how to make a speech not boring

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How not to give a boring speech.

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I’m a little slow to the party, I know, but I did my first Facebook Live chat last week for Harvard and had a fun time taking as many questions as I could.  If you missed it, it’s available here and here.

I thought it was a great opportunity to see what’s on the mind of roughly 45,000 viewers.  There were so many questions I didn’t get to that I’m continuing the conversation here in the blog today.  If you still don’t see your question, then let’s take it up in the comments section.  I’ll do a little re-wording as needed for clarity or applicability.  Enjoy!

Watch On Forbes:

1. If I’ve only got five minutes for a speech, how do I get my key points across in an interesting way? 

Five minutes is too short a time to persuade an audience of anything complicated, sophisticated, or controversial.  In five minutes, you can persuade an audience, probably, that ice cream is a good thing, but it’s unlikely you could move an audience to enlist in some difficult or complicated cause.

So what can you do?  Basically, tell one clear story, with a moral.  (So that’s why it’s essential that you always wear your bicycle helmet when you take a bath.)  You might be able to throw in one or two proof points – statistics or claims – as well as the story, but don’t get too ambitious.  Five minutes is only about 650 words, not even the length of a typical Op-ed.

The other possibility is to state a headline, three supporting points, and the headline again.

Clarity and brevity are of the essence when you’ve only got 5 minutes.

2. Should a speaker move around the stage or stand still? 

Basically, you should stand still more than feels comfortable – because your adrenaline will be pushing you to move all over the stage.  You’ll have the energy, and your feet will want to dance, but if you plant your feet for at least 30 seconds at a time before moving to another spot on the stage, you’ll look more confident and grounded than if you’re in constant motion.

3. How do I appear natural as a communicator and not contrived?

It’s an age-old question – what’s the art of appearing artless?  The answer, at least currently, is to make your presentation as conversational as possible (without actually imitating the stops and starts, the randomness, and the incompleteness of a real conversation).  One way to see how you’re doing is to video yourself in a real conversation and to hear what you sound like.  Then, add some structure, but try to keep the feel of that conversation in your speech.

4. What are the differences between the body language of men and women?

There were a number of questions around this theme, and it’s a complicated one that can’t be addressed in just one answer or even one blog.  But let’s make a start.  Historically women have often been take less seriously or relegated to a second tier of speaker compared to men.  It’s essential that women (and it’s true for men too) not allow their body language to signal or telegraph a lack of confidence in themselves, because that will be interpreted as a reason not to take them seriously.  So, women (again, like men) must stand tall, with a strong confident posture, open and powerful, with a straight back, a head held high, chin at level, stomach tucked in and pelvis back.  It all begins with posture.

5. How do I know (as a speaker) when I’m being boring?

Your audience will tell you!  Look for signs of restlessness – eyes glazing over, shifting of feet, hand and feet twitchiness, looking away.  Never exceed the time allotted.  In fact, it’s better to end just a little bit early.  If you end with Q and A, the questions will start to peter out when the audience is done.  Beware the one last questioner – he/she may just be clueless.  That’s why I recommend taking Q and A at a couple of points during the presentation, saving a strong close (from you) for the end.

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Ace the Presentation

BORING SPEECH? Fix These 7 Mistakes on Your Presentations

A Boring Speech is when the Speaker technically fails to address a Clear and objective message during his presentation, making the audience lose interest in what is being said or presented, specifically when the main message does not captivate them.

These seven mistakes can take away your credibility as a speaker and make your presentation a boring one; 

• Not Being Prepared

Not knowing your Audience

Not Having Clear Points

Overdependence on Visuals

Don’t Push Your Presentation

Monotonous Tone and Poor Speech Reading Skills 

Don’t Turn your back to the Audience

Highly Recommended Article:

15 Ideas to Make a Speech Unique, Memorable, and Inspiring

Not Being Prepared  

We are talking about something as naive as not preparing your presentation. Some speakers prepare themselves some minutes before the presentation; they arrive 20 or 30 minutes before, take a notepad and prepare what they are going to say to the audience. 

Yes, some people are good at this, like going to the stage and do a Decent Presentation. But what if they get prepared a little bit more?

