Add Impact To Your Presentation Skills

Written by Suzanne Guthrie

A memorable speaker is someone who stands out. Their remarks carry weight and substance long after the meeting is over. Want to learn to add impact to your next presentation? Then work on incorporating the following three tips into your upcoming presentations. These are strategies that expert speakers use to add impact by: 1. Drawing Upon Imagery, 2. Conveying Facts With Clarity, 3. Inserting Examples Into Remarks. Let’s work through each of these techniques to see how they will highlight your remarks for more compelling commentary!

1. Drawing Upon Imagery

Images are powerful devices that are often used by speakers to add impact to their words. Since imagery engages the right side of the brain, a presentation filled with vivid imagery is much more likely to stay with the audience long after the speech is over. You may have heard the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words”; in the case of public speaking it is true. The audience is much more likely to retain a mental picture if you can craft images as you speak. You might try to create an analogy in your remarks by likening the subject of discussion with something the audience already knows. For example, a computer consultant once likened the speed and bandwidth of a new computer system to a super-wide, super-fast mega-highway that could quickly and easily transport many cars from point A to B. Just the like the highway, the new computer system would transport data quickly and efficiently for the organization!

2. Conveying Facts With Clarity

Another strategy to add impact is to help listeners relate to your comments by including facts and figures. Even better is to then add more clarity to the factual statement by relating the statistic to something that is familiar to the audience. For example, a speaker on cancer might talk about the high percentage of cases of skin cancer in the population who are aged 60 and over. Step One is to quote a statistic such as stating that 67% of all people over the age of 60 are at risk for skin cancer. Step Two is to make that statistic more relevant by saying “next time you are at a family dinner look around the room and imagine that two out of three people at the table are stricken with the illness, and only one out of three is free of cancer”. That’s what the statistic really means. Or here is another example; cutting the grass burns about 450 calories – that’s the same as playing racquetball for an hour.

3. Inserting Examples Into Remarks

Another easy technique to help listeners bite their teeth into your presentation is to continually drop examples into your commentary. Of course the examples must be relevant and on topic to really be effective. They can be personal stories or impersonal examples of other people or situations that fit with your topic. One additional strategy is to insert an example early on in your remarks then draw upon it many times as you add new information in your presentation. A case in point would be for a speaker on historic architecture to provide examples of period buildings in the local area, then refer to them again as the talk moves on to key elements of architecture such as columns, terraces and steps. In this situation photographs of the buildings being discussed as examples would add even greater visual impact!

In summary, the wise speaker knows that to keep the audience focused and engaged it is imperative to add impact via specialized presentation techniques. You can add impact to your presentation and public speaking skills by honing your ability to draw upon imagery, convey facts with clarity, and insert examples into verbal remarks. For more information about how to master these presentation skills or about registering for presentation skills training please visit our website at http://www.boldnewdirections.com

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About The Author:

Suzanne Guthrie is co-founder of Bold New Directions, a transformational learning company that works with companies to transform people and performance through training solutions including seminars, webinars, coaching and keynote events. Bold New Directions specializes in training solutions that build leadership skills, communication skills and resilience at work. You can learn more about Suzanne Guthrie and presentation skills training by visiting the Bold New Directions web site at www.boldnewdirections.com

Article Source: www.EzineArticles.com

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