Advice - please help!

[sturm und drang]

Okay, so I'm headed to Philadelphia tomorrow to pitch some new business for my firm.

We have decided to go "informal" this time – which means not using a PPT presentation, boards or other visual cues to support our pitch.

For my part, I have written a ten-minute script. I have to memorize it and give it cold: no notes, no talking points, nothing.

I've never given a "speech" of this length – for that's what it truly is – sans some kind of visual keys or outline.

I have also just been notified the CEO of the client, a Fortune 500 company, will be there as well.

I tend to thrive in give-and-take conversations, Q&A sessions, etc., but really have to battle nervousness when I'm standing giving a formal dissertation, as it were.

Do any of you – lawyers in the house? – have any advice on how to best memorize the script and ensure that I don't stand up there to talk and just... go blank? With no PPT to back me up, that would be an absolute disaster.

Help! Please!

[Usually Lurkin]

Sturm,

10 minutes shouldn't be too bad. Here's a couple techniques that I've tried.
1) memorize just 5-7 points from your speech (facts, numbers, figures) that can serve as an outline. 5-7 is a good number of things for the brain to memorize, and gives you about a minute and a half per point to elaborate. If you're used to working off of power point, memorize a visual picture of how these facts and figures would look on a slide or two. You can fill in around those points just like you would with a real slide.
2) Do act like you are carrying on a conversation. It's just a little more formal than the quick give and take of the cocktail variety. You've been given the floor to make your peice. If you had to spend a few minutes lecturing a child on the value of honesty (or lecturing me on homosexuality), you'd probably fill 10 minutes without blinking. Same thing here. Remember that you are talking to people, and that you've got something to tell them that will help them.

The other approach is
3) memorize the whole ten minutes. If you are confident in your writing, then memorize every word, and do some acting. Ten minutes of monologue is really not too much to do. If you like playing roles, treat this as your soliloquy, and act like you are a great speech giver - Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg or something. That can take the pressure off yourself, and actually help with delivery.


ps
An easy way to memorize a list of 5-7 points in one context (like an airplane) and recall them in another (like a board room) is to assign each point to a differnent finger.

[Smiles]

I'll give you some tips that have helped me. I haven't needed to give a presentation in quite some time, but I always entertain the idea that the board will call on me to brief them on my perspective of the company's operations. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Maybe one of these will be useful to you:

(You may wan't to consider having your entire outline written down (or the primary points), if you feel that you truly might go entirely blank. Once you get started, or back on track, you won't need it again.)

I start with my printed PPT outline and review it a few times, high-lighting the points that I tend to forget. I then write out the outline by hand using only the primary "5-7 pionts" and the things I have hi-lighted (something about the process of scratching out the words on paper). I just keep reviewing it and axing it down until it becomes a few words on a single page. Naturally, I take breaks between reviews to see what I'm really recalling.

Silly, but helpful:
1.) If you have a bit of a photographic memory, use different colors of ink or pencil on each point. This saved me on an enormous genetics essay I had to write for a final exam back in college. Under the pressure of the moment, I mixed up two points, and the thing that saved me was remembering what color each point was assigned on my outline.

2.) I practice the "speech" alone and "out loud" - using dramatic gestures. I tone the gestures down until they are subtle or non-existent. If I forget what to say next, often my brain remembers the gesture, and that triggers the next thing I needed to say.

[MavKikiNYC]

Just imagine your audience naked, and that should put you at ease.

[chumdawg]

Sturm, if "going blank" is a legitimate fear you have, then my advice would be to revisit the "no notes" decision. Now, the chances are that you won't end up needing them. Your company wouldn't have put you in this position if you didn't have some things to say, after all. But here's the thing: just knowing that you have them, tucked inside a pocket, will make you feel much better. And without question, breaking the "no notes" rule would be far more palatable than cold freezing in front of an important audience.

Two other little tidbits. First, draw confidence in the fact that your company has chosen an "informal" approach. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to incorporate a little bit of the relaxed style that you are more comfortable in--at least in your attitude and approach, if not in actuality. I mean, you can't give a "formal dissertation, as it were" in an "informal" setting. So relax, and remind yourself that if it were necessary for the thing to be scripted from minute one to minute last, then the presentation itself would be quite different.

