Remember that the first 2 minutes of a presentation – when you’re probably at your most nervous are also are the point at which you have the audience’s fullest attention, experienced presenters and salespeople learn how to use this ‘golden time’ to full effect, because they know that when all else is forgotten, the audience…
Hope springs eternal in the human breast, Alexander Pope But it’s not true is it? As Pope was suggesting. Hope fades like a sunny morning, into a grey and drizzling afternoon. Particularly where presentations are concerned. I was at a conference last week, and saw a couple of great examples of the conference speech, and a few that were…
As a travelling speaker, you don’t ask for much really, just the right directions, a decent hotel, a fee, and then a chance when you get to the venue. Part of giving you a chance is that the host introduces you properly, politely and professionally to the crowd. I mostly give the introducer and few short written lines in the preparatory exchanges when all the arrangements are made, but it doesn’t always work.
Olivia Mitchell starts an interesting discussion on whether to begin your presentation with the conclusion right up front. It’s always a choice with risks attached. Do you give the game away and risk people jumping to conclusions before they understand the ‘how and the why’? Or do you risk annoying the crowd by keeping them…
So many people ask how do you start well in a presentation, and in a previous post I talked about learning from Shakespeare to make maximum impact in those first few seconds. It’s a 2000 year old lesson to learn and is the foundation of story structure. Remember that the first 2 minutes are the…
Remember that the first 2 minutes are the point at which you have the audience’s full attention, use it to full effect. 1. Contact as many people as you can before the date and ask them what they want to get out of the session, what they’d like to know and what they don’t want….