multiple purposes, the primary one is likely one of these:

  • Persuade/Convince. Marketing presentations are almost always of this type, ...

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