Inexperienced speakers do not give themselves time for quick research to determine who will attend their Presentation. Why does it matter? Knowing your audience allows you to know how to address them and what kind of language to use, and it gives you more confidence in what you are going to tell them.

If you know nothing about the audience, you are on a fast lane to get them to fall asleep or tune in to their phones for the rest of your presentation. 

  In short:  You may have the BEST speech or presentation in the World, but if it’s not relevant or if it doesn’t mean anything to the audience, it’s not going to affect them. So, Know your audience.

We live in a time where people are always in a rush, and being honest here, if you speak for more than 15 minutes without being clear, concise, and straightforward, the audience WILL get bored.

 At the very beginning of your presentation, please clarify what you’re going to tell them, then explain point by point but do not lose your focus, and try to repeat or summarise all that you have to say.

You probably already heard of or witnessed this one. Some speakers turn their backs to the audience and read entire slides without even making a brief. 

 A Good presentation is when you evoke the thirst within the audience that is watching or listening to learn more.  

Although some speeches or presentations last for 2 or 3 hours (yes, some presentations take that long) due to the nature of the message, complexity, or mode of delivery, being able to do so without READING the whole time is priceless for your audience.

Audiences are looking for authenticity, and it’s not something that you improvise; it comes from the preparation, and if you are not prepared, you will end up dragging things to appeal to your audience in some aspect.

What I mean by this is that the lack of preparation and compelling, relatable, and engaging content to share will force you to make the following mistakes:

• Adding nonexistent facts or experiences to build credibility or interest
• Overdramatizing parts of your presentation forcibly.
• , without having the talent to do so
• Making simple concepts harder to understand

Proper preparation, speech outline, rehearsing, and getting someone to keep time for your presentation will help you avoid these mistakes.

Some people can get nervous when it comes to reading some words on their slide or even to speak to the audience, some start to stutter, or their voices completely change, leading to using a monotonous voice reading the slides, or a trembling and low tone voice trying to speak up.

Most often, the audience can read your slides just fine. They came to listen or watch your speech or presentation because you will bring that TEXT to life with your memorable speech.

The First step to making your reading or speech more interesting is to own that stage, to speak loud enough, and manage your tone depending on the timing and message being delivered. 

When you’re speaking with a proper and audible tone in front of other people, you show confidence and build credibility with the audience. 

If you are delivering a manuscript speech, you should also know how to read the message in a way that doesn’t sound like a lullaby. Avoid looking 100% down or up (to where the text is); rehearse before so you can read while looking at the audience.

Here is where people go wrong when reading aloud: they don’t manage their breath.  They find themselves reading something and then being like, ” Oh, I need to push some air,” so they interrupt the flow of the Speech or Text just by taking a random breath. 

Train yourself to know where the commas, question marks, etc., are and when to stop so that you know where you can take your breath. As long as you’ve got enough breath to get to the end of the sentence, that will help everybody who is listening to understand you.

Turning your back to the audience is one of the worst body language mistakes you can make, and the reason is simple: you are disconnecting yourself from the audience.

 Often we find speakers or presenters that make poor space usage planning before the speech or fail to make one altogether. One example is one of those presentations where the presenter has to turn his/her back to the audience EVERY time they click to switch pages on the slides.

If you are going to use slides, be familiar with them first so that you can quickly click through them. Know which one comes after which one and exactly what words to click on when you tell a story. 

Additionally, use the little remotes/pointers and a wireless mouse to change slides without needing to go near the notebook keypad.

Please do not turn your back on the Audience unless it’s a choice, and you are trying to make a specific sensibility or feeling in the room; otherwise, face the audience.

Further Reading

https://www.acethepresentation.com/what-makes-a-great-presenter-9-key-qualities-to-look-for/

When Boring Speeches Strike. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218069

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HUGH CULVER

Author, speaker, coach, three easy ways to turn a dull, boring, uninspiring speech into gold.

Updated to Business on December 14, 2022.

If you’ve ever bombed as a speaker, or suffered through a dull, boring speech, you know how bad it can be. It could be the longest 60 minutes of your life.

On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to improve a bad speech, even without changing the core content.

