Presentations Skills and the Power of Clear Objectives

From training course to training course all over the country, no matter what the subject being taught you will hear the trainer talk about the ‘power of objectives’

We all know the importance of objectives for subjects like performance management, appraisals and sales. But many of us don’t realise how important objectives are for presentations.

Presentation courses will always speak about knowing your objective before you start to put the presentation together. In this article we look at the key points of having objectives in your presentation and more importantly knowing your objective in the planning process before you even start thinking of the presentation.

We all know the sayings about planning such as ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ and ‘plan your work and work your plan’ etc.

Your presentation will usually have two objectives

• General Objective
• Specific Objective

Before you begin to prepare for your presentation you should ask the question “Why am I making this presentation?”

Presentation Skills General Objectives

Presentation skills training courses tell us that General Objectives normally fall into 5 categories, they are:

• To persuade or sell
• To teach
• To stimulate thought
• To inform
• To entertain

Whatever your general objective, you should always try to entertain your audience, this means putting your material over in such a way that is interesting and makes people want to listen. The best way to do this is to try and tell a story to highlight your key points. The audience relate to stories and analogies so a good presenter must also be a good storyteller

Presentation Skills Specific Objectives

The specific objective is somewhat different as your specific objective will depend entirely on your subject matter.

You should always write down your specific objective in one sentence and try to phrase it in terms of what your audience will do after the presentation. (Remember SMART) Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Framed

The benefits of specific objectives are many and I have just listed below some of the key benefits you will receive from putting that little bit of effort into the planning process 

• Focuses your mind from the start
• Selection of material is based on achieving the objective
• When your notes are complete you can check that you are meeting your original aim
• You may be able to test if you have achieved by what the audience do after your presentation

So the next time you are asked to carry out a presentation think of what is taught on presentation skills training courses day in and day out ‘plan your work and work your plan’ and the first step of planning a presentation is the objective.

Frank O'Toole, Premier Training Courses