The ability to present well has become much more important lately mainly due to increased competition and the need to reach as many people as possible to promote your products, services or your ideas.

A lot of people consider public speaking and presentations a difficult task which they are sometimes quite afraid of. However, like any other skill, public speaking is only a skill and can be mastered by practice.

Research shows that people are more likely to remember the beginning of a presentation more than any other part of it. The beginning also has a huge impact in how your audience and how they will respond to you during your presentation. To make your presentation more memorable and effective, use the following techniques:

Deliver Something Unexpected

When you state something that goes against your audiences’ expectations, they become instantly interested in what you are talking about. It is also much more likely for your presentation to stand out from other presentations they have attended. Make an emotional connection and surprise them. A technique used sometimes is to reveal something controversial. The topic may polarise the audience and your controversial remarks will be well remembered. Of course this is an extreme case and you need to make sure you are not remembered for the wrong reasons.

Deliver Something New

Everyone is always interested to hear about something new and relevant. Start your presentation by showing data, image, video or a concept that has never been seen before. This raises the curiosity of your audience and makes them want to know more about your world, your discovery or your invention.

Deliver Something Personal

Appeal to emotions by stating something personal. This doesn’t mean to start with an introduction about yourself, but instead about something related to you or your world. For example, show a picture of your office to make a point about something in your presentation and only at the end reveal that this is in fact an image of your office. This increases retention of the content while making the presentation uniquely personal.

Deliver Something Personalised to Your Audience

Personalise your presentation to your audience. Of course, you always have to consider your audience when delivering your content. However, you can go a step further by making this explicitly memorable. For example, if you have to describe a distance travelled by a vehicle, you can describe it as the distance between two locally famous landmarks. The audience can immediately visualise the distance using their own local reference and would also feel that you have delivered a customised presentation specifically for them.

Deliver Something Challenging

Challenge your audience’s accepted wisdom. Deliver something that challenges their assumptions and makes them question their own beliefs. For example, “Is it really true that Diamond is the strongest material in nature? New discoveries show that indeed we have found much stronger materials which we can take advantage of in a large range of applications.” Avoid using a lecturing style of communication and instead focus on getting the audience to participate. Their participation will help them to remember the content and your presentation more.

In general, your aim at the beginning of your presentation is to captivate your audience. Once you have appealed to their emotions, sense of curiosity and people’s natural tendency to want to know more, you have an audience who is ready to receive your real message.

The best way to practice presentation skills is in a systematic training course where you can get direct feedback from a simulated audience as well as your own trainer. Presentation Skills Training Materials are useful to run courses on presentation skills in a tutor-led training environment. For details see the training resources provided below.