|
This month we begin with Part I of a 4-part series on organizing the
sequence of your presentation so that your information creates
maximum impact on the audience.
Getting off the right start is absolutely critical.
What’s the title of the first slide in 99% of all business
presentations? The
Agenda. Beginning
your presentation with the Agenda slide is essential to keeping
with the old adage, “Tell
‘em how you’re gonna bore ‘em; Bore ‘em; Tell ‘em how
you bored them!”
Audiences who see the Agenda slide come up, followed by
the History slide, slump back into their seats and say to
themselves, “Oh
my God, not this again!”
The
“Grabber”
Why not arouse the audiences’ curiosity with a shocking fact, a
thought-provoking question, or anything that immediately engages
them? That’s
what’s known as a “grabber”. Remember
that the audience is sizing you up in the first thirty seconds
and they are thinking, “Does
this person know what they’re talking about? Am I going to
listen? What’s in it for me?” Use that first sentence,
those first few words to make a major impact on your audience
and take command of the room.
Film at 11
We’ve all heard the teasers, or “grabbers” that TV stations throw
out there to get your attention to make sure that you watch the
next show or that you watch the upcoming news. Local
affiliate news stations are notorious for doing this especially
during sweeps or ratings week. They’ll
mention something during a commercial break during the show
before the 11 o’clock news to make sure that you tune in.
They entice you with something like,
“Coming up at 11: Doctors say
exercise can be bad for you. Tune in tonight to find out
more.”
Or: “To show how tough the FAA
is on airline safety, the agency decided to send an American
Airlines traveler to his death”.
You don’t ever want to incorporate dishonesty to get people to
listen, but you should whet the audience’s appetite so they
won’t tune out. That’s
what a “grabber” is all about.
The key is to get the audience to say to themselves, “Really?
Tell me more!” instead of, “Oh,
no. Been here. Heard
that. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
Take extra time and care with developing your “grabber”; it’s
your first impression and it’s worth being well composed. Try
to find a strong fact in your presentation that doesn’t seem
far fetched when you present it along with your supporting
evidence, but might sound bizarre or impossible when taken out
of context.
In the case of the TV news grabber, the story at 11(:20) was that a
medical study had just concluded that men over the age of 85 who
engaged in marathons when the temperature was over 100 had a 50%
chance of heart attack! Hence,
exercise can be bad for you!
And if you do the math on the debacle that the FAA caused in 2008 when
it chose to ground a fleet of 300 airplanes that had never
suffered from a mechanical failure in it’s 20 year history of
operations, you find that by denying 400,000 passengers access
to the absurdly high level of airline safety, travelers were
exposed to the relative dangers of hundreds of millions of miles of surface travel.
Buried in those statistics (excuse the term) was very
likely at least one victim of an automotive accident, as
according to the NHTSB there is a one fatality for every 15
millions of miles driven.
So when it comes to grabbing your listeners attention: Research by Cox
Communications, the large cable systems operator, shows that the
typical television channel surfer decides in 10 seconds or less
whether or not to stay with the channel he’s selected before
deciding to stay or move on.
[Of course, science has shown that women use a remote to
see what’s on TV, and men use a remote to see what else
is on.] Cox further
claims that the average Web surfer, when doing a search, will
give the return page only 2 seconds before deciding whether or
not to switch.
Audiences are much more forgiving with presenters.
A recent study by UC Santa Cruz found that most audience
members give the presenter 30 seconds to decide whether to keep
listening or tune out.
If the first 30 to 90 seconds of your presentation is devoted to
covering the Agenda, and then moves into the Company Overview
followed by your Revenue History followed by your Organizational
Chart, you are guaranteed to have lost the vast majority of
listeners.
Instead, grab them from the beginning and never let go!
|
