Last week I was talking to architecture and design students about delivering a great presentation and helping them think about how their body language was a second conversation that would dominate the first – the content – unless the two were aligned. 

I asked them how much time they spend preparing their presentations.  “An entire term,” was the typical answer – because they work on their models for the whole term.  Then I asked them how much time they spent thinking about their body language – the second conversations – for delivering that presentation. 

“None,” was the typical answer.  So design students may be the worst offenders, but we’re all guilty of underestimating the second conversation.  By that I mean that we all spend a good deal of time researching, planning, and writing our speeches, but precious little time planning the choreography.

And yet it’s the choreography that will undo all that great design work in the presentation, especially, as I wrote yesterday, if the student spends all her time looking at the slides rather than the audience. 

So here’s my takeaway – spend as much time preparing your second conversation as you do your first.  And why not?  It’s at least as important.  You simply cannot be successful without it. 

How should you prepare?  Here are 5 quick steps for ensuring a successful second conversation.

1.  Decide where the high points of your speech are.  Then practice the speech moving toward the (imaginary) audience on those important points.  Move away from the audience when you’ve finished the point.

2.  Decide on the emotional message of your speech.   How do you feel about the message you’re imparting to the audience?  You want to convey that enthusiasm, passion, excitement, anger, or fun to the audience as strongly as you experience it.  The only way to do that is to find out what it is, focus on it, and then make a practice of calling up that emotion before you give the speech. 

3.  Check your posture.   Your posture powerfully signals how you feel about your subject, your audience, and yourself.  So rehearse in front of a video camera, imagining that the audience is there and then watch yourself on tape.  How do you look?  Confident or hesitant?  In charge or submissive?  Like a powerful person or merely taking up space?  Then stand up like a soldier at attention, but without the tension; release it by rolling your shoulders, and tensing and relaxing your big muscle groups.  You’re ready to go. 

4.  When you get to the room, check your choreography.  Rooms often present challenges of one kind or another for speakers.  Does the stage form a barrier between you and the audience?  Is it hard to see everyone?  Are there aisles to go up, or are you blocked?  You need to create your choreography on the fly, often with very little time.  Find a central point to begin, from which you can see the whole audience.  Then find places to foray out into the audience (without tripping over yourself or anyone else).  In that way you can plan your moves before you being to speak. 

5.  Before you begin to speak, find the emotional core you’ve identified for the speech and get into it.   Do this by remembering the last time you felt that sort of emotion strongly.  Use all your sense memories to recall it:  what did it smell, taste, feel, sound, and look like?  Once you’ve called up that emotion, you’re ready to speak.