Because the stakes of meetings can be so perilously high, more and more companies are calling on the professionals to help make a presentation riveting. Some meetings with several thousand attendees may rely on 20 or more speakers, dozens of audio-visual presentations and any combination of lecture, written handouts, group discussion or use the desktop computers and multimedia projectors to captivate their listeners. The opening is still the most important part of any presentation. She used that at one recent gathering. She then softened the blow, she says, by telling her audience not to worry too much and presenting them with new strategies.
Stories are also an effective way to grab and hold an audience.
Stories make the content interesting. Humor is fine, as long as it's appropriate and relates to the subject or the audience. Another effective opener is role-play. In framing their anecdotes, she suggests they tell a story by engaging in role-play, then relating it to a specific message. For example, to convey a lesson in honesty, she may cast meeting participants as a father with his two youngsters in front of a movie counter discussing ticket prices.