Presentation Skills Tip-Wake Up Your Audience

When you are presenting do you find that your audience becomes distracted or just tunes out? This may have NOTHING to do with your skills as a presenter. It's our brain's fault. The fact is we don't pay attention to boring things. And our brains get bored very quickly. Wake up your audience with this Presentation skills tip.

In his ground breaking book Brain Rules, John Medina talks about this in "Rule 4, The brain's attentional "spotlight" can focus on only one thing at a time: no multitasking. We are better at seeing patterns and abstracting the meaning of an event than we are at recording detail. Emotional arousal helps the brain learn. Audiences check out after 10 minutes, but you can keep grabbing them back by telling narratives or creating events rich in emotion."

So, ten minutes of the same thing and our brains stop paying attention.  There are simple ways to wake your audience up. Even a small change can have a big impact. Stop the PowerPoint and ask a question, or take questions. Change up your slides or have a cofacilitator add information, move to a different part of the room or try an activity or show a live product. Click here to learn more ways to make your presentations engaging and effective.

When you change things up you keep your audience engaged. When they are engaged you are more likely to make your sale, change their minds, educate them or any of the many goals you may have when you began to speak.

If you want to become more adept at this principle or if you want to become a more impactful speaker, please take a moment and contact us. We specialize in helping you make the most of your time in front of an audience, whether you are giving status updates or selling your product or services.