In my junior year at the University of Florida, I was taking a class called Instruments and Measurement Lab. I&M Lab was part of my Mechanical Engineering curriculum, and the lessons still help me today. We had to write reports about our lab results in a specific format, and present our findings to the class.
Twenty Five years later, I only remember one of the presentations, and not for a good reason. I forget the student’s name, but remember his opening very well. His goal was to grab our attention and he failed miserably. As he opened his presentation, he used some combination of oxygen and something else to create a flash flame that startled all of us. He then said, while chuckling “Now that I have your attention.” Well, he didn’t have our attention. We were startled – that’s about it. Within 30 seconds of his presentation, we were bored and our minds elsewhere. Which is how I learned one of my cardinal lessons to public speaking…
Strategy #2 to being an effective public speaker: Don’t start with a bang … start with a tease.
Don’t listen to all the “experts” that suggest starting your presentation with a joke or a bang to grab your audience’s attention. For one, what if it fails? That might be the worst thing that could happen to a speaker – now you’ve got to dig out of the position of trying a cheap strategy to gain their attention and failing. Zig Ziglar would struggle digging out of that hole. What if you succeed? Now, your audience might be laughing or shocked by your bang, but you’ve peaked too soon. By the time you get to the meat of your session, they’re bored and waiting for another joke. So, what can you do?
Start your presentation with a relevant story to passively get your audience following you, and then tease them with a mystery of what’s to come. The story should be about a problem at a company like theirs that is relatable to the audience, but don’t finish the story. Get them engaged, and then say: “More on what happened later, but first let’s look at how this might be comparable to your situation… “
Now, you’ve got them. If you told the funniest joke there is or started out the presentation with the biggest bang possible to gain their attention, you’d be struggling at the most critical time of the presentation – the transition to your dialogue about their problems and your solutions. If you slowly gather their interest with a relevant story and then tease them about the ending, then you’re in the perfect position when it counts.
What do you think? Have any of you seen a joke or trick fall on its face?
