Speaker Order in Business Presentations

It's quite common in business presentations for the material to split between 2, 3 or 4 speakers. Often the split is carved up on some technical consideration - Bob knows more about the situation in Scotland so he'll talk to that; Janet is the best to speak about what we are doing in London. That's fine, of course, if the purpose is just to convey information but usually there is a purpose to the presentation - you want your customers to sign up for some new initiative.

In those circumstances, the presentation shouldn't be divided on technical material, but should be organised as an entirety around conveying that marketing message. So as usual, it's back to our old friend AIDA for inspiration. Remember AIDA isn't a cast iron rule - it's just a starting point. Think about what AIDA suggests, then change it - perhaps totally - according to your individual circumstances. The important thing though is to think about the marketing implications of how the presentation is divided between speakers.

The most common mantra in marketing / sales is a simple straightforward mnemonic:

A
= Attention

I = Interest

D = Desire

A = Action


The basic idea is simple. You construct and easy pathway for your audience to move from ignorant, to interested having first grabbed thier attention. Once they are interested, then by building desire for change you can get them to respond to a call to action. It'll make sense as a describe the speaker slots below.

The goal then of the first speaker is to grab the audience's attention. There is no need for him to offer any solutions, nor indeed is there a need for lots of detail. In legal terms, it would be counsel's opening statement. You just need to outline the issue in bald terms so that your audience think, "Yes, there may be an issue." You want the session to be high impact and attention grabbing. It can be good to include humour.

If there are only two speakers, it may be tempting to run through into building interest (the I in AIDA) but usually it would be better to hand over quickly to the second speaker who addresses Interest and Desire, before returning to the first speaker who closes with a call to Action In other words, one speaker does the motivational stuff at the start and close, while the other covers detail in-between.

This is the slot to cover the detail. If you've statistics, tables of numbers or facts they belong in this session. You need to speak to your audience's intellect as well as its emotions. This isn't a session for levity - just pack the information in. Facts and figures are dull but they are necessary and you just want to get them across as quickly, concisely and comprehensibly as possible.

For the speaker it's something of a graveyard slot. If you ask the audience to rate speakers, whoever has this slot may get some low marks. That's to be expected and doesn't necessarily mean he was a poor speaker. Dull but worthy is the motto. Just try to keep the audience from getting restless!

It's time to start rousing the audience back up again and to turn their attention away from issues towards solutions. Start outlining what options are available to them, what the advantages are.

Empathising with the audience is perhaps key. You understand their issues. You can work with them to solve their problems ... you want to work with them.

If you've just got three speakers, it's possible to combine this into either the second slot (above) or the close (below). If you combine with the speaker charged with generating Interest, you need to avoid that session becoming too dry: it's very hard for a single speaker to go from presenting facts into something somewhat motivational, but if the facts and figures can be made interesting then it's possible. It's probably better to combine Desire and Action.

A final alternative is to split Desire between the second and third of your three speakers: the second speaker ends on a high and the third speaker picks up that new theme and runs with it. Personally that's my favoured approach and why I prefer three speakers to four.

This is far and away the most difficult session. You'll often see the most senior person grab this session because of the profile, but unless they really are the best speaker, this temptation should be resisted.

The first challenge facing the final speaker is time keeping. None but the very best speakers keep to time when in front of an audience - some go over, and some under. So not only has the last speaker to finish on time, until he stands up he doesn't know precisely how long he has. This then cannot be a speech from notes or bullet points - it has to be fluid and paced according to the time actually left. Depending on the audience, an accompanied speaker in this slot may also be able to negotiate more time if needed.

The other reason this session is different is that it needs to be cut to the audience. During the first three (or however many) sessions, the anchor speaker should be watching the audience closely. If they didn't get a key point, he needs to go over it again. Any areas which tanked should be quietly dropped - unless they need to be addressed for defensive reasons. Equally any aspects which clearly generated interest or enthusiasm should be reinforced. Spontaneity is key.

The goal here is a call to action so be clear what it is you want from your audience and use that as your closing message.

A possible overall structure to consider is perhaps something like this

❖ 1 - Attention - case building - humour

❖ 2 - Interest - facts and figures - intellectual

❖ 3 - Desire - solutions, not problems - empathy

❖ 4 - Action - tie evening together - spontaneity