Some Dos and Don’ts for Gaining Audience’s Attention During Presentation

As per the words of Philip Crosby, a famous businessman and author from U.S., “The audience only pays attention as long as you know where you are going.” Whether you have 60 seconds on stage or a whole one hour, sending your message effectively across the listeners requires excellent presentation skills.

The true success of a presentation lies in what your listeners receive and not the knowledge you gave them. Whether you are a student standing in your classroom, or a businessman, demonstrating your business goals to other board members, the way you deliver your speech is very important in reaching the target listeners.

Taking a note of the some do’s and don’ts of presentation, can really help you to keep the audience attention. Take a look:

Do’s

• Maintain a confident eye contact with your audience throughout the presentation.
• The most important part of a presentation is the body language of the speaker. Appropriate gestures can contribute a lot in fetching the attention of the audience.
• While you speak, make sure you move around the stage, suitably.
• Try to make your presentation more visual by adding graphics, but in an appropriate amount only. For this, you can make PowerPoint Presentation so as to provide your audience with easily viewable templates.
• Try to engage your audience by asking them to share their personal experiences. You can also add a questionnaire to make the session more interesting.
• You can add relevant quotes that have been given by famous personalities to make your speech more impactful.

Don’ts

• Never choose a topic about which you are not sufficiently aware of. Finalize a topic only when you are fully confident to explain and answer queries, if asked.
• Don’t overload your presentation with lots of data. Just keep a few simple facts, figures and graphics to make your point.
• Never jump directly into your speech, as starting of a presentation is of utmost importance. Also make sure you end your speech well.
• Don’t use technical jargons or complex terminologies as it might create confusion among the audience.
• While you add humor to your speech, make sure you are not hurting their emotions in any sense.
• Never read directly from slides while giving your presentation as the audience may zone out in such situations.

Following these simple tips while presenting your ideas before the gathering, will help you in gaining greater audience attention and appreciation of your listeners.