No matter what you do in your presentation the first 2 seconds are what sticks in your audience’s mind.
There are many aspects of your presentation that will make an impact on the audience. These can be:
- Body language
- Eye contact
- Vocal emphasis
- Slide design
- Question handling
None of the above will have much impact on the audience unless you use your first 2 seconds wisely.
Why the first 2 seconds matters
The first 2 seconds is the part where the audience is making a decision.
They are deciding if your talk is a presentation they are going to listen to or not.
Will your presentation be interesting? Will the topic be delivered in a way the audience wants to watch?
Will your presentation be more of the same tired old stuff? Reams of bullet points, read to the audience in a dull voice.
Of course, they are expecting it to be boring. Years of being stuck in awful business presentations have prepped them for the inevitable.
It takes the audience mere seconds to evaluate you!
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What you can do in the first 2 seconds
To engage your audience in the first 2 seconds you don’t need slides and you don’t need to be super-confident.
You just need to capture their attention.
Capture their attention with these steps:
- Turn off the slides
- Start asking a question related to your topic (not rhetorical)
- Walk to the center of the room while asking the question
- Wait for a response and relate the response to your presentation
What you have done here is:
- Engaged the audience
- Interacted with the audience
- Made the audience feel your presentation will be different and interesting
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An example
Let’s say your presentation topic is the new dress code.
Previously the dress code was a little ambiguous and this resulted in staff receiving warnings.
The new dress code is being introduced to resolve some confusion there has been about what kind of shirts office staff can wear.
It’s a pretty boring presentation topic, but let’s use our first 2 seconds wisely:
- Turn off your slides
- Start by walking from the side of the stage to the center of the room
- As you are walking, ask “Who has found themselves confused about the office dress code?”
- Stop and wait for hands to raise
- Ask a raised hand to briefly share experience
- Transition into your presentation by explaining this experience will no longer be a problem with the clear policy you are about to introduce
Summary
Forget trying to dolly-up your slides.
Focus on what you are going to do in the first 2 seconds of your presentation.
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Hi David
Thank you for an insightful article. But here’s the thing: at the PSA (Professional Speaking Association) we are told notto begin talking unless we own the stage. In fact it is suggested we arrive onto the stage, pause slightly to the left of the audience’s centre of vision, wait a few seconds (upto 10) and then begin talking. The other points are the same i.e. asking question, etc.
So for a budding Speaker, your views on this would be helpful.
Thanks for your comment Diksha! Actually, I agree with the point about waiting up to 10 seconds before starting. Silence gets the audience’s attention, and when done right it can help the speaker to appear more confident and in-control. I’ve often had groups full of participants that are very familiar, so it gets pretty noisy with talk at the start of the presentation. Being silent on stage is way more effective at quieting the audience than asking or telling them to be quiet.
Hi David,
Thanks for the excellent read! Too often we get caught up in the mad rush to get the objectives and administrative information out of the way and get to the meat of the course. By asking an open ended question we get the learner focused on the topic quickly. Silence absolutely the beat way to get their initial attention on you and only you.
If you get the learners to give examples of where they had trouble with the topic before diving into the slide deck, you sink the hook deeper.
I once found myself looking at the audience, smiling and saying “Hello, are you friendly?” After the briefest of pauses, most smiled back and some people said, “Yes, we are”. After that, all went very well. Another “trick” was not to give a talk! The session was on Influencing Skills, I asked the people to talk to their next door neighbour about why they had come to the talk and what question they wanted answering. Then I answered their questions. This would have worked even better if I had asked the audience members more for their thoughts on the questions. In general an audience, together, always knows more than a speaker.
Great ways to open, Nick. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this great article, Dave!
I do agree with initial silence. Which creates curiosity & then a right question can open the house and you can steer the discussion to your objective.
I train new hires. Before i start the slides I team them up and have them interview each other.. After that they present it to the class followed by myself. It’s an ice breaker and introduces everyone.
That’s an awesome way to start training, Frank. Best things is it gives you a bit of breathing room to understand more about the participants and consider the best way of introducing the next activity/discussion/topic.