Vocabulary.

STEP II: Connect with your audience

1) “Jump Start”

Hot tips to “jump start” your presentation

a) Meet people: smile, make introductions, say a few words about yourself and ask some questions. It helps to break the ice, calm your nerves, and create interaction.

E.g. Hi my name’s Laura Schmidt. Please help yourself to coffee or tea while we’re waiting for everyone to arrive.

b) WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?): address the audience’s needs and concerns by telling what benefits they will gain from listening to your presentation. It helps to create desire and anticipation and raise expectations.

E.g. The benefit to you is that you will have a better product that will do a better job.

c) Enrolment Question: question the audience directly and get them to respond to you by answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or by raising hands. It helps to generate an interactive relationship, create dialogue, and build interest.

E.g. How many of you think you presentations are boring and uninspiring?

d) Quotations: find something original or exciting in newspapers, magazines, books, in-house literature, press releases or on the internet. It helps to build credibility and create interest.

E.g. In today’s newspaper, our CEO stated ‘The Internet is the aggressive revolutionary army of our age. It will kill our children’.

e) Shocking Statement: say something which is short and simple but unusual, surprising and provocative. It helps to get a high level of attention with a shock effect.

E.g. Young girls between the ages of nine and fourteen stated that their number one fear is getting fat. There are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war.

f) Expert Testimony: give object evidence or facts from an authoritative source. It helps to be convincing and build credibility.

E.g. The latest government health report states that the chance of getting some cancers has actually risen from one in twelve to one in nine in the last few years. The report goes on to link this to household products.

g) Questions and Answers: ask something and then go on to answer it yourself. It helps to raise expectations, engage the audience in problem-solving thinking.

E.g. We often talk about creativity and promoting a culture of creativity. But what do we mean exactly? I’m here today to answer this question and explain exactly what we mean when we say ‘creativity’ in our company.

2) Finish with a ‘Bang’ creates anticipation and expectation, has an element of surprise, addresses the senses (visual, hearing) and involves the audience.

Examples:

a) The presenter put a big cardboard box on the table at the start of the presentation and at the end he said, ‘I guess you’ve all been wondering what this box is.’ And we all had …! The conclusion was to think ‘outside the box’. Then, the presenter took a hammer, smashed the box and threw it in the rubbish bin. It was dramatic and it ‘hammered home’ the message.

b) The presentation had been about stress at work and the presenter read some paragraphs from Joseph Heller’s novel, Something Happened. Everybody was laughing but there was a serious message as the novel extract illustrated the point of the presentation exactly.

c) One presenter gave a talk about creativity. At the end she played some music and got everyone involved, clapping to the music. She danced across the stage. I’ll never forget it because it was different. It really gave the presentation impact. I’ve often played music in my office since.

d) He ended with a quote from our CEO that underlined what he had said about the problems in our company. He delivered it with real power and conviction and I can still remember it today.

e) The presenter gave a very effective, well-organised presentation. Then, he did a little something extra and informed us there was a gift underneath our chairs. There was a package taped underneath every chair and inside we found a T-shirt with the new logo and samples of the product from the presentation. It was a surprise for everyone and I stillhave the T-shirt!