Tired of the Same Old, Same Old?
Grab Your Audience’s Attention Right From the Start
It’s that time of the afternoon again. Your blood sugar is low and you have had no break. You have been listening to an expert panel on the future of your industry and an expert coach on how to manage up. Now, with no break again, someone else steps in to give you yet another presentation on how to give great presentations. She is the only thing that stands between you and your happy hour. What would you do?
That last speaker of the afternoon was yours truly last week. Knowing how my audiences were feeling, I decided to start with something different: Stretching! For the next two minutes, I led a deep stretching routine. Weird as it might be to open a talk like that, stretching gave my audiences something they sorely needed – a break from the routine. Best of all, I grabbed their attention right from the start.
The Advertising Research Foundation invited me to be the closing speaker for its afternoon of boot camp. Seventy-some young professionals congregated in downtown Chicago to learn the latest and greatest of their industry. They also had a crash course on how to manage up by the bestselling author and executive coach Kathi Elster. Though content from the previous sessions was excellent, fatigue began to set in. Sensing what the crowd was feeling, I decided that I couldn’t start with the same old, same old with this group of hard-working professionals.
Many storytellers and speakers use the starting point of their presentation as an opportunity to clear their throat, check the mic, calm their nerves and generally warm up to being in the spotlight. However, audiences’ attention span tends to be at its peak in the beginning. Ironically while they are most receptive, we bore them to tears with the same old, same old.
Indeed, many young professionals in the room also face the question: “How can I capture my colleague, manager or client’s attention in this demanding, data-driven industry?” Especially when they are still young professionals and don’t have much authority over the structure of the presentation.
I spent some time in last week’s session brainstorming ways to grab your audience’s attention. Stretching, story headlines and bold claims, especially in dollar amounts, were some ideas from the group. But here are two more examples from my previous clients.
Example 1: “40 years ago, our sales process was….” Michael was planning on starting his presentation to a sales team with the history of the company and how that affected their competitive process today. It sounded like a snooze fest right from the start. Why? Because the way it began sounded like all the other presentations: same old, same old.
With some guidance Michael refined his story and started the presentation like this: “What were you doing in 1973? [Pause] At that time, I was playing baseball on a little league team. Meanwhile several states across from my baseball field, our organization was in the process of …” It immediately captured the audience’s attention and made Michael and his story relatable.
Example 2: “How was your summer?” As school begins in the fall this question pops up everywhere. Rhetoric scholars call this type of question “Phatic Communion,” meaning the question is more meant to be an acknowledgment than a question seeking information. Unfortunately, social protocol requires that we give some kind of answers, which leads us to more of the same old, same old. So, what to do?
Change it up! Here is one possibility.
“How was my summer? Well, four numbers: 3, 1, 2, 25. [Pause] Three amazing out of town weddings, one death in the family, two-wheel bicycle that my daughter learned to ride and 25% increase in sales for our product.” Sure, in this case our client was responding in a networking situation, but the same answer can be applied to begin a quarterly presentation and use the sales number as your tie into what you are going to talk about for the rest of the meeting.
This tool is powerful in formal presentation settings, but it is also just as effective in presenting yourself. For example, as the year comes to an end think about how you can use this tool to prepare for your performance evaluation. How can you tell stories about your accomplishments that capture the attention of your manager?
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Photo credits: By Camilo Rueda López via CreativeCommons.org
