This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 80.
Do you know how to end your presentation in English?
Interview with Carl Kwan, part two.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and Boston, USA.
USA.
In today's episode, our guest Carl Kwan will teach you a simple three-step plan for organizing the best presentation and also how to finish this presentation with strong confidence.
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Hey, Aubrey, glad to be back on here with you.
How's it going today?
Yes, I'm great.
What's up with you?
Ah, not too much.
Guys, if you did not hear the episode just before this one, number 79, go back and listen to that one, because today, these days, we are talking about presentations with our thought leader, Carl Kwan.
All right.
So Carl really knows this stuff when it comes to presentations, doesn't he?
Yes, exactly.
Right.
And on episode 79, we heard his first tip to know your audience and keep your language simple.
If you missed that, definitely go back and listen.
And we're going to share more of his tips today about content.
Yeah.
And I love that piece about just to go back to last time keeping your language simple, especially because a lot of our listeners are doing presentations across cultures.
It's going to be especially important.
If you want a powerful presentation, it should be simple.
That's so good.
But yeah, let's get into this next one.
So in this you know, in this episode, this part of our interview with Carl, we're talking about the importance of an introduction, a body and a conclusion right,
I mean, what do you think that actually means for a presentation here, Aubrey?
That's interesting.
I'm wondering if a lot of our listeners hear that and think essay, because as we learn to write essays, that's what we think of, right?
The introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion.
So it's interesting to apply that to a presentation and think about how it also needs to be organized so that it makes you know.
It's a very clear message.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
I think as we get into higher levels of our profession, everything we do we want to start to think about, always thinking about how the audience is going to receive it.
Right.
So I know Carl is going to have something to say on this.
So let's go into Carl's clip where he's going to explain how to structure your presentation for that winning success.
Right.
All right.
Here we go.
Right.
So I think that most of the time they want to talk about everything.
Like I said, they oftentimes prepare presentations for their boss or they think well, I have all this stuff I have to talk about.
How am I going to talk about all of it?
Yeah.
And if you know your audience really well, what you want to do then is for the sort of content of your presentation is figure out.
What exactly is the problem or challenge that your audience is facing?
And even if it's a large group and there's maybe different people there, but I think typically, in general, the audiences have a similar type of challenge or problem, or problems possibly, that they are dealing with.
And so you should always structure your presentation as introducing the problem or challenge, talking about what are the consequences of not resolving that problem or challenge, and then finally telling them well, here's how you actually fix what you're going through.
Okay.
So how does this help us?
This organization putting it into introducing the problem or challenge, telling them the consequences of not resolving that problem and then telling them how to fix it?
What does this do for our audience?
Right.
It gets you out of your head.
It helps you focus and it brings your focus to helping other people.
That is vital.
This is the whole idea behind connection, not perfection too.
It's about how can I connect with that person?
It's not about me and my perfectionism and my mistakes.
It's about that person.
In this case, it's about the whole audience, but they still have a problem and you are there to help them solve it.
Yes, exactly.
So this breaks it down simply into three clear parts, problem, consequences, and a solution.
It makes it very easy to plan out the organization and then to present it.
It's so true.
I just think if we can find any way to simplify life, we should do it.
I know, right?
Everything's complicated enough.
Yeah.
I mean, even when we have our team meetings, I'm always kind of thinking about a structure.
Like how should we structure our quarterly review meetings where we think about how are things going at All Ears English.
I'm always trying to figure out how can I simplify this, right?
I could give a lot more information, a lot more, but we don't need it.
Right.
We don't need that information to do our best work.
We just need to have things structured and simplified.
And this lets us do that.
Right.
Exactly.
What we really need to know is what is the problem we're solving?
What are the consequences?
Why does it need to be solved?
And what is the solution?
Exactly.
Exactly.
What do you think about for sales?
How would this work?
Oh, this is perfect for sales as well.
For everyone out there listening.
If you're promoting your product or service to a client, if you design websites, it's so important that your client is very clear about their own problem and sees that you understand it as well.
Why is it serious?
What are the consequences and what is the solution?
I love it.
So good.
I also feel a sense of confidence when I have that structure to what I'm going to say.
It doesn't feel like I'm, because I may feel that there's a little chaos going on in my mind, but at least I know it's going to be presented in an organized way and they don't need to see the chaos.
Exactly right.
You know what to come back to.
You're like, okay, we're right here.
Now I share consequences.
You have that map.
Yeah.
But then at the end, we're going to open it up to questions.
Does that feel scary sometimes when you give presentations, Aubrey?
What do you think?
Oh, definitely.
Because it's spontaneous.
Usually you don't know what will be asked.
And also it's culture based depending on where you give your presentation.
They may want to ask questions during the presentation and not just after.
So this is part of knowing your audience.
Yeah, I mean, that is so important.
So in the next clip guys Carl's going to tell us how to end the presentation and kind of how to take audience questions.
So let's listen to see what the wisdom is here on this.
So anyway.
So a lot of times though, what you should do at the beginning of your presentation is you should establish whether you want to have questions during your presentation, or whether you only want questions at the end.
So you could say something like you know.
Could you please wait until the end of the presentation before asking your questions?
Or you know, please feel free to ask questions during the presentation by just raising your hand.
You know something like that and i'll get your questions.
So that's what you do as far as you know, just setting up.
Okay, you need to.
You know how people are going to ask questions and when you're going to expect them, and then once you actually get to the, you know the question, the q a part.