Lastly, and in my mind most importantly, spend the bulk of your preparation time on the early minutes of your "speech." Know the first two minutes or so cold. For that matter, go back to your script and edit if need be. The first couple minutes are make-or-break. Impress your audience from the outset, and they will be much more forgiving, as it were, for the rest of the speech. What's more, your own nervousness will disappear after the first minute or two, especially if things go well. Once you get your feet underneath you, you will be well on your way.

Best of luck...and remember that your company wouldn't have you in this situation if you weren't capable and deserving!

[madape]

Chicago Cubs slugger Moises Alou finds it helpful to Urinate on his hands before big games. Give it a try and let us know how it works.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

Originally posted by: madape
Chicago Cubs slugger Moises Alou finds it helpful to Urinate on his hands before big games. Give it a try and let us know how it works.

genius.

[Murphy3]

I urinated on my hands this morning, but it wasn't on purpose.

[Drbio]

It's amazing the path that some of these threads take isn't it?



How'd it go sturmie?

[MavsFanFinley]

You know she kicked ass...

[Murphy3]

I'm sure she kicked some @ss.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: MavsFanFinley
You know she kicked ass...

Of course. I just enjoy hearing about the successes of friends.

[Murphy3]

As a liberal, I hope she found success.
If it were one of the people from this site that sway toward the far right, I would have to wish failure.

[sturm und drang]

I just got back. Such is the beauty of taking the company jet. (I'm now ruined for life on flying commercial, especially as I somehow never, ever manage to clear security without some kind of clothes removal or wanding. It must be the tattoo.)

Anyway.

Thanks to all of you for all the advice. It was very, very helpful. I first memorized my script, but then found that I had somehow shed most of my conviction and passion in the process. So. I then went back, chunked the presentation into parts and forced myself to improv the rest. I did color code the outline, Smiles. I had utilized that method in college to prepare for history exams, and it worked wonders again. It really does help you visually delineate your points.

I still don't understand how it happened, but I didn't get nervous. I don't remember the presentation – it's all a blur, really – but I know it went really, really well. Really well. I'm thrilled. My team was thrilled. I think we got the business, though we won't know for sure until next week.

Thanks again for all the advice. Really. Very, very helpful.

What I discovered is that if you know your stuff and are passionate about what you're doing and saying, presenting can be fun. I can't believe I'm saying that!

And all this without urinating on my hand. I had planned to do that, of course, but found it's perhaps messier and more difficult for women to do so...

[mavsfanforever]

Originally posted by: sturm und drang
I just got back. Such is the beauty of taking the company jet. (I'm now ruined for life on flying commercial, especially as I somehow never, ever manage to clear security without some kind of clothes removal or wanding. It must be the tattoo.)

Anyway.

Thanks to all of you for all the advice. It was very, very helpful. I first memorized my script, but then found that I had somehow shed most of my conviction and passion in the process. So. I then went back, chunked the presentation into parts and forced myself to improv the rest. I did color code the outline, Smiles. I had utilized that method in college to prepare for history exams, and it worked wonders again. It really does help you visually delineate your points.

I still don't understand how it happened, but I didn't get nervous. I don't remember the presentation – it's all a blur, really – but I know it went really, really well. Really well. I'm thrilled. My team was thrilled. I think we got the business, though we won't know for sure until next week.

Thanks again for all the advice. Really. Very, very helpful.

What I discovered is that if you know your stuff and are passionate about what you're doing and saying, presenting can be fun. I can't believe I'm saying that!

And all this without urinating on my hand. I had planned to do that, of course, but found it's perhaps messier and more difficult for women to do so...

I got to this thread a little late and thus I cannot advice too much. However, just for my satisfaction I would say that I normally associate everything I memorize. Eg., If something says " The market is on decline". I would associate this with Antoine Walker(he is on the decline). This makes me memorize easier since I am associating things with the stuff thats always on my mind.

However, I love the advice smiles gave on this thread. I think that is pretty effective way to memorize long speeches.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally posted by: Murphy3
As a liberal, I hope she found success.
If it were one of the people from this site that sway toward the far right, I would have to wish failure.

wha?

[u2sarajevo]

Originally posted by: EricaLubarsky

wha?

*tounge-in-cheek*

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally posted by: sturm und drang

And all this without urinating on my hand. I had planned to do that, of course, but found it's perhaps messier and more difficult for women to do so...

This is something good to save for the actual presentation. I always just place it in my "contingency plan". If things start going downhill, or you accidentally say "shut up, moron" instead of "good point, sir", you can just break out the old pee-on-yourself routine. It makes for a great exit, and they'll never forget about you.