how to start your

presentation or speech

with a YOU FOCUSED

QUESTION Hi, my name is Akash and I’m a presentation skills coach and

author of “Public Speaking Secrets of the Champions”. In this

presentation, I am going to teach you how to start your

presentation or speech with a you-focused question.

Akash Karia

http://www.CommunicationSkillsTips.com

In her 2010 World Championship of Public Speaking speech, Lisa Panarello

starts her speech with a You-focused question to capture audience attention.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

This is a question that everyone has heard at some point in their life, so

the question immediately connects with listeners.

So, how can you apply this to your presentations? How do you find

questions which will connect with your audience?

When you’re sharing your expertise, think about what challenge or

problem your audience members are facing. For example, if you’ve been called

upon to share money-management tips, the problem your audience members

might be facing is that they might be struggling financially. So you might start

off with questions that address the problem and indirectly promise to solve it:

“Why is it that some people always struggle financially, whereas others

achieve financial freedom? How can we ensure that we achieve financial

freedom so that we can live debt-free, worry-free and stress-free?”

The above question pinpoints your audience’s problem and hints at a

solution to the problem. Bingo, they’re hooked!

Here’s another example. Let’s say you’ve been called upon to give a

presentation to upper management analyzing what your company can do to

increase its market share. You might start with the following questions:

“Why is it that our biggest competitor stole 15% of our market share?

What can we do to prevent this happening again? What can we do to not only

take back, but also increase our market share?”

The above question is a provocative question and it will immediately hook

your audience into your presentation. Small warning though: the above

question might not be appropriate for all business presentations. Let me

explain. When you’re giving a corporate presentation, you also have to make

sure you’re not hurting your superior’s egos. In some companies, such as

Google, you’re encouraged to challenge decisions and the status quo, so the

above question would be appropriate. However, in other companies, the boss’s

fragile ego might prevent you from talking about why the competition has done

so well and you haven’t. When giving corporate presentation, feel free to use

you-focused questions to start the presentation, but exercise your own

judgment about which questions are appropriate.

http://www.CommunicationSkillsTips.com