Learn how to ‘wrap’ your presentation so you keep your audiences riveted. Also discover ways to aid retention and make your presentation ‘brain friendly’.In this chapter:You can barely stay awake. You stifle yet another yawn. You can’t remember the points made by the speaker. You long for the end. And yet the speaker is well prepared, has style, enthusiasm and energy. He is eloquent, with great posture and a clear voice. Why is he not impacting on the audience?Giving a presentation is like giving someone a present.

The present (your content), the wrapping paper (structure of message), and the giving (delivery style) all dovetail to make the presentation experience. A shallow message, a poor delivery, a conceited personality or a badly structured message will spoil the experience for your audience. People are inclined to put most of their efforts into the content of their presentation with some thought for the delivery. Often the wrapping is neglected.

Does The Wrapping Matter?

You may have a life-enhancing message but if it is not wrapped appropriately, you will not be ‘heard’ and you won’t be changing any lives. It is not just a matter of what you say – how you structure your ideas also matters. To decide on the ‘wrapping paper’ for your ideas, you need to understand people and something of the psychology of communication.

How do you present so people:

Keeping The Interest Of Your Audience

In today’s society we are bombarded by information. Our attention span seems to be getting shorter due to the influence of the media. We are accustomed to getting information quickly, in small doses and in stimulating ways. The people in your audience have come to expect this.

Everything is at a much faster pace: instant food, instant gratification and instant information. The pace of life has changed and presenters need to match this or be ‘fast-forwarded’.

You risk losing interest if you:

Variety Wrapping

Variety is the spice of your speaking life. To keep the interest and attention of your audience, you must do something different, frequently. Look around the room you are in and select an object to concentrate on. How long before your mind switches to something else or to another thought? To hold your attention, the object needs to flash, move, or change in some way, etc., every 20 – 30 seconds. So if you want the listener to continue to pay attention to you, add variety every 20 – 30 seconds.

Self-Interest Wrapping

Juries remember only 60% of what they are told. Why? The case is not about them. No matter how hard they try, people have difficulty paying attention to presentations that aren’t about them.

People are primarily interested in themselves. They want to know how to earn more money, how to live longer, how to get cheaper holidays, how to get promotion and so on. Talk to the self-interest of your audience. Talk about them, their problems and their concerns. The more times you can add the words ‘you’ or ‘yours’ the more interest you create for your audience. While it is your presentation, it is all about them and for them.

Good Presenters Do It In Less Time

Radio and television news make use of the thirty-second ‘sound bite’, as it is sometimes called. It takes thirty seconds for the story, which might include an interview with an eyewitness and pictures of the news event. Every few seconds there is a change of scene.

30-Second ‘bite’ Wrapping

You can make powerful messages in thirty seconds. Your presentation can be a series of mini-presentations made up of thirty-second bites. The following questions can form the basis for a presentation proposal. If you want a fast-moving presentation, aim to answer each of these questions in thirty seconds or less:

While it might not be appropriate to answer each question in thirty seconds, you might want to aim for the thirty-second mindset. Rather than bore your audience with detail, make the key points jump right out in thirty-second bites and put the details on a handout.

This approach disciplines the mind and tightens the message. It enables you to sharpen rather than suffocate the issues as ideas can get lost when there is an abundance of words: