What Is the Best Way To Start a Presentation

What is the best way to start a presentation? Well, it is kind of like what I just did. I just tossed out something interesting over to you.

It does not necessarily have to be in a question format. It does not have to be overly funny or dramatic either. It just needs to be interesting to your audience. Most people feel the need the need to start with, “Good morning, my name is this, and I have come from here, and before I begin with the presentation, let me tell you about the boring history of my company and all the cities that we have branches in along with information that you absolutely do not care about because you are here. Blah blah blah.”

Most people hear that, think that the speaker hasn’t really started, and pull out their phones to check their mail or update their social media accounts. All at once, you have lost them.

The rule of thumb is to just start by saying something interesting to your audience. If you want to thank the organizer, just do it in the middle of the presentation or even at the end- but do not say it at the beginning.

You hook your audience in by saying something interesting at the beginning and you might not ever have to let go of them from that point on wards.

What Do You Do If You Hate Your Voice

What do you do if you do not like your voice? How do you improve your voice? If you want to sound deeper and more professional and authoritative, how do you get your voice to be lower?

Do not do that! Here is the thing: almost everyone hates the sound of their own voice. That is because we are used to hearing our own voice distorted through the bones of our skull all day long. So when we hear our voice through a speaker, it is less distorted than normal and it is not the image we have of our own voice.

Take it from me, your voice is fine. It is extraordinarily rare that someone truly has a voice that is awful. What is far more important is what you use your voice to say. You have to say something interesting. A lot of people have perfectly fine voices, but they never say something interesting.

My advice for you is to practice on video. Really listen to your voice and your messages hundreds of times before you actually start thinking about improving your voice or hiring a voice coach. You have got to get used to listening to your own voice. Chances are, that your voice is probably fine and it is your message that probably needs more work.

What Do You Do If You are Losing the Audience

What do you do if you are giving a presentation and you can see it right in front of your eyes that you are losing your audience? There are some people yawning, some are falling asleep, and some are busy chattering away on their phones. Not a good sign. What do you do in such a situation?

Well, first of all, congratulations for even noticing. So many boring speakers are so fixated on reading their script or turning their back and reading a bunch of bullet points off of a slide that they do not even know if they are losing their audience. You do have to do something different.

Sometimes it is the matter of stopping and saying, “Wow, I feel like I am losing you guys. Jim, where do you think I went wrong?”. In this way, you are not being rude to your audience by saying, “Hey, wake up!” or “Pay attention, buddy”. But sometimes you just have to ask the audience if they are with you. This does not apply to every scenario but most of the times, it does.

Sometimes you have to just skip the section you are currently in and skip to something that you know is more interesting and relevant. Sometimes you have to engage your audience and ask them questions when you know they have something interesting to say. Sometimes you have to inject a little humor. And sometimes it is just about moving around the room. If you stay in one spot for the entirety of the presentation, it gets boring. Walk over to the middle or the back of the room, or anywhere- but you have to do something.

It is not about just getting through your presentation- you get no points for just finishing your presentation. You get points for communicating. Which means that people have to be paying attention, understanding, and remembering your messages. If you can tell that it is not happening, do not keep on doing what you are doing, do something different.

Is It OK To Wear Glasses During a Presentation

Should you wear glasses during a presentation? You should if you always wear glasses because it is going to look odd if you suddenly take them off and people do not recognize you and neither can you see them.

I have reading glasses but I do not wear them to presentations because they are so thick and large that they dominate the face and create shadows. If it were my style, then there would be nothing wrong with me wearing them either.

I recommend lighter glasses for when you are presenting. Is they have no rims, they will not create shadows, and a thinner lens doesn’t look odd or make your eyes look too large. If you are going to be presenting often, then I would recommend getting glare proof glasses with a thin frame so that they do not create as prominent of a reflection.

I often do not wear any glasses too. My rule of thumb is that if you just wear reading glasses, then skip them when presenting. Make sure anything you have to read during it is in large font so that you do not need them. But if you normally wear them, you can do so as well.