I coach speakers, mostly on their business strategies, and occasionally with their speech (watch for a big announcement next week for an all new speaker school.) When it comes to their speech, I see the same mistakes being repeated. I can’t do much about their knowledge or arguments, but with a few small changes even an inexperienced speaker can get an audience to lean in.

Here are my top three ways to turn a dull, boring, uninspiring speech in gold:

1. Start with a problem

All presentations need to start with a reason we should listen. Don’t bore us with Thank You’s, or by telling us how excited you are to be there (that’s all about you). Instead, impress us. Make a bold claim. Tell a great story, or build an argument with findings from your research. Here’s how I think about it.

Imagine your audience is watching you with a TV clicker in their hand. At any time they can change the channel. Your job is to stop that from happening. How? 

By proving you understand their pain. 

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” Stephen Covey

Before I step on stage I’ve talked multiple times with my client, interviewed delegates, researched the company, and spent hours reworking my content. I know a lot about their pain. (get an awesome speech writing template that will literally save you hours of grief in this post “ How to design a great speech “)

The first two minutes of my speech, whether I start with a story, or not, are always, always, always about a problem they want to go away. It’s pretty simple, if I have something they want, they are pretty likely to lean in.

2. Tell a story

We remember good stories. According to Uri Hasson from Princeton when we tell a story (albeit a good one) the mind of the listener becomes synchronized with ours. The event we are retelling that had an effect on our life can have the same effect on the audience.

It’s in our DNA to communicate with stories. Tell a bunch of facts or clever how-to’s, without stories and, well….

“For as long as you’ve got your audience’s attention, they are in your mind.”  Joshua Gowin, Ph.D

The trick is to tell a sticky story. A story about how you trained really hard and then ran you fastest 10km (6 mile) race is nice. It’s also forgettable. A story about self-doubt, quitting, and then running the race, despite your rocky start, has potential. My rule is the more the audience can relate to me, the more they will lean in. The more they lean in, the more impact my lessons will have long-term. And that, ultimately, is what I get paid for.

As you rehearse your stories a great question to ask is “If I was in the audience, would I care about that?” I often tell a funny story about a Porsche driver when teaching my Windows on the World model. Once I started to ask that question, I realized parts of my set up for the story were dragging it down. Nobody needs to know how long I’ve lived in my city, or what kind of Porsche it was. After some heavy cutting, the story was better.

3. Make them work

Years ago, my wife gave me this gem: if the speaker is doing all the work, something is wrong. In other words, even if you deliver the speech of your life, I guarantee you that the audience left the room at least a half dozen times during your hour on stage. Audiences need breaks, changes of energy, and to be involved. Tossing another joke out is good – making them work is better.

“If the speaker is doing all the work, something is wrong.”

Try this. Next time you are presenting, plan to change the energy at least every 15 to 20 minutes. It could be a simple dyad (two-person) conversation, or have them journal something from your lesson. If you’re feeling really brave, go for a game, group discussion, or standing exercise. (see my post “ How to deliver a great speech “)

Let me know, in the comments, what you are going to do so your speech is gold.

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Rate Revamp: A Tool by Vinh Giang

How to Not Be Boring?

How to be more interesting? There are two key ways to improve:

• Verbal: This involves changing the content of your speech, including your choice of words, sentence structure, and paragraph organization.
• Non-verbal: This pertains to the way you deliver your message, encompassing aspects such as body language, tone, and gestures.

This tool by Vinh Giang primarily focuses on the latter aspect, as it emphasizes that how you convey your message is just as important, if not more so, than what you actually say.

To illustrate this, consider two YouTube videos with identical scripts: one is expertly edited with dynamic visuals and movement, while the other features the speaker talking continuously for 10 minutes without any visual variety.

The latter video represents communication devoid of the use of non-verbal tools.

According to communication expert Vinh Giang, the key to not be boring (or sounding boring) is to manipulate your rate of speech. This prevents the listener’s mind from identifying predictable patterns and anticipating what comes next. If you stick to a monotonous speech pace, the listener’s mind will register it as “boring.”

To become a more engaging speaker, you must vary your rate of speech . The fundamental approach involves slowing down when conveying important information and increasing your pace (or returning to your usual speech rate) when discussing less crucial topics.

