Fortune Magazine

November 17, 2014

Article written by Brian O’Keefe

This is a small excerpt from a longer article taken from Fortune Magazine. It will not go in my book and is only displayed here for educational purposes and is considered legal under fair use. Copyright 2014 Fortune Magazine.

How to give a Presentation

1) Do your homework.

“My first thing in preparing for a presentation”, says Robbins, “is you’ve got to know your audience and what their deepest needs are, their deepest desires, and their deepest concerns. That’s more important than anything else. You have to carve your message and really make sure that it’s going to hit the mark for who you’re speaking with. So I usually do  quite a bit of homework in advance, and I have a team of people who also do homework. You can’t add value until you know their needs.”

2) Respect your audience

“It’s not enough just to know your audience. You’ve got to honestly respect them too. You can’t influence someone you’re judging. So when I sit down and do the slides, I think, “Who’s in this audience? What do I respect about them? That gives me a connection with them that I-and they-can feel.”

3) Go Deep Quickly

“The next question is to ask, “How am I going to engage them from the very beginning-to quickly get to what matters to them? And to engage other people, you’ve got to be engaged. One way to engage is with shock. Or entertainment. But I think. “Let’s engage with the truth. Let’s go for what’s real and raw.”

4) Know your outcome

“You need an outline of what you want to do, but the key is to know your outcome. I pick outcomes that I’m passionate about. If you’re not passionate about something, no one else is going to be, and you’re wasting your time.”

5) Embrace Spontaneity

“Some people clearly need a sequence in their presentation to be able to function, and I understand that. But you also have to be able to flex so that you can be real and in the moment. People are starving for spontaneity. Everybody’s sick of watching somebody do a PowerPoint. I mean, it’s just absurd.”