PLANNING

Planning addresses the strategic aspects of your presentation, as opposed to the tactics. It
is doing the market research and analysis, needs assessment, and thinking.

I. Getting Ground Rules

1. The Five Ws
Who/ Audience. Who makes up the audience? Identify the organization,
number of participants, and key individuals.
What/ Subject of Specific Area of Interest. What do they want to hear about?
What specific topic do they want to focus on? This may be only loosely
defined for some presentations but tightly targeted for others.
Why/ Function. What is this presentation intended to do? How does it fit into
the broader scheme? Is this tied in with something else, such as a group of
visiting dignitaries or the annual meeting?
When/ Event and Occasion. Is it tomorrow or next week? What time of day?
Different considerations will be in order depending on whether the talk takes
place first thing in the morning, over lunch, late in the afternoon, or after
dinner. How firm are the date and time?
Where/Location. Here, there, or elsewhere? Is the room already set, or is one
to be scheduled? What kind of place is it? Is travel involved?
2. Receiver Requirements
Topics to be covered and order of presentation.
Criteria for evaluating competing presentations established by potential
customers, such as source selection boards; internal management reviewing
research projects for future funding; or judges for speech contests. They may
even have set evaluation forms; whats on those forms?
Specific questions, given in advance or at the actual presentation.
Detailed guidelines (How). This gets into the operational, nitty-gritty stuff that
you must know from the start:
Type and length of presentation (formal, informal, on-site group,
video/Internet).
Format and medium (computer-based, demonstrations, viewgraphs,
slides).
Nature of meeting interaction (audience questions during or after,
many likely or few).
Operational constraints (related to event, program, location, shipping,
and travel).
Budget and priority.

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 Available help (resources and people, decision makers, reviewers,
presentations support, content contributors).
Anything else to be aware of.

II. Assessing the Situation

Knowing the meeting environment or circumstances surrounding the event can help a
presenter do the right thing or avoid doing the wrong one. Probably every
experienced speaker has realized upon leaving the podium that he or she has just done
something stupid. Several questions are worth asking to avoid problems:
Does the occasion have any special requirements that may be peripheral to
the presentation?
Is there anything I must clearly avoid?
Is there a vital issuesomething the audience specifically wants to hear
about?
Is anything else occurring that is likely to affect my presentation?
Is anyone else involved that I should know about?
Is the present audience the real audience?
Situation analysis is not something done once and forgotten. Events may occur right
before or during the meeting that can seriously affect attendees spirit or attention.

III. Defining Goal and Message/Central Idea

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 detre, 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, as are
presentations seeking approval and support for new programs or facilities/ideas.
Inform/Explain. Program review, professional paper, orientation (new hire,
product, or procedure), all-hands meeting, training session).
Inspire. Many authorities regard this as a subset of persuasion. Its primary
purpose is to fire up or move the troops, such as a coachs send-off of the team
Entertain or Preside. Welcoming new employees, presiding at a retirement or
change of command, contributing at a roast are in this category.
2. End Product

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 The end product is the outcome you desire from your audience in specific terms that help
you know, not guess, whether you succeeded. It is what they will do, believe, and know.
Writing down your end product helps clarify and focus your presentation. Here are some
criteria to help you do that:
Is it achievable?
Is it a present or ultimate objective?
Is it measurable?
Is it sound business?
3. Main Message/Central Idea
If you could say only one sentence to your audience, what would it be? This may seem
trivial and obvious. Let me assure that it is not. Many presenters are vague about their
main messages (or even their purpose) in speaking. Where this occurs in the planning
process depends on the situation. Sometimes you may know early on what the nature of
your core message is. At other times you may not have a good grasp on it until you dig
deeper into planning.
Make sure you know your objective.
Specific Purpose To Achieve End Product:
Persuade Action or attitude
Inform Change in audience knowledge or ability
(behavioral objective)
Inspire Emotional impact, enthusiasm
Entertain or preside Warm feeling suitable for the occasion

Distinguish between the subject and the main message.

Why is identifying main message so important?
A good proposal opens with a message. It closes with a message. And in
between you keep socking home the message. . . . You dare not start any
proposal effort without knowing just what your message will be.
- Beveridge and Velton
What is the main theme, idea, or point I want the audience to take away with
them?
Residual Message the idea that breaks through the resistance, that
stays in the listeners mind when everything else is forgotten.
In addition to writing out your main message or theme, identify the three
or four key points of your main message. Here are some examples of a
main theme and key points.
Wear your safety glasses at all times when operating machinery
(main theme to persuade).
XBC Corporation has three major product lines (main theme to
inform).

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IV. Conducting Audience Analysis
1. Audience-Centeredness
2. The Psychology of Audience
3. Demographic Audience Analysis
Age
Gender
Sexual orientation
Racial, ethic, and cultural background
Religion
Group membership
4. Situational Audience Analysis
Size
Physical setting
Disposition towards the topic
o Interest
o Knowledge
o Attitude
Disposition towards the speaker
Disposition towards the occasion
5. Information about the Audience
You can use demographic, psychographic, and situational questions to get
information on your audience.

