Presentation Training Skills

Presentations training courses are provided across the United States and Canada. Participants have three options to attend and participate in our presentation training. Presentations are delivered via public open enrollment courses in all major metropolitan areas and are also available to be delivered on-site via private courses. The 3rd option is to attend Online Webinar Presentations Skills Workshops. Our face to face presentation training courses can be provided as off-the-shelf sessions, ready to be delivered to a diverse audience or can be customized to provide a tailored and personalized presentation training approach based on client needs. All presentations courses are limited to a maximum of twelve participants so as to increase presentation course effectiveness and provide the individual level of face to face or online coaching and interaction that is associated with the Presentations Training Skills Center.

For more information on our presentations skills training courses please contact us.

Presentation Courses - Opening a Speech or Presentation with a Bang

First impressions are very important. People often make instant judgments when a speaker stands up to talk. Starting by giving off a poor impression will take a long time to recover from, if you ever do.

But, what if this is not the first time the audience have met you? Is the opening of your presentation still quite so important? In my view the answer has to be an emphatic "yes". Indeed, the better people know you the more important it is to start with a good opening.

Whether your presentation is a stand-alone event or just one in a whole series of different presentations, it is absolutely vital that you start by grabbing the audience's attention. Otherwise they are likely to be still thinking about the last presentation, or a phone call they had just before they arrived at the meeting. They may even be thinking "I hope this doesn't go on too long, I have things to do." You need to capture people's attention and confirm their hope that you will be an interesting person to listen to. You need to get them involved right from the outset.

There is an age old saying about how to present: "Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them". When I first heard this I thought that seems a bit repetitive, surely people will get bored if I say everything three times. But I have since learnt that this single rule adds more to most presentations than any other, as long as you tell it right.

The "Tell them what you are going to tell them" is your opportunity to grab the audience's attention. Put the core subject of your presentation across in a way that challenges the listener and makes the listener think. There are many ways of capturing your audience's attention:

Ask a rhetorical question

Make a confrontational remark

Give a thought provoking quotation from an acknowledged source

Tell a good personal anecdote

Do, show or say something unexpected

The key to a good opening is to make people think; to wake them up and make them pay attention.

For example, if you are an accountant and have to give a presentation on new tax laws, you could start by listing the main areas of taxation you will be covering. But most of your audience will probably be asleep before you have finished the introduction. An alternative, more attention grabbing, opening might be to ask "Who has too much money?", quickly followed by "So, why did most of you give too much to the tax man last year? During my presentation you will discover how to reduce the amount of tax you will pay this year."

While grabbing their attention is important, it is also important that the opening is in line with the rest of the presentation. I saw a video once, of a headmistress trying to introduce a police officer to the children at an American junior school's assembly. The children were all noisily chatting away to each other and the headmistress's repeated requests for silence were being ignored. The lady police officer then tried to quite them down with no success. So, she took out her revolver and fired a shot into the air. There was instant silence. She had their attention, but when she then asked in her most child friendly voice "How are you all doing today?" There was an equally stony silence.

You only have one chance to make a first impression so it is worth thinking it through properly and working out the type of reaction it will generate.

Once you have grabbed your audience's attention, keep them listening by telling them what they want to hear, rather than what you want to say.

Source: Graham Young link

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