by Steve Holder

Created on: September 10, 2007

The most serious mistake you can make in a presentation is to fail to engage the audience's interest. This happens often when you focus on your own point of view instead of that of your audience.

It's Not All About You

Imagine you're at a cocktail party droning on and on about yourself and your opinions, and you keep finding your conversation partners excusing themselves for a variety of flimsy reasons. Most people understand that good conversationalists instead turn the topic toward the people they're speaking with to keep them engaged.

But when it comes to making a presentation, some of us forget the simple fact that people are more interested in themselves than in us. If you want to be interesting (and listened to), focus on your audience instead of yourself.

If you're making a business presentation, you're easily tempted to concentrate on your company, service, or product. That's not your audience's point of view. They're thinking about their problems and trying to interpret what you're saying into how it applies to their situation.

So instead, make your presentation about their company, it's challenges and how they can create a solution that involves what you offer. That way, you're talking about what they're most interested in, themselves, and you're not forcing them through the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out how your subject matter relates to them.

The problem with this approach is that it's much easier to just talk about your company, products, and services because you know them so well. To relate instead to your audience requires you to work harder to figure out where your audience's collective head is. This is why many presenters don't do it, because it takes extra effort.

Turning a Boring Presentation into an Interactive Conversation

In an address to a small group, it's fairly easy to direct questions to your audience and incorporate their feedback into your presentation. Good teachers do this regularly to keep their classes involved with the material.

For example, you have the advantage of knowing where your topic is heading. It's not difficult to craft questions, the likely answers to which will lead right into what you're going to discuss next. Before you even start talking about it, you have them already interested in what you're about to say.

And like a professional illusionist, even if the answers aren't directly on target, you can relate them to the answers you were looking for as you segue into the next point.

Interacting with a Large

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