Three Surefire Ways to Kick Off a Presentation

Spokesperson training expert Russ Rhea shows you 3 surefire ways to kick off a presentation. For more information on presentation training.

TRANSCRIPT

This time we have some suggestions on sure fire ways to engage the audience to kick off a presentation. Hi, I’m Russ Rhea. In addition to our media interview trending workshops Predictive Media Network also offers presentation skills training.

Let’s face it, a lot of people simply begin a presentation by saying what they’re gonna talk about and then starting their information dump. Well consider these three simple ways to really grab your audiences attention off the top.

Number one, a quick statistic or factoid that establishes a theme to your presentation that creates a, “really”, or “wow” moment for the audience. Here’s an example.

“All the energy, all the cars, everything moving. All the lighting, all the air conditioning of the world in one year is equivalent to two minutes of sun. Does that change how you think about energy?”

The second way to grab the audience’s attention to kick off a presentation is with a quick story or anecdote that leads into the information in your presentation. Any audience is going to pay attention when you stop and tell a story.

“What business does the government have being in healthcare, why is the government in healthcare? My favorite conversations with my patients, my Medicare patients when all this healthcare reform is going on people would say, “Keep the government away from my Medicare. I don’t want government involved in my healthcare.” Well I said I’m kind of sorry that’s a government program. “No it’s not.” But yes it i.”

And number three, ask a big picture question that the audience can relate to and use that as the jumping off point. Spend the rest of the presentation answering that question with the information in your presentation.

“What is so special about the human brain? Why is it that we study other animals instead of them studying us? What does a human brain have or do that no other brain does? When I became interested in these questions about 10 years ago, scientists thought they knew what different brains were made of.”

The goal at the beginning is to get your audience thinking, tell me more. To learn more about Predictive Media Network presentation skills training, visit predictivemedianet.com.