Week 4 · Quiet Gravitas · Day 24 of 28 · Wednesday · Lesson · 15 min

How to give a presentation: hook, one message, three supports, call to action

Day 24 · Presenting to a Room

A presentation is a story with the lights on. Day 24 covers the hook in the first twenty seconds, one message said three ways, planted feet, lighthouse eye contact, and a memorised first sentence.

The point. A presentation is a story with the lights on. Hook them in the first 20 seconds, say one message three ways, and end by telling people what to do. Everything after your first sentence is easier.

Topics: presentations · groups

Learn the skill

A story with the lights on

A presentation is a story with the lights on. Everything from the last three weeks applies at once, which is why it comes in Week 4. The structure: a hook in the first 20 seconds (a question, a number, a one-line story), one message said three ways, and a close that tells people what to do. “What is / what could be” is the shape; the rule of three is the discipline.

Picture it · 6 examples

Example The number in the first twenty seconds
“Forty per cent of our customers never use the feature we spent last year building.” Silence. Then the talk. Everyone remembers the talk. The presenter before opened with “So, a bit about me”, and lost the room by slide two.
Selling The pitch
Hook: “Last Tuesday one of your competitors closed its books for the quarter in three days.” Message: you can too. Three supports. Call: “Give us one team for one quarter.” The buyer’s first question is about the team.
In the office The all-hands update
One message: the queue is going to zero. Said three ways: numbers, a customer, a date. Call: “Send me your top ten questions by Friday.” Two hundred people know what to do. Last quarter’s update had twelve points and no ask.
Drinks & dinners The toast
Hook: “A year ago this team was four people and a whiteboard.” Message: look at it now. Three things it did. Call: “Raise a glass to year two.” Forty people raise a glass. It took ninety seconds.
On a call The webinar
Camera-off audiences leave in the first minute if nothing hooks them. “Here’s the one number that predicts whether this works for you.” The attendee count holds. Last month it halved by minute three.
Hard conversation The bad news
Hook: “The launch is moving.” Message: here is why, and it is the right decision. Three reasons. Call: “Here’s what each team does this week.” Nobody leaves the room guessing.

The same body, scaled up

Physically, it is the same body, scaled up. Plant your feet; don’t drift. Lighthouse eye contact: finish each thought with one person. Gestures bigger than in conversation but still inside the box, with your hands at rest between them. Pace slower than feels right, with a real pause before each new point.

Picture it · 5 examples

Example Finish the thought with one person
You deliver each sentence to one face, then move to the next. From the audience it looks like you are talking to everyone. The presenter before scanned the room constantly and looked at nobody. People said she seemed nervous. Your eyes moved less, and you seemed certain.
In the office Feet planted
You stop pacing. Your weight is on both feet for the whole update. On the recording, the fidget is gone and so is the sense that you want to leave.
Selling Gestures in the box
In the pitch room your hands move bigger than at a desk, but stay between shoulders and waist, and come to rest between points. The investors watch your face, not your hands.
Drinks & dinners The toast with forty people
Feet planted, glass still, one face at a time. The previous speaker shifted weight every sentence. You look like the senior person in the room. You are not.
On a call The webinar
You sit back, hands in frame, and slow down a notch more than feels right. Two hundred people, cameras off. The chat, which usually fills with “can you share the slides?”, fills with questions about the content. Stillness on a screen reads as authority, and the chat is the proof.

First sentence memorised

Nerves: two physiological sighs beforehand, “I’m excited” under your breath, and a short, memorised first sentence so you cannot stall at the start. Everything after the first sentence is easier.

Picture it · 5 examples

Example The first sentence
Two sighs in the corridor. “I’m excited”, under your breath. First sentence memorised: “Three years ago we had eleven customers.” You say it, and you are in. The sentence after is easy. The stall never arrives.
Selling The pitch room
Three founders before you. Two sighs while they clear their slides. One line ready: “We fix one problem.” You open on it. The investors look up.
In the office Backstage at the all-hands
Two sighs behind the curtain. “I’m excited” to the sound tech. First line: “Last Friday, the queue hit zero.” Said in your head twice. Said out loud once. You are off and running.
Drinks & dinners Before the toast
Two sighs at the bar. The first sentence memorised and nothing else. “A year ago this team was four people.” After that, the story tells itself.
On a call Before the webinar
Two sighs with the camera off. First line ready: “Here’s the one number that matters.” Camera on. Say it. The stall where you used to say “um, so, welcome everyone” is gone.