Demographic the qualities of a specific group of people such as age,

income, sex, and education.
Psychographic it is based on value, belief, and tradition.
Situational it is based on what is going on that affects the audience in a
particular time and in a particular place.
6. Adapting to the Audience
Before the speech- before conducting your speech you must have 3 analysis:
demographic analysis, attitudinal analysis, and environmental analysis
During the speech- as you speak you can see whether your audiences are still
interested by attending non-verbal cues such as eye contacts, facial expression
and etc.
After the speech- so you can tell how your audience responded to you by
nonverbal, verbal, survey, and behavioral responses.

V. Developing Approach and Strategies

1. Listen to and Heed the Input. Whether in business, government, or international relations,
having information can be valuable if it is given proper attention.

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2. Adapt to Audience Knowledge. Decisions stemming from the audience assessment
include: the level of information presented, terminology, how much background to
provide, form of reinforcement material, form of graphics, and style of delivery. The
objective is to ensure that the audience (as an entity or key players) can follow the talk
adequately without being bored or wiped out. Suggestions for doing that for three levels
of audience familiarity are summarized in Figure 4-8.
3. Assess Audience Attitude and Interest Level. Combining both of these important audience
characteristics offers valuable insights not obvious from considering them separately.

4. Address Audience Attitudes Specifically

Here are more strategies for considering attitudes of your receivers.

Rank potential objections. List the possible topics the audience may have
concerns about and rank them in importance to the listeners.

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 Develop counters for each major objection. There may be some legitimate black
marks or lemons on your record. If theyre likely to be a major point of
concern for the listener you cant ignore them, much as you would like to. Look
for ways to make lemonade from the lemonthat is, turn the negative into a
positive.
Trigger negative attitudes toward competing ideas or teams. In proposal parlance
this is called laying on a ghost story.
5. Address Audience Priority Needs. One of the most common causes for the demise of
presentations is the failure to (a) consider that the messages must be focused on the needs
and interests of the audience, not the presenter, and (b) tailor the presentation
accordingly. Here are five ways to help you direct your focus appropriately.
Rank audience needsbusiness and personal.
Fill the need better than the competition.
Stress benefits, not just features.
Stress results over process.
Adjust to current needs.
6. Tailor to Individual Needs and Motivations. Personal needs often operate at a subsurface
level, making them easy to miss. One way of assessing these is through Maslows
hierarchy of needs.

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 Physiologically Concerned. These people are sensitive to the need for good health
but apparently havent been adequately convinced that smoking is unhealthy. A
factual presentationor new findings, well substantiatedmay have some
success.
Socially Oriented. Health is secondary to this group. People in this category want
to be part of the gang, so if smoking is in, theyre likely to do it. Facts about
cancer rates mean little, but if smoking can be seen to have strong social
liabilities, they may respond.
Ego Oriented. The slogan for this group is: I am the master of my fate. I can do
anything. Facts and social arguments are worthless for these people. But
pointing out that nicotine seems to be the master, not they, may challenge them to
straighten out that situation.
7. Refine the Message. The theme is like an ad slogan. It captures the essence of the
presentation or product in one line. It serves as the take-away that people might identify
with the product and recall in a positive manner. In this part is a good time to review not
only the main theme but also the main points you identified back in the define goal and
message stage, and to crystallize these into a set of core messages.
8. Lay Out a Realistic Operational Plan. The culmination of planning is to provide a basis
for making smart decisions about how to proceed with this presentation. Here are some of
those decisions you will make.
Should a presentation be made? If so, when, where, and to whom?
What media should be used?
Whats the slant of the message?
What type and depth of supporting material is suggested or readily available?
Who will be, or should be, the speakers? How should they dress and act?
What else needs to be considered besides the presentation itself?

VI. Scheduling
The final step in laying out the plan is to establish how all this work will get done.
What specific steps will it take to get the presentation developed to meet the delivery date
while making efficient use of available resources?
Before charging farther down the presentations development road, its a good idea to
bounce your analysis off someone else. An astute observer, such as your boss, someone
more familiar with the audience and situation, or even a colleague can review your
analysis from a perspective different from yours. A brief review (or sometimes not so
brief, for major presentations) can provide insights you are missing, add information, and
steer the presentation in a wiser direction.

References:
Leech. T. (2004). How to prepare, stage, and deliver winning presentations (3rd ed.). New York: AMACOM.
Lucas, S. E. (2012). The art of public speaking (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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 PLANNING
(The Six-Step Approach to Business Presentation)

Subject Code: BUSPRSN

Submitted to: Ms. Brittanny Aiki Fusilero

Prepared by:
de Luna, Ela Marie
Dimapilis, Cyril May
Dipad, Lorenzo
Hayakawa, Ara Mae
Hilario, Nichole
Ilano, Mariell
Jimenez, Mawie
Kwan, Michael Andrie
Llunar, Amy Josephine
Lopez, Maristel Mira

AC1431-A