4 Ways To Make Your Presentation More Interesting

If you want to capture your audience's interest right from the start of your presentation, try one of the techniques I share in this short presentation skills lesson.
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The 4 techniques:
Share a personal anecdote
- A personal anecdote is a short story about something interesting that you experienced – it could be about a conversation you had in work, something that happened when you were on holiday, a problem you discovered, or an idea you came up with. Remember to keep it short, interesting and make sure it’s connected to the reason you are talking to your audience. When you’ve come to the main point of your anecdote, you should say something like this:
So why am I telling you this story? Well, the goal / objective of my presentation is to …
. persuade you to /convince you to /inform you about /encourage you to/ help you …/ show you …
A personal anecdote could start like this:
• 3 months ago, I had a meeting with my boss and …
• About a year ago, I discovered a major problem in our marketing strategy and …
• Last summer, I was on my way to work one day when …
• On my last holiday, I was lying on the beach, reading a book by …(author’s name) when I started to think about …
• I remember when I started my first job. I was very nervous and didn’t know anybody…
Use rhetorical questions
- What is a rhetorical question? It’s a question we ask without expecting an answer. Sometimes the answer is totally obvious, and other times we just want to get the audience thinking about the question. The whole idea of using this technique is to make a point, and as with the personal anecdote, it must be connected to the objective of your presentation. If you choose the right question or questions, it can really capture your audience’s interest.
Here are some examples of rhetorical questions
• What’s the biggest problem that family-run businesses face today?
• How often has your business tried to find a more efficient way of doing things?
• Why do we have to improve the quality of our products? Why is this important?
• Why did we have such a dramatic increase in sales in the last quarter?
TIP: if you ask a rhetorical question, pause for a couple of seconds before continuing – that gives your question more of an impact.
Give an amazing/surprising or shocking fact or statistic
- If you try this technique, think carefully about the fact or statistic you want to share. It can’t be something your audience already know, it must be connected to the aim of your presentation, and it should be amazing/surprising or shocking enough to capture their interest.
Here are some examples:
• In the last 12 months, employee turnover has increased by 22%.
• We’ve found that more than 30% of our customers are not satisfied with our product range.
• There are 14 million jobs directly related to the mobile phone industry.
As with rhetorical questions, pause for a second after giving your fact or statistic to create a bigger impact.
- Tell your audience to imagine something
By using the word imagine, you help the audience to use their imagination and start visualising the scene. This technique can help the audience to experience certain feelings and emotions, and should capture their interest.
Here are some examples:
• Imagine you’re in a shop and you ask a shop assistant for some advice. The shop assistant looks bored and miserable and doesn’t even make eye contact …
• Imagine you arrive at work one day, and there's a buzz in the air. The offices seem brighter, everyone is in a positive mood and the boss gives you a friendly smile when she sees you.
A final tip – whichever of these techniques you decide to try, always refer back to them at important parts of the presentation – that way you should keep your audience’s interest and have a common thread running through the whole presentation.
Music credits:
Intro music: Far Away by MK2
Background music: Honey and Milk by The 126ers