I'm Chrissy - your "Nerve Eradicator". Let's build something great this month!

You've got a presentation coming up.

Maybe it's a team meeting, a client proposal, or presentation to your senior leadership that they've asked you to give. You open a blank document - or a blank slide deck - and just...stare at the blankness!

You know what the topic is supposed to be. Heck, everyone even knows you're the expert on it. But somehow getting it out of your head and into a shape that makes sense feels much harder than it should.

What I've learned after 16 years helping professionals build presentations and talks: the problem is almost never your lack of knowledge. It's most likely a lack of structure.

When I give someone a clear framework, confidence almost always follows.

The single most important thing I tell my clients before they try writing a single word of a presentation:

"Limit yourself to 3 main points. Max."

Not 5. Not 7. Not "a few quick things." Three. Research consistently shows that audiences retain information better with fewer, well-developed ideas. When you try to cover everything, they remember nothing.

Once you have your 3 points, build each one the same way:

1. State it: Say your point in one clear, direct sentence. Not a topic. A point. Don't start with, "I'm going to talk about communication." Instead, try, "Clear communication is the single biggest differentiator in who gets promoted."

2. Support it: Back it up with evidence. A statistic, a finding, a fact. Something that makes your audience think, "I didn't know that", or, "That makes sense."

3. Illustrate it: Make it real with a story, an example, or an analogy. Data is great for informing people, but stories are what move people and make the data stick.

State it. Support it. Illustrate it. Repeat that three times (for each main point). That's your talk.

And before you even get to your three points, do this one exercise first:

Finish this sentence - "After this presentation (talk), my audience will _____."

The blank should not include think or feel or understand - those are too vague to build around. Think about what they will DO. That one sentence will become your north star. Every point, every story, every slide either serves that sentence or it doesn't belong in your talk.

💛 September's Quick Win: One Sentence

Before your next presentation, training class, coaching session, write this down:

"After this presentation (talk), my audience will _____."

Fill in that blank with 1 specific action. Then look at everything you plan to cover and ask yourself: "Does this content/slide/topic serve that sentence?" Cut anything that doesn't and add anything that does!

You'll walk in clearer (which means more confident) - and your audience will leave with exactly what you wanted them to take away.

Want the full step-by-step system?

The Build Your Talk Workbook walks you through every stage - from setting your foundation and crafting your opening hook, to building your three main points and closing with impact. It's the planning tool I wish every professional had before their big presentation.

Chrissy's Corner

One thing I see constantly: people spend 90% of their preparation on their slides and almost none of it on their structure. The slides look great. The message? Muddy, at best.

Structure first. Slides second. Always.

After you try the one-sentence exercise this month, hit reply and tell me what you came up with and how it changed your talk. I genuinely love hearing how these land in real life.

You've got this. Speak up.

🧡 Chrissy

CLB Content Works