5 ways to surprise your audience (and keep their attention)
TRANSCRIPT
ways to surprise your audience and catch their attention
STATEMENTS BOLD
Make 1
34% of adults think Santa Claus is real
Facebook is dead!
This presentation will change your life
Cigarettes are more healthy than candy
We get intrigued by bold statements, surprising facts, and shocking stats. It gives the brain a kick and makes us curious to know more.
Wake the audience up!
Imagine you are a startup that is gonna pitch your new payment app for a group of investors
Make this your opening slide
Now you definitely have the attention of the investors. All you need to do is to back up your statement.
(Important: only give statements you can back up)
HOW TO DO IT
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FUNNY Be
(if you can)
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We tend to pay attention to people who makes us feel good and relaxed – which is exactly what humor does. Make your audience laugh and it will be more likely that they remember what you say.
Make them laugh and they will listen.
If you are not funny, you should consider my four other tips in this deck instead. Or practice a lot.
Don’t force it.
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3 Keep it personal - don’t tell jokes for the sake of being funny. The whole point is to be natural and connect with your audience.
Study your audience and get on their level. A funny story to the wrong audience will only make you cry.
HOW TO DO IT
Get the audience to laugh early on in the speech to let them know that they can relax. Then you keep their interest by throwing in some humor throughout your speech.
DESIGN Share great
3
We are so used to traditional PowerPoint slides that a simple, clean and visual slide will instantly get our attention.
Keep it clean.
Make your slides POP with colors, images, icons and fonts. Your audience will get positively surprised each time you click forward your slides, and their attention will be kept throughout the speech.
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Get inspired on SlideShare and go rock your own slides like no one else! Dare to be creative and go against the traditional.
HOW TO DO IT
Pay a presentation designer to do it for you
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Buy a nice template online
Use alternative tools like Canva that make it easy to be creative and look good
STORY Tell a great
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Like I always say…
A good story catch people’s attention, but a great story open their wallets.
Just kidding, that is the first time I say that.
While bullet-points only can engage part of our brain, stories can activate the whole brain. Turn your message into a great story and your audience will never forget you.
Stories are really powerful.
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3 Educating students? Show practical applications and let the students be part of the story.
Doing an investor pitch? Tell them how your idea came about.
Pitching a potential client? Show them a client success story.
HOW TO DO IT
UNEX-PECTED
Keep it 5
This is expected. This is unexpected.
Hi, my topic today is about…
Hi, did you know that chewing gum boosts
your brain power?
This is expected. This is unexpected.
This is also unexpected.
This is also unexpected.
This is also unexpected.
This is also unexpected.
Smash their expectations The audience have expectations about your slides, your voice, your body language, your topic, and so on. The only way to really excite your audience is by breaking their expectations – in a good way.
HOW TO DO IT
These are all unexpected elements you can use for your next presentation
Master these five tips and you will be a great presenter.
This guy uses almost all of these tips, and his speech is probably the best one you will see in a while.
Sources of inspiration: The Power of Storytelling http://www.ceros.com/blog/the-power-of-storytelling/ The Science of Storytelling https://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains
Made by Damon Nofar
@damonify
http://damonnofar.me