The question then arises: how can you integrate this technique into your everyday life? That’s what tools by TACTICS+ is for.

How to Be More Interesting (Step by Step)?

1. begin by speaking at your regular rate of speech..

The starting point for all discussions is your natural speech pace, whether it’s fast or slow.

To illustrate these steps, let’s take the example of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who appears to have perfected this technique to avoid being boring while discussing intellectually challenging subjects.

Listen to the audio and note his typical rate of speech. Here’s the transcript:

People said “The aliens came to me, and they brought me in, and then they released me”. Do you have any footage? “No, they took my camera.” Or “No, they zapped my film.” And now there’s no image on the film, but there were countless stories. Taken from JRE #1658 w/Neil deGrasse Tyson

2. Find the Important Parts of Your Speech.

Now, let’s talk about spotting the most crucial parts of your speech. You probably already have a feeling for what’s really important. Here are some examples to help you understand better:

• Numbers and Facts: When you’re sharing numbers, statistics, or any kind of data, it’s a good idea to slow down. This gives your listeners time to understand what these numbers mean and makes sharing them less boring.
• Strong Feelings: If your speech has emotional moments that really matter, try to speak slower during those parts. It can make those feelings even more powerful.
• Quoting Others: When you’re quoting someone else, it’s advisable to slow down your delivery to ensure the quote is received with the intended credibility.
• Wrapping It Up: When you’re summing up your main points or drawing conclusions, slow down a bit. This helps your listeners follow along and absorb the information, while making you sound more interesting.
• Examples and Comparisons: When you’re giving examples or comparing things to help explain your point, speaking slowly makes it easier for people to picture what you’re saying.

By recognizing these important parts of your speech and adjusting your pace accordingly, you can make sure your message gets across clearly and effectively.

3. Reduce the Pace of Your Speech.

Now that you have a rough idea of when to slow down, the next step is simple: slow down your speech rate. Just extend the pauses between your words slightly.

Here’s how Neil deGrasse Tyson employs a slower pace in the same audio example used earlier. Focus on this part of his speech:

Well now you can stream live from your camera, anything that’s going on in front of you. Taken from JRE #1658 w/Neil deGrasse Tyson

4. Emphasize Key Words.

No answer to “how not to be boring” or “how to be interesting” will be complete without highlighting the importance of emphasis.

Emphasis is a powerful tool that can help you slow down your rate of speech, as you must deliberately pace yourself when stressing specific words or phrases.

Emphasis, in this context, means assigning special significance or weight to certain words or phrases within your speech. While you can emphasize words or phrases in any sentence, it is most effective when used for words or phrases that are genuinely more important.

You can emphasize words or phrases by:

• Enunciating it more (exaggerating the pronunciation of the word).
• Increasing your volume.
• Pausing before speaking the word or phrase.

Before we delve into an example, try to emphasize the capitalized words in the following sentences:

• He did NOT do a good job!
• He did not do a GOOD job!
• HE did not do a good job!
• He did not do a good JOB !

Notice the change in meaning as the emphasis shifts.

Now, observe how Neil deGrasse Tyson uses emphasis in the same sentence to deliberately slow down his rate of speech. Here’s the transcript (emphasized words are capitalized):

That would be INSTANTLY VIRAL ! Oh my gosh! Taken from JRE #1658 w/Neil deGrasse Tyson

5. Revert to Your Regular Speaking Pace.

To sound captivating and keep your listener engaged, it’s crucial not to let their mind anticipate your speaking pace. To achieve this, you need to introduce variations in your rate of speech.

Now, return to your usual speaking pace.

Here’s an example of how Neil does it, the transcribed part is his normal rate of speech:

You know, the stuff that goes viral is much less than that. A cat that, a kitten that jumps to the table and falls, that goes viral… Taken from JRE #1658 w/Neil deGrasse Tyson

Conclusion and Further Self-Improvement.

I highly recommend Vinh Giang’s free 3-part series on communication skills. It provides a deep dive into unique strategies for enhancing your communication abilities and charisma.

Now, let’s put this tool into action with a simple plan:

• Send a voice message to someone while experimenting with varying your rate of speech.
• Practice changing your rate of speech during phone conversations.
• Experiment with altering your speaking pace when talking to someone face to face.

