PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Monroe's Motivated Sequence
Get the attention of your audience. Use storytelling, humor, a shocking statistic, or a rhetorical question – anything that will get the audience to sit up and take notice.
Step 2: Establish the Need
Convince your audience there's a problem. This set of statements must help the audience realize that what's happening right now isn't good enough – and needs to change.
• Use statistics to back up your statements.
• Talk about the consequences of maintaining the status quo and not making changes.
• Show your audience how the problem directly affects them.
Introduce your solution. How will you solve the problem that your audience is now ready to address? This is the main part of your presentation. It will vary significantly, depending on your purpose. In this section:
• Discuss the facts.
• Elaborate and give details to make sure the audience understands your position and solution.
• Clearly state what you want the audience to do or believe.
• Summarize your information from time to time as you speak.
• Use examples, testimonials, and statistics to prove the effectiveness of your solution.
• Prepare counterarguments to anticipated objections.
Step 4: Visualize the Future
Describe what the situation will look like if the audience does nothing. The more realistic and detailed the vision, the better it will create the desire to do what you recommend. Your goal is to motivate the audience to agree with you and adopt similar behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. Help them see what the results could be if they act the way you want them to. Make sure your vision is believable and realistic.
You can use three methods to help the audience share your vision:
Positive method – Describe what the situation will look like if your ideas are adopted. Emphasize the positive aspects.
Negative method – Describe what the situation will look like if your ideas are rejected. Focus on the dangers and difficulties caused by not acting.
Contrast method – Develop the negative picture first, and then reveal what could happen if your ideas are accepted.
Step 5: Action/Actualization
Your final job is to leave your audience with specific things that they can do to solve the problem. You want them to take action now.
Don't overwhelm them with too much information or too many expectations, and be sure to give them options to increase their sense of ownership of the solution. This can be as simple as inviting them to have some refreshments as you walk around and answer questions. For very complex problems, the action step might be getting together again to review plans.