Check you’ve got it

How soon should the hook land?

After the introductions
In the first twenty seconds
At the end, as a twist

Answer

In the first twenty seconds. A question, a number or a one-line story in the first twenty seconds, before anyone reaches for their phone.

Lighthouse eye contact means…

Sweeping the room constantly
Finishing each thought with one person, then moving on
Looking just above their heads

Answer

Finishing each thought with one person, then moving on. One person per thought. Sweeping reads as nervous; staring above heads reads as absent.

Cheat sheet · Hook, message, three, call

Hook in 20 seconds

A question, a number, a one-line story.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example A number
“Forty per cent never use it.” Said and left hanging in the first ten seconds of the all-hands. The room does the maths, and you can hear it: a silence with thinking in it. The slides come after that, and they have the room’s attention.
Selling A one-line story
“Last Tuesday your competitor closed its books for the quarter in three days.” A story in one sentence, and the buyer’s pen stops. It is the strongest hook there is, because it has a who, a when, and a number in it.
Drinks & dinners A question
“Who here remembers the whiteboard?” Hands go up around the table. You have them, and the toast that follows is about the whiteboard. The speaker before you opened with “I’m not much of a speaker” and proved it.

One message, three supports

Said three ways.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example The message
“The queue is going to zero.” One message to the all-hands, then three ways to say it: a number, a customer, a date. At the end, people repeat the message back to each other in the corridor. Last quarter’s update had twelve points and nobody repeated any of them.
In the office The update
You cannot say the update in one sentence, so you have two talks. You give one of them. The other goes in the follow-up email. The director says it was the clearest update of the quarter, and you left half of it out.
Selling The pitch
Message: the buyer can close the quarter’s books in three days. Supports: the tool, the client who did it, the price. Nothing else on the slide. The buyer photographs it, and her question is about the client who did it.

Feet planted, lighthouse eyes

Gestures in the box.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example Plant
Both feet, weight even, for the whole first minute at the front of the room. Movement after that is a choice, not a leak. The presenter before you drifted left and right for twenty minutes and people said she seemed nervous.
Drinks & dinners The toast
One sentence per face around the table, finishing the thought with that person before moving to the next. Forty people feel told. Your hands rest on the chair back between the two gestures you make. It looks like you have done this before.
On a call Webinar
You look at the lens for the first sentence and the last, and let the middle go to the screen. Two hundred camera-off attendees feel addressed at the two moments that matter. The attendee count holds to the end.

Pause before each new point

Longer than feels right.

Picture it · 2 examples

Example Longer than feels right
Two seconds of silence before “Second”. It feels like forever at the front of the room. It sounds like someone who knows what is coming. The CFO looks up at the pause, which is what the pause was for.
In the office The all-hands
A pause before each new point, longer than feels right. The room resets each time. Last quarter, without the pauses, point three was heard as part of point two and nobody could tell you afterwards what point three was.

End on the call to action

Then stop. No “so… yeah”.

Picture it · 3 examples

Example Then stop
“Send me your top ten questions by Friday.” Stop. You walk off. Not “so… yeah, that’s it, thanks”, which is how the speaker before you ended and the last thing anyone remembers of him. The last words are the ones they carry.
Selling The close
“Give us one team for one quarter.” Stop. Silence in the pitch room. The buyer speaks first, which is how it should be, and what she says is “Which team would you want?”
Drinks & dinners The toast
“To year two.” Glass up. Stop. The applause is your full stop, and it arrives because you did not keep talking over the place where it belonged.

