How to Encourage Your Audience to Laugh
How to Get a Laugh from Your Audience Three techniques to encourage laugher We feel better when we laugh. When you stimulate your audience to laugh, they will feel comfortable listening to you. They will be more inclined to like and trust you. They will listen to you more intently because they don’t want to miss the next funny or poignant thought. Laughter releases tension and relaxes people How can you get people to laugh? Personal Story The easiest and safest form of humor is to relate a personal story of something funny or embarrassing that you experienced. If it was funny or seems funny now in hindsight you don’t need to analyse the humor. Simply tell it like it happened. You are safe when you are the butt of the joke. My new boss invited me to lunch. I wanted to make a good impression. So, when he ordered steak, I asked for the same to build rapport. When the meal arrived, I experienced my introduction to Steak Tartare. It was not what I expected. I didn’t enjoy the meal and I wonder what my boss was thinking as he witnessed me picking at the meal. My surprise and embarrassment make the story funny. And I use that story to emphasize the danger of assuming and being afraid to ask questions. The 1,2, 3 punch Pleasant surprise is a form of comedy. That’s where you lead your audience in one direction then hit them with the switcheroo. If stranded on a desert island the three books I would want: The Holy Bible, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and The Idiot’s Guide to Sand Sculpture. Funny Quote You could use a funny quote. When the lion lays down with the lamb, the lamb will not get much sleep. Woody Allen It’s even better when you twist a familiar phrase. You can guess my success in the stock market. I followed that maxim, “Buy high. Sell low.” Not everyone will laugh. All you want is for the audience to relax, trust you and listen. When shopping for a suit, I told the salesperson what I wanted then said little while he pulled out a few jackets for me to try on. He could tell that I didn’t want idle chat. I wanted a suit. Period. Once we found what I liked, I declared that I would take it. He responded with “How many would you like?” His question caught me by surprise. I laughed and bought two suits. Imagine if your audience felt good enough to laugh with you. Want to see weekly presentation tips? Visit www.TorokTips.com Read to boost the presentation skills of your team? Call George Torok at 905-335-1997 Access More Presentation Skills Resources Looking For A Speech Coach? Learn More Here
When You Want People to Notice & Remember – Repeat!
How to Emphasize Key Message Repeat Your Key Message If you want your audience to remember your message, they need to hear it more than once. Perhaps at least three times. That repetition needs to be spaced out throughout the presentation. Why do you need to repeat the key message? Because they might have missed it, or not recognized the importance. Some of your words are more important than others and you want to emphasize those words so the audience can easily remember your key points. Your key message can likely be summed up in about six to 10 words. The average rate of speaking is between 110 and 150 words per minute. That means in a five-minute presentation about 500 to 700 words were spoken. Without emphasis your 10 words have less than 2% chance of being remembered. Imagine the challenge when you speak for 30 minutes and deluge the audience with 3,000 to 4,500 words. If you want them to remember, they need to hear it again… and again. There are techniques to emphasise key points and repetition is one effective technique. Don’t over do it. And don’t apologize for repeating. Don’t preface your words with “As I said before” or “as was previously mentioned”. Those phrases feel like apologies and they dimmish the power of repetition. When you want to remember a name, an address or line, you repeat it. How many times? Enough to remember. Marketers understand this principle. That’s why they repeat the phrase during the ad and repeat the ad. Do you remember the key line that Martin Luthor King stated during his famous speech? “I have a dream!” Did you know that he stated that line 8 times during his speech? Not once did he say, “As I said before”. I don’t suggest that you repeat the key line 8 times in your presentation. Instead, recognize the power of repetition and get comfortable with it. When you want people to remember your message, say it again… and again like an echo. Want more regular presentation tips? Visit www.TorokTips.com Access More Presentation Skills Resources Looking For A Speech Coach? Learn More Here
No More Killer Presentations, Please
No Killer Presentation: Show Mercy Don’t deliver a killer presentation. Don’t even think it. Stop with the killer presentations talk. Killer presentation is a mindless and insensitive phrase to address presentation skills. Have you noticed articles and videos that promise you “How to deliver a killer presentation”? Why would you want to kill your presentation? What might that mean? Words matter and mostly importantly, so does your mindset. What does the word killer mean? Murderer, assassin, mercenary, criminal. Why would you want to deliver a killer presentation? Who do you want your presentation to kill? Killer doesn’t mean good or great. Kill and killer are negative words. Why would anyone suggest that you kill your presentation or deliver a killer presentation? Who and what do you want to kill? Imagine if you substitute the word murder for the word killer. Would you want to deliver a murder presentation? Would you murder your audience??? What are they thinking? Did they mean successful presentation? Did they mean effective presentation? Did they mean confident presentation? Killer doesn’t mean successful, effective or confident unless you are a hired gun, a person who kills for money. How can that be compared to delivering a presentation? You killed it. What does that mean? It’s dead, a corpse. Who wants to deliver a killer presentation? A soldier. A hit man. A gladiator. These people need to kill their opponent so they can survive. It’s the kill or be killed scenario. Clear and simple. Why would anyone compare this life and death struggle to speaking to your team, prospect or clients? Why would you want to kill the presentation or the people in the room? Words matter especially in a conversation or presentation. I want to kill you. I want to kill this presentation. Those are bad words and convey the wrong message. Imagine if you started your presentation with the words “This presentation will kill you”. I’m going to kill this presentation. At the end of this presentation, you will be dead, because I killed it. Would you say those vile words? So why think it? Please don’t intend your presentation to kill, main or harm your audience. Instead use your presentation to engage, inspire and enhance your audience. What names might come to mind when you hear the word killer? Charles Mason, Carlos the Jackal, Jack the Ripper. Did you know that Vlad the Impaler was a notorious mass murderer who delivered a killer presentation? He had his enemies decapitated and their heads stuck on poles along the road to his castle. How’s that for a killer presentation? What are other killers that you might know? Sarin gas, cancer, Ebola, The Black Plague. Nuclear war. Why would anyone associate the word “killer” with presentations? What were they thinking? Why were they insensitive to the negative association with the work killer? Why would they post articles or videos about delivering a killer presentation? Perhaps they believe that offensive word is click bait and they might attract curious views. Perhaps they really believe that killer is a good word to describe a presentation. And that suggests how destructive their tips, ideas and perspective are. They simply want to kill you, kill the audience and the kill the presentation. That would make you a killer. That mindset portrays your audience as victims. Innocents who are slayed by your presentation. Do you want to kill, slay or torture your audience. Instead, connect, convince and compliment. Intrigue, question and persuade them. I’m suprised to see Harvard Business Review stooping this low by publishing this article https://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation Don’t kill your audience. Don’t try to deliver a killer presentation. Don’t be an assassin. Instead connect with your audience. Speak with them – not at them. Treat them with respect. Because they don’t want to be killed and you don’t want to be known as a killer. Do you really want your audience thinking “Kill me now because I can’t stand this killer presentation”? Can we agree that we don’t need a killer presentation? Instead let’s deliver effective, successful and winning presentations. Instead of killing your presentation, breathe life and energy into it. Inject life and energy into the presentation to wow your audience. Instead, Imagine delivering a superior presentation. Inject life and energy into your presentation. Connect with your audience. Celebrate your message. Enhance the condition of your audience. Make their life and opportunity better. Let’s stop this silly talk about “killer presentation”, Please! Life you can celebrate with joy. Access More Presentation Skills Resources Looking For A Speech Coach? Learn More Here