Five minutes was all I had… The email said “You’re Up!”
It informed me I’d been chosen and had five days to compress a sixty minute talk into five minutes and deliver it to about 200 high tech and entrepreneurial types at a meetup in Boulder.
It was scary and exciting… and fortunately, successful, i.e., a number of new opportunities were opened up.
In case you’re ever in a similar situation and need to put together a short talk on short notice, here’s a quick checklist:
- What’s your objective? Write it down!
- Clarify Your Role – Why are you there, “Why should I listen to you?”
- Get right to the point
- “Show me!” – Show, don’t tell
- If you’re demonstrating a product or service, take us on a “User Journey”
- Focus on just one, the most unique aspect
- Less data, more illustration – photos, charts, maps, “word pictures”
- Paint the problem in painful detail… Then offer the solution
- Tell a compelling before/after story
- Do something memorable
One last point: LOVE your audience. Get out of yourself and do your utmost to be of service, leave them with something of value. Pretend it’s a Valentine’s Day gift…
It will probably be way better for them (and you) than chocolates…
Anyway, five minutes goes by quick.
But once you have your presentation down, with programs out there now like Stealth Seminars and Evergreen Business Systems, you can record it and an endless stream of viewers can catch the excitement all over again, over and over… all while you’re sitting back sipping a latte.
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” ~ Woody Allen