Drill it out loud · about 13 min

Build a two-minute talk on something you know, in Say it clearly (Open a short talk). (5 min on the timer)
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Build two minutes
  Hook: “Half our customers never finish onboarding.” Message: cut it to one day. Three supports: a number, the last three new customers, a client who did it. Call: “Give me one cohort in May.”
- In the office The talk you’ll actually give
  Say it clearly, Open a short talk. Hook: “Last Friday the queue hit zero.” Message: it stays there if we keep the Tuesday triage. Supports: the number, the customer who noticed, the date it started. Call: “Keep Tuesdays clear.” Built inside the five minutes, because you have the pieces.
- Selling The pitch version
  Hook: “Your competitor closed the quarter in three days.” Message: so can you. Supports: the tool, the client, the price. Call: “One team, one quarter.” You read it back. It is the pitch you have been giving in twenty minutes, in two.
Deliver it standing, in Speak (two minutes).
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Deliver it standing
  Two sighs. “I’m excited.” First sentence from memory. Two minutes, with a pause before each support. The pauses feel deliberate. Two of them were panic. Nobody listening could tell.
- In the office In the empty meeting room
  Standing at the front of the meeting room at lunch, Speak on the table. Two sighs, the memorised hook, two minutes. The pause before the third support is where you nearly lost the thread, and on the recording it sounds planned.
- At home Standing in the kitchen
  Two minutes standing in the kitchen, phone propped on the kettle. The hook from memory, three supports with a pause before each, the call to action, stop. On playback the stop is clean. You used to say “so, yeah” there.
Film the first 30 seconds on your phone. Watch muted: feet, hands, where you looked. Then listen: pauses before points? Deliver the first 30 seconds again.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Thirty seconds, muted
  Your weight shifts four times in thirty seconds and your right hand flutters. Second take: planted, hands at rest. Same words. A different person said them.
- In the office Filmed in the meeting room
  Muted: you drift a step left on the hook and look at the ceiling on the message. Second take: feet planted, eyes on an imagined face. With sound: the pause before the first support is there. You keep the second.
- At home Filmed at home
  Muted, your partner watching over your shoulder: “You’re rocking.” You are. Second take, planted. With sound, the pause before each point is there. Your partner says “that one looks like you know what you’re talking about”. It is the same talk.

Lock it in

Tick what’s true.

I had a hook, one message, three supports and a call to action.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Hook, message, three, call
  Hook, message, three supports and call, all on the transcript, in order. The talk is shorter than anything you have given before and more complete.
- In the office Given on Thursday
  The queue talk at Thursday’s all-hands. Hook in the first ten seconds, one message, three supports, the call. Two minutes and ten seconds. Three people email you their questions by Friday, which was the call to action.
- Selling Given in the pitch room
  Hook, message, three supports, call. The buyer’s first question is about the client who did it, which was support two. She did not ask about the price, which was support three. The structure told you what she cared about.
My feet stayed planted.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Feet stayed planted
  Second take, zero shifts. You can feel the difference in your voice before you see it in the video.
- In the office At the all-hands
  Feet planted for the whole two minutes at the front. On the recording, the only movement is two gestures. A colleague says afterwards that you looked “very calm”. Your feet were doing the looking calm.
- Drinks & dinners At the toast
  Feet planted, glass still, for ninety seconds. The previous speaker shifted weight every sentence. You look like the most senior person at the table, and you are the youngest.
I paused before each new point.
Picture it · 3 examples
- Example Paused before each point
  Three pauses, all over a second. Last month you would have filled every one with “and also”.
- In the office Before each support
  A full pause before each of the three supports at the all-hands. The room resets each time. Afterwards someone can tell you all three, in order. That has never happened after one of your updates.
- On a call On the webinar
  Pauses before each point, on a webinar where you cannot see anyone. They feel like dead air. The chat fills up during the second one with people typing the first point back. They were catching up, which is what the pause is for.

Take it into your day

Say your hook to someone today and ask what they’d expect the talk to be about.

Common questions

The objections people raise, and the short answer.

I have twelve things to cover

Then they will remember almost none. One message, three supports. The other nine go in the follow-up email, where they live longer anyway.

About: A story with the lights on

Pacing shows energy

It shows nerves. Energy is in the voice and the pauses. A planted speaker with a slow pause has more energy in the room than a pacer. The pacer just has more movement.

About: The same body, scaled up

Memorising sounds robotic

One sentence, not the talk. The one sentence gets you past the moment where robots are made. Everything after it is a conversation.

About: First sentence memorised

I need to introduce myself first

They know who you are, or the chair just said it. Hook first. Who you are can come in sentence three.

About: Hook in 20 seconds

The pause feels empty

It is full. It is the room catching up with you. Rush it and they are still on the last point when you reach the next.

About: Pause before each new point

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