Have a presentation coming up? The last thing you want is to bore your audience. To help you feel more confident, we’ve put together 12 tips on how to start a presentation .
Don’t stress about your next presentation. With our guide on how to start a presentation that is sure to engage your audience, you’ll become a master presenter in no time.
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Beginner
There’s no time to waste when locking in your audience during a presentation. I have 12 ways to grab their attention from the start.
Hello everyone! Thank you for watching our video today. Hope you’re doing well. My name is Mike Ploger and this is exactly how you don’t want to start a presentation.
When beginning a presentation, you have to grip your audience. Start with a provocative statement or a mind-churning question or a fact that is completely hard to believe.
Every minute and word of a presentation should serve a purpose. You’re not in front of those people to shoot the breeze; you’re there to provide them with valuable information.
To ensure you’re making the most of your time, we’ve compiled 12 strategies to start your presentation that are guaranteed to engage your audience. Shall we?
Our first strategy is to open with a provocative statement. Something outrageous! Something ludicrous! Something that might make no sense to a viewer until they hear what you have to say.
Larry Smith is an Economics professor who opened this TED Talk with, “I want to discuss with you this afternoon why you’re going to have to fail to have a great career.”
It’s so provocative and bizarre that the crowd even giggled in response to him saying it. But it wasn’t meant as a joke. From his first words, his audience latched on to him.
Their curiosity soared, enticing them to listen and eventually became enlightened by the end of his 15-minute presentation. See if there’s a statement around your topic that could cause the same.
Our second tip is to incite curiosity. How?
Build suspense with a sequence of descriptive details teasing your main point. Imagine an audience member slowly creeping towards the front of their seat in suspense of what you’re going to say next. That’s the goal here.
Dan Pink gave a TED Talk where he did just that. He led it off by saying, “I need to make a confession at the outset here. A little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret. Something that I’m not particularly proud of, something that in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but here I feel kind of obliged to reveal.”
As he goes on, you almost become frustrated because you want him to get to the point. That’s his goal though, to keep you hanging on him, begging for more. The possibilities can run rampant in your head before the speaker finally reveals the story.
Build people up. Build that anticipation. It’s a proven way to attract the viewer.
“You will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.” Those are the words of Jane McGonigal, a video game designer.
But, wait, a video can make me live longer just by watching it? Hmm. One, this sparks my curiosity but two, how? That’s a bold statement that seems, well, impossible. But you can bet I’m going to watch the video now to see how.
An improbable assertion to shock your audience can really get the gears in their minds turning. At the very least, they want to hear you out. Whether they agree with you or not.
If you’re claiming something is one way, while the public perceives it as another, use a personal story to help your audience understand. It’s similar to being a visual or experiential learner.
It’s important to maintain a clear message and have persuasive delivery. Don’t veer too far off the determined path. Stay on track, speak with a purpose and end on a more positive note than when you began.
Shawn Achor gave a TED Talk where he shared stories from his childhood to enlighten people that pursuing happiness can lead to more productivity and not the other way around.
Opening up and revealing a personal story is a great way to connect with your audience. Not only do you want to bring them into your world, but sharing a difficult moment or time in your life can help build an emotional connection.
Don’t be afraid to talk about your lowest moments. What happened, how did you feel, what followed?
It won’t be easy but often it’s our most challenging times that help us grow. Try discussing that in your presentations, like Brene Brown did in her TED Talk about listening to shame.
A common but effective way to start a presentation is with a famous quote. People may instantly recognize the name of who said the quote which will help bring them in. They’ll associate you with that person and question how your presentation relates to their quote.
Of course, the quote should be relevant to your topic and you want to keep it short. You want it to be your presentation with just a little boost from the original speaker.
Andrew Salomon quotes Emily Dickenson to begin his TED Talk on depression. It’s a longer quote but a powerful one that gripped his audience.
If you have the resources, include some captivating visuals. You can say 1,000 words to describe a scene to a listener, but we all know that a picture can say a thousand words itself.
Sure, a projector or screen will help, but they’re not entirely necessary. If it’s a small presentation, provide handouts or bring your own large prints if your audience is a little bit bigger.
Visuals will help put a viewer into your scenario, helping them understand your message. This TED Talk discusses leadership in under 3 minutes with a video that you may have seen before.
What would you do if your house caught fire? How would you react? If I was giving a presentation on fire safety, I might lead with these questions.
Pose a question to your audience that they haven’t pondered before and will really get them thinking. The goal should be to really challenge them to become invested in your presentation. Your questions can be rhetorical, direct or even loaded.
Apollo Robbins asked if people think they can control someone’s attention before giving a TED Talk that 10.5 million people have now viewed. I encourage you to check it out for yourself.
Presentations often become word after word after word and constant talking that, if you’re not doing so effectively, will lead to sleepy eyes.
One of the most effective ways to combat this? Silence.
Leveraging silence into a presentation is a seasoned technique used by the most experienced speakers. Take me for example. Silence kind of freaks me out and as is the case, you can bet I’m paying attention when a presenter goes quiet.
Amanda Palmer starts her talk off by not speaking a single word. She uses props, something that we’ll get to here in a second, and body language to demand the audiences’ attention.
It almost makes you uncomfortable but just to the point of piqued curiosity.
Just like using visuals through pictures or video, props can work as well. And really, they can even be more powerful.
Props will help visually compliment your story so long as they’re relevant. They help make the presentation more memorable, make a point more concrete, and keep the focus on the presenter.
In presentations before, we’ve seen real human brains, polio vaccines and even flying robot birds. You can get really creative with your props.
Best selling author Susan Cain used props to discuss her first summer camp experience in her TED Talk.
Are you the office funny guy or girl? Use that to your advantage. Humor can not only break the ice but it can help get your point across depending on your topic.
Presentations don’t have to be these uptight, nerve-wracking, uncomfortable experiences. Have fun with them. Shock your audience with humor to help them relax.
Pamela Meyer is a lie detector. Given her title, you can bet I’d be nervous to be around her. But she lightens the mood immediately with the joke about how the person to your right is a liar. It’s a joke, yes, but is she actually kidding? I’m not sure, but I want to hear her reasoning.
Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 feet. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack — it sounds scary.
That’s exactly how Ric Elias led off his TED Talk into a harrowing story, and brilliantly so. Using the word imagine helps activate the minds of your audience and pull them into your world.
It’s not a bad thing for listeners to start using their imaginations and words like imagine, think of or picture this all jumpstart that process. If your audience can’t place themselves into the scene of a story, they’ll have a hard time following along.
You don’t want to lose them halfway through and setting the scene from the start is a good way to ensure that.
And that is all I have. 12 tips to starting your next presentation, but there is one more and that is going to Visme.com.
When it comes to planning and visuals, Visme has every tool you could ever need to create a presentation that’s sure to wow an audience. Go ahead and give it a try. It’s easy to use and won’t eat up a ton of time.
And if we were of any help today, please drop a thumbs up for us and share with your friends, colleagues or classmates. Our channel is filled with additional presentation content, too, that can likely help you.
In the meantime, good luck with your next presentation. If you follow our tips, there’s no doubt you’ll leave a lasting impression. For now, with Visme, I’m Mike Ploger helping you Make Information Beautiful.
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