Give it a try and observe whether it makes you less boring and more interesting.

Also read: 10 More Communication Tactics by Expert Vinh Giang

For more tools from the world’s best minds, click here . To receive self-improvement tools and tactics directly in your inbox, making your email more productive, subscribe to TACTICS+ below!

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• Delivery Techniques →

How to Give a Speech: 10 Tips for Powerful Public Speaking

When we start preparing to give a speech, it can be a nerve-wracking experience. It’s completely normal—most of us feel a combination of excitement and nerves when we’re about to take the stage.

However, with some strategic planning and practical advice, you can make sure your speech is powerful and effective. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to give a speech that will leave your audience engaged and inspired.

We’ll examine 10 tips to help you build a powerful speech, from outlining your points methodically to crafting captivating introductions . Whether you’re a beginner or experienced public speaker, these nuggets of wisdom will help you take your next speech to the next level. Let’s get started!

Quick Review of Key Points

Preparing ahead of time is the key to giving an effective speech. Make sure to structure your speaking points, rehearse your delivery, and be aware of the needs of your audience for maximum impact.

How to Prepare for a Speech

Preparing for a speech is an essential step to public speaking success. It can help to build your confidence, create content that reaches the audience, and reduce performance anxiety.

Although it can be time-consuming in the beginning, preparation will ensure less stress and more comfort during delivery. Here are some tips to consider when preparing for a speech:

Practice : Before delivering a speech, practice it out loud several times. This will allow you to gain experience in speaking without an audience and increase your confidence when you do have one.

Practicing also helps to identify awkward moments in the speech or any difficult phrases which then can be changed or removed altogether. Additionally, it helps you determine where to pause for effect. Research : Depending on the topic of the speech , research should be done beforehand to gather information that is relevant and interesting for the audience. It is important to get acquainted with the language typically used by audiences to ensure a clear understanding of what is being said.

Additionally, relevant statistics and stories concerning the topic are a great way to draw in listeners and make the presentation more engaging .

Know Your Audience : When preparing your speech, be sure to consider who will be listening. For instance, if giving a presentation at work, include industry jargon that members would understand and include relevant topics from publications that might be familiar to the employees.

On the other hand, if consulting business professionals in their field then technical language may be easier for them to comprehend than laypeople or students.

By gathering valuable information about the topic and getting comfortable with a speech’s content and delivery through practice, speakers will gain more assurance during their talk as well as respect from their audience.

Preparing beforehand not only gives insight into how to engage listeners but also encourages more meaningful conversations after the event. Now that we have discussed how to prepare for a speech let us move on to creating an outline which will provide structure during delivery.

Create an Outline

After determining the audience and purpose of your speech, the next step to effective public speaking is to create an outline .

An outline serves as a roadmap to ensure that your speech has a logical flow and contains all important points. It also can help keep you on track during the speech itself, allowing you to stay focused and organized.

When constructing an outline, consider drawing up both a main point and sub-points for each portion of the speech. Both should be relevant to the goal of the presentation and backed up by facts and research.

Brainstorming can help in this process; try grouping your ideas together in clusters to make sure you cover all possible angles.

Furthermore, writing out exact quotations or figures can prove beneficial in forming a cohesive argument. At this stage, it is also wise to decide where transitions, humor, stories, or other engaging techniques will be included.

While there are differing opinions as to whether outlines should be memorized or simply used as a reference while speaking, many agree that they should serve their purpose – not only articulate the main thoughts of the speech but also assist the speaker with maintaining focus and preventing distractions.

The debate between those who advocate for memorization versus casual consulting touches upon issues such as rehearsal time, risk of errors in delivery, ease of practice versus actual performance and more.

Each side has valid arguments that should be weighed prior to deciding what type of approach best suits your needs.

Having a firmly constructed outline acts as a valuable tool when it comes time to deliver a powerful public speech. By actively utilizing this tactic, speakers may not only enhance their clarity and coherence, but also add structure and vibrance to their presentations.

Now that we have explored what goes into crafting an effective outline, let’s dive deeper into how we can best collect resources and research our topics for maximum impact.

Collect Sources and Research

Collecting sources and research is a crucial step for any public