A lot of times people We'll end their presentation with the QA.
And I say, you know, do not end with the Q&A.
And this is actually a tip from another friend of mine who's also a fantastic presentations guy.
His name is Charles Green III.
He is based in Washington and he's the presentation magician.
But in any case he talks about how you shouldn't end the presentation with the QA, because when you do, you don't really get a chance to wrap up properly.
And you also kind of don't know when it's going to stop as well with the Q&A.
So what you want to do is, once you finish your presentation, you're going to say something like okay, now I've covered all the topics.
I just finished talking about these three things.
What kind of questions do you have?
Do you have any questions?
Questions for me, so you know, answer a few questions and then you would say okay, great.
So today I've talked about, you know, this topic.
I covered, you know, these three or five points and you know you guys have asked questions such as this and I've talked, talked about how you know, when you have this kind of a situation, the answer to do, you know what you should do, is this
So kind of summarize a couple of the key points or things that you remember during, you know from the questions.
Okay, so what did we learn here from this part from Carl?
Yeah, that's vital to make it clear in the beginning.
If you want questions to be held until the end, or if you're happy to have them asked during the, make that clear right at the outset, at the very beginning.
Yeah, it's so true.
And then also the importance of telling people what you've told them, right?
It's giving them a summary.
I love this idea that we ourselves it's our job to control what the audience is kind of walking away with.
That's so novel, right?
So it's not on them.
It's on you.
And again, like we said before, it's what they remember.
It's what you say at the end is what they remember, right?
That might be all they remember.
And that would be terrible.
So yeah, that's a good point to give that summary at the end so that you control what the takeaway is.
Yeah.
And what do you think about kind of a call to action at the end?
You think that's necessary?
I mean, Carl does.
Yes, I agree.
Yeah, definitely.
To have your final remark being telling the audience what you want them to do.
That's so powerful to have it be not just like okay, you learned something today, but make a decision you know, contact you for more information or buy something.
If it's a sales presentation, you definitely want to give them that CTA, that call to action.
Yeah.
Have you ever seen a really bad presentation where we didn't get any of this structure or any of these calls to action at the end?
Oh, yeah.
And I can tell you I've walked out of a couple early because you feel like it's not worth your time.
There's no clear map.
There's no clear progression.
You don't feel like they understand your problem or going to provide a solution.
It's hard to stay to the end of a presentation like that.
Oh my God.
And at that point it's so sad because that person might actually have great insight, great things to say, right.
It's such a shame, such a wasted opportunity, but it's not enough just to know things, guys.
We need to be able to present it so other people can understand it well.
Right.
Exactly.
You must have an organized, professional and controlled way to end your presentation, but also to make sure it feels organized, feels valuable throughout.
Oh, yeah.
It makes me think a little bit about kind of offshoots of presentations, things like panel discussions.
So I'm going to be doing a panel discussion in December.
And I wonder how to handle that, right?
Maybe we'll have to do an episode.
Yeah, that's a whole different beast, right?
It's a different beast because we don't necessarily know what questions we're going to be asked.
It's not the same.
We don't have total control over what's coming at us.
So maybe in another episode, we'll talk about panel discussions.
That would be a good one.
Definitely.
There's a lot involved to know who else is on the panel, what types of things you will be responsible for answering.
Yeah, there's a lot involved there.
Yeah.
So let's go back and you know in true form, based on Carl's advice.
Let's summarize what he told us in these clips here
What did we learn from Carl today?
First of all, to know your audience more in the previous, make sure to check out episode 79 if you missed it.
That is vital that you know your audience, the problem they have and how to solve it.
Yeah.
And then the second piece guys, is speak in that plain, simple language, like you're talking to a 10 year old.
That is the way you move the hearts and then the minds.
Right.
It can't just be all in the mind.
It's got to be in their heart.
They've got to understand you and want to listen to you.
That's exactly.
And then third, in your presentation, talk about their problem and challenge.
Talk about the consequences of not solving that problem and give them the solution.
Oh.
Oh, I love it.
It feels like it comes a lot from sales here, right?
Sales techniques.
What are like, how painful will it be if you don't solve that problem?
Kind of aggregate that pain point, right?
Bring that out.
Show the consequences of that in the long term even.
Yeah well, it's effective because you're helping your audience see why they need this message, why they need this product.
Why are they there in the first place?
Otherwise, it's just a waste of time.
It's so true.
And then at the end, we've got to have a brief Q&A.
Many times you will have that.
And then you're going to summarize.
This is very powerful.
We've said a bunch of times today, they remember what they hear last, not first, not in the middle.
And end with that call to action.
What exactly do you want them to do?
This will all make for a really solid presentation, don't you think?
Yes.
Exactly.
Oh, for sure.
Such good tips.
You guys can find out more from Carl Kwan at his YouTube channel Carl Kwan K-W-A-N, or go to his website carlkwancom.
Yeah, guys.
In the next episode we're gonna talk about presentations a little more.
Take the next step here together.
We're gonna focus on three great ways to introduce your presentation in English.
So we're now gonna give you the language that you need for this, okay, to build that structure.
So good.
I love this series here going on here, Aubrey, on presentations.
So useful.
Oh, it's so helpful.
All of us either soon or in the future are going to need to make a presentation.
You want to be ready to do the best way possible.
Yeah, we want to see you guys succeed with this.
All right, Aubrey, thanks for hanging out today.
I will see you next time.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
Bye.
Take care.
Bye.
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