Starting a presentation isn’t as hard as it might seem but only if you have the perfect formula that works for you.
In the world of today where everyone thrives for uniqueness, it’s necessary to make your presentations stand out and leave a lasting impact on the audience. If your audience gets bored right from the beginning, then no matter how valuable your information is, it will not be perceived the way you wanted it to be.
And trust me, you don’t want to be in that place.
Therefore, we have brought to you 5 unique, modern, and super creative ideas to give your presentations the perfect start in 2022. The strategies discussed here are verified and tested by professionals and have proved to be the most effective while delivering presentations.
The best part: You need no prior experience and expertise to implement these techniques and their versatility makes them suitable for presentations of all niches and industries.
Now without much further ado let’s get straight into them.
The Ultimate Hook
For those of you not sure what a hook is: It is a technique used in presentations to capture the audience’s attention and make them stay focused for a longer duration.
There are many hooks that people have used in the past. Some of these hooks include:
Storytelling:
(Captivating the audience’s attention by recalling to them an anecdote and then transitioning back towards the topic of the presentation.)
This is probably the most sought-after strategy that presenters have gone for in the 21st century. As we all love stories and can immediately relate to them in one way or the other or sometimes even visualize them with our imaginations, this is where the presenters capitalize on.
By creating an atmosphere of imagination or personal bonding, they grasp the attention of the audience in such a smooth and effortless way that they are hooked to his presentation and whatever follows the story.
Integrating humor:
(Using jokes and memes to give the audience a breather and then diverting back to the topic but this time with more concentration.)
You must have heard the famous quote of Mark Twain, “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” This is particularly true for presenters.
At times when the presentation is taking a steep climb of complexity, adding a little humor can quickly lighten the mood and refresh the mind for more information.
Even the best presenters have found humor to be a great way to interact with the audience and get them all excited and hyped up for what’s more to come.
Asking a thought-provoking question:
(Getting the audience to ponder over a problem, the answer to which will be given in the presentation.)
Everyone loves taking challenges and solving riddles. The satisfaction one gets after successfully solving a riddle or answering a question is one of its kind, but even getting close to the answer or thinking in a completely new dimension to what the actual answer was, gets us all excited and opens new doors for us to ponder upon.
This is why asking thought-provoking questions to start your presentations is an excellent way to get your audience to ponder over different possibilities and then provide the answer in your presentation.
This will quickly grab the attention of your audience and get them hooked till the end.
While these strategies have worked exceptionally in the past and are still in practice widely, the question arises which one should you pick for your next presentation?
This is where our concept of the Ultimate Hook kicks in. It means that ‘Of all the different techniques mentioned above there is one special technique that is bound to work for you irrespective of the circumstances you face’.
The way this Ultimate hook works is that you choose a combination of 2 approaches from the ones mentioned above and combine them to form your own customized hook.
For instance, consider you are a teacher who wants to prepare a slide presentation for the students and your primary focus is to not tire them but to clarify your concepts most engagingly. In this case, you can opt for different combinations from the ones mentioned above but the best option would be to use attention-grabbing fonts and color palettes along with the integration of humor.
By doing so you’ve successfully executed the ultimate hook and now you have the audience’s attention.
Come Out STRONG
Quite surprisingly one of the most efficient ways to capture the attention of the audience from the get-go is to leverage unpredictability.
Being predictable is boring. It overshadows the overall topis of the presentation and it won’t take long before you notice some sleepy heads in the audience.
This is why it’s important to come out strong at the start of the presentation and leverage unpredictability in such a way that gets the crowd thinking about what is this all about!
Still confused?
Don’t worry, here I’ll be disclosing a few ways this can be done, so bear with me.
Make a Provocative/Astonishing Statement:
You must have heard the legendary “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. That speech is the best example of this technique where “I have a Dream” is the Provocative statement that he uses to open up his speech.
By making this statement, he instantly grabs the audience’s attention and delivered what is known to be one of the most renowned speeches of all time.
Similarly, using such bold statements can be an excellent way to find the focus of your audience right from the start of your presentation.
State and Display Eye-Opening Statistics:
Another great way to get your audience engaged is to show them some astonishing statistical facts that would alarm them and at the same time get you what seek the most: their attention.
Studies have shown that claims followed by scientific evidence get the best response.
So why not use it to your advantage and surprise your audience with some bewildering statistics.
Conclusion:
Starting presentations from scratch might seem tricky at first but with the right mindset and the ability to think out of the box, you’ll not only nail those presentations but also steal the spotlight.
By following these 3 strategies your presentations will outperform your competitors and achieve your desired results.
