Making Effective Presentations:
Presentations to Persuade

Go back to introduction Part 1: Making Effective Presentations

As with information presentations, you should give a clear introduction to yourself and your topic. However, in addition to organizing your talk in a logical fashion, you need to build up a convincing argument. You should concentrate on:

1. the benefits of your standpoint
2.  compare these with the disadvantages of other approaches
3.  lead up to the conclusion that what you offer is a better alternative.

In my presentation today I am going to show you how our new product can save you between 15% and 20% of your annual energy costs... Until now, comparable products have required a high initial outlay. In contrast our prices are 30% lower than our competitors'... From what you have seen today, I am sure you will agree that what we offer not only allows the biggest per annum savings at a considerably lower price than comparable products, but that it also comes with a cast-iron warranty and an excellent after sales package.

Capturing and keeping the audience's interest

To capture your audience's interest, you need a lively introduction with a 'hook'; that is to say a way of making the audience want to know more.  Some ways of doing this are:

1. identify a problem you know they would like solved
2. "trail" some new and interesting  information that you are going to unveil
3. ask rhetorical questions (questions to which you don't expect an answer: what exactly went wrong? where does that leave us? how can we interpret this?).

Once you have the audience's attention, you should ensure you keep it by:

1. making clear, brief points
2. using simple visual aids to highlight specific points (these should be vivid and with only minimal information)
3. using humor if it is appropriate to your topic
4. summarizing key points.

 

 

 

For a teaching lesson plan for this lesson see: Effective Presentations Lesson Plan For teaching lessons on business and careers see:  Teaching Business Lessons and Careers

Go to Part 3: Body Language and Dealing with Questions

 

 

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