I’m sure you’ve seen many owners taking their dogs for a walk on a lead… and sometimes it’s the other way around.
The same can be said of the relationship between some pesenters and their slide deck. If you think about the analogy; how many presentations have you attended… or even given… where the slides are pulling the presenter along the ‘road’, instead of at heel and in the presenter’s control?
It really doesn’t matter whether the actual medium is PP, Presi, a flip chart or even an retro OHP, if the visual material is taking the lead, then the light on the wall is the taking the presenter for a walk, when it should be the other way around.
Like it or not, believe it or not, YOU are the presentation. An audience will almost certainly never be kept awake and engaged by a slideck; certainly not 95% of the slideck’s I see in my work as a leadership communication specialist.
So here are the 5.5 golden rules for the first 90 seconds of any presentation you give…
1. Start believing that you are the presentation.
2. Stir things up a little and forget about using a typical introduction slide
3. Forget about starting your presentation by telling the audience who you are and your job title.
4. Let the first thing out of your mouth be, provocative, challenging, or at the very least interesting!
5. Then follow up by telling the audience what the benefit to them will be for listening to you.
5.5 Now you can tell them who you are and what you, because now they’ll be interested to know!
Like training your dog, there’s a lot more to it, but unless you get the basics down, that dammed pooch will always try to get away from you!
Cheers
Ants
