Having to come up with a pitch and present it to potential clients has always been a difficult task to do, much less pull off successfully. But it can be incredibly discouraging when you do not get any kind of interest after working for so many hours on your pitch. Do not fret, for all is not lost. All you will have to do is make some adjustments to your presentation style in order to get people more interested in what you are trying to offer them. In this article, we will give you a few tips and tricks on how to capture your audience’s attention and have them listening to you intently from start to finish.
1. Make Sure That You Create a Story for Your Clients
If you have ever been in any type of company meeting, then you may have already witnessed the boring types of presentations. You know the ones: the presenter starts showing you facts and figures, all full of numbers and pie charts and tables and whatnot, all full of details that are prone to making you zone out because those numbers and letters just do not mean anything of significance to you. However, there is another way to get your audience to sit up and listen: try framing your presentation into a story instead. People are much more engaged when you tell them a story. This is because it can arouse emotions in clients. By using emotion, according to PollEverywhere, you can tap into their desires and get them to invest in your offering.
2. Do Not Forget to Use Visuals to Match Your Tale
People remember details much more easily when you present it to them using visuals instead of simply using text. But you should not just put up any drab and boring graphics that you find on the internet, or put up any irrelevant photos that you took during a walk to your office. Instead, you should carefully pick out images that can help explain the abstract idea in your head. Try going for more interesting ones, too. According to a study published in theMalaysian Journal of Medical Sciences, using colorful visuals can help audiences increase their recall of information by up to 77 to 80 percent compared to any data that is given to them in text or sound bites.
3. Try Not to Fill Up All of Your Slides with Walls of Text
Nobody wants to have to spend money on travel and lodging just to attend a presentation where they are expected to stare at the screen for the entire time. In fact, according to some statistics, the average attention span has dropped in the last few years. That is why you need to use images and rely on your speech instead of using the presentation as if they were your note cards.
4. Take Advantage of Your Body Language and Facial Expressions
The way you move can say a lot about your personality, and what you are actually thinking. If you stand too stiffly, you may come across as nervous or robotic. However, if you start waving your arms around too much, you might come across as much too enthusiastic. A smile would really, really help make your onlookers feel like you are trying to make a connection with them. However, smiling too widely might come across the wrong way, making you look a little too eager, or perhaps even a little bit creepy! Try to practice speaking out loud in front of a mirror so that you can see what your face naturally looks like. Then, try to modify your expressions to fit whatever it is you are trying to say.These tips can apply whether you are presenting in front of a small audience, a large audience, or even doing enterprise webcastingby using a system such as BlueJeans.
5. Set Aside Some Time to Study and Practice Your Pitch
Even if you have created the master plan that would put every other presentation to shame, it will be all for naught if you forget your lines when you are actually performing on stage. That is why it is absolutely important for you to rehearse what you want to say at least a few days before you are going to present in front of your audience. If you have stage fright, you may want to ask your family, friends, or co-workers to be your practice audience. Then, ask them for feedback on what you did right, and what parts you could have improved.
Make sure that you try out these tips the next time you have to give a presentation. By the end of it, you should be able to get a lot more interest in your product or service than ever before, all thanks to a wonderfully presented pitch.
