On the big day, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Remember your training.

TONE

Just like setting out to design your visual deck, knowing your audience is the most important thing when planning your vocal presentation. When talking about what you have up on the wall, you have to anticipate your audience’s potential reactions. Do you need to be formal and direct, or can you tell a couple of jokes as you go? Do you want to use industry jargon, or keep it simple? Should you use real-life stories, facts and statistics, bibliographical references? As suggested in the Part I Guide to Visuals, judging by industry background can help you move in the right direction. You also have to consider the objective of your meeting – who in your audience are you trying to convince? Securing a client is different to discussing the progress of a particular project, and therefore the tone must vary accordingly.Speak your audience's language, verbally and visually.

In addition to the tone of your verbal delivery, you also need to determine the impression you, personally and professionally, want to project. Take the opportunity of being at the center of everyone's attention to bring out the elements of your personal profile that match your client’s business. Google, for instance, firmly believes that “you can be serious without a suit”, so suiting up for an interview at their Mountain View HQ may wave some red flags. On the other hand, presenting your proposal for a White House renovation in ripped jeans and a t-shirt probably won’t even get you through security. Speak your audience's language, verbally and visually.

DELIVERY

You ultimately have 30-45 minutes to persuade every person in the room that your proposal is the way forward, and for this, delivery is essential. Deciding on the tone does not mean changing your style and morphing into an entirely different person. Instead, you want to connect with the audience by projecting an image of yourself that speaks their language.Ratchet up your audience by giving your presentation to smaller groups of friends, family and peers, and ask for their feedback.

Avoid uh’s and um’s, and don’t second-guess your statements. Remember to sound like a human, not a monotonous robot. Project yourself and speak clearly to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. Make eye contact! Use hand gestures to reinforce the meaning of what you say; they give that extra bit of passion that conveys greater meaning. Your body language should convey confidence, and don’t be afraid to move around the room to engage your entire audience.

Public speaking can be difficult, but practice will always help. Try giving your talk first to yourself, when you’re alone, to get accustomed to what your own speaking voice feels and sounds like. Ratchet up your audience by giving your presentation to smaller groups of friends, family and peers, and ask for their feedback.

CONTEXT

Keeping the above in mind, your delivery and tone will help transport the audience away from where they’re sitting – likely a conference room or in a pin-up gallery – towards the site of your project. Whether it sits on the cliffs of Rio de Janeiro or off the coast of China, you want to set the scene for the audience, to enable them to visualize your proposal, and the ideas behind it, in the same way you do.show the movie scene rather than the bare set with a green screen.

Contextualizing can take a few different directions. If you go for a gripping tale, use the active voice, making sure to put the audience right in the middle of the favela or standing out on a man-made island in the South China Sea. If you opt instead for a contextual anecdote, choose words that vividly describe the place and have your actions do the same; show the movie scene rather than the bare set with a green screen. Finally, if your audience is fact-driven, carefully select which data points are most compelling to illustrate the importance of your project given the present conditions. Whatever option you decide to use, make sure it sets the stage for everything you plan to present.

CHOREOGRAPHY

Once your audience is almost literally standing with you on site, your presentation will have to keep them there. Strive for a balance between the time you give your audience to read a slide and the time you talk over it, and bear in mind that more often than not it works better to walk your audience through each slide or board.You want your oral and visual presentations to be mutually reinforcing of one another.

While laser pointers come in handy, make sure what you’re saying also directs your audience to the right aspects of your visual cues in a clear manner. You want your oral and visual presentations to be mutually reinforcing of one another. If you have boards, even better! Engage your audience’s senses and move through them freely; take control of the room to enhance the relationship between your words and your images.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A persuasive presentation uses every opportunity to push the audience toward buying into its argument. Steer clear from neutrality, and guide your audience into thinking what you want them to think. Call out the key takeaway in each slide to make your argument crystal clear. Make sure your audience understands the value of each slide in the presentation. Each point you touch upon must play into the overall purpose of your presentation, building up the argument as you go.

THE "BIG PICTURE"

Once you’ve laid out all the aspects of your presentation, back away from the specifics, and bring everything back to your big picture. Connect the dots with your audience to validate your argument. Ultimately, even if the presentation is engaging and informative, if there is no clear reason for the people in the room to back your proposal, they will not bother in doing so. In architecture school you fight for an A, but in professional life a presentation can make the difference between a multimillion dollar backing or another project for the shelf. With the stakes that high, you cannot afford to let go of any opportunity. Think big, think win.

Looking for more presentation advice? Check out part 1 of this guide: "The Visuals".