Cut down a presentation: the elevator version
Your talk runs long and you don't know what to cut. Here you tell one story from five minutes down to a single sentence, then do the same with a talk of your own.
Travel: you flew to a country where you didn't speak the language, lost your luggage at the airport and spent the night at a train station. There you met a local who invited you to his home, and it turned into the best week of your life.
A detailed situation appears on the screen, with details, characters and context. Read it.
Why it works
Cutting a talk is hard because everything feels important while you're inside it. Asking “what can I drop?” rarely helps: you defend every part. Going down in steps works better. At two minutes the side stories go, at thirty seconds only the main line is left, and the one-sentence version shows whether you know what the story is about.
The last round does it with something you'll actually present: a talk, a self-introduction or a project. After a few sessions you start building talks the other way round, from the sentence out. That's what saves you when the host says “you've got two minutes instead of ten”.
Common mistakes
- Talking faster instead of cutting. Two minutes at double speed is still a five-minute story. Drop parts and keep your pace.
- Cutting the one detail that makes it come alive. Remove background and repeats first; a sharp detail often survives all the way to the 30-second version.
- Losing the ending. Short versions still need a point at the end, not a stop in the middle of a thought.
- Turning the one sentence into a title. “A story about a delayed flight” is a topic. The essence says what happened and why it matters.
Questions
- How do I shorten a speech without losing the point?
- Say the point in one sentence first. Then keep only what supports it: one example, one detail, the conclusion. Everything else is a candidate for cutting.
- What should I cut first?
- Background people can guess, repeats, and the second and third examples. Keep the moment where things change and the ending.
- Is this the same as an elevator pitch?
- Close, but not the same. An elevator pitch is about you or your product; here you first compress a given story, then a talk or project of your own. The skill of keeping only the essence is shared.
More exercises
- More interesting to talk to: a story from a wordGet an everyday object and tell a two-minute story about it, with a character, a conflict and an ending. Practice making anything worth hearing.
- Delivering bad news: reframingRetell a setback or a headline in three frames, then say a real piece of bad news you have to give. The facts stay; the delivery changes. 3 or 5 minutes.
- Express your opinion: retell with a stanceRead a short news story, then retell it in under a minute with your own position: what you think and why it matters. 3 minutes of speaking practice.