It’s about the audience, the audience, the audience. Discover how to organise your thoughts and structure your message so that they will want to listen.
Prepare to be clear and persuasive. Prepare to connect, allowing for likely audience questions, concerns and objections. Prepare an introduction that builds immediate rapport, commanding respect from even the most difficult audience.
Prepare your audio-visual aids for impact, and for use in a revolutionary new delivery method that keeps audiences awake and focused.

 Don’t prepare to deliver your content, prepare to engage your content.

About the author

Michael is a leading authority on training in presentation and media skills. His methods are universal – the result of intensive workshops with people from many cultures. He has special expertise in handling difficult issues and difficult audiences. Many describe his training as life-changing. He was a TV reporter, director and presenter of news and current affairs. He has published seven books.

The audience, the audience, the audience

Good preparation is like assembling a bicycle. It needs both wheels if you expect to ride on it. Obvious.

So why do so many presenters produce the speech equivalent of a bicycle with a missing wheel?

Wheel number one is the message. Wheel number two is the audience. Much of your ability to connect message to audience will be in your manner and style on the day, but a great deal of it starts with your preparation. To get your second wheel on and pumped you’ll prepare to generate these thoughts in your audience:

This content is relevant to me

This presenter knows how I feel about the topic.

This guide shows how to assemble your bicycle with both wheels ready to roll.

• About the author
• Foreword

1. First ask the right questions
   1. The vital audience questions
2. The all-purpose, five-step preparation: THE CITY MODEL
   1. STEP 1 Write the city-view sentence
   2. STEP 2 Brainstorm
   3. STEP 3 Connect your ideas
   4. STEP 4 Organise your ideas
   5. STEP 5 Prepare your audio-visual aids
3. If you must read out a fully written speech
   1. Page layout
   2. Pause and scan reading
   3. Prompt cards
4. Putting it all together
   1. Prepare in this order
   2. Deliver (from the presentation notes) in this order
   3. Example
5. Just before you speak
   1. The final count-down
   2. How to overcome persistent symptoms of nervousness
   3. Symptom therapy for the truly terrified
   4. What now?

• Endnotes for Part I
• Bibliography
• Other books by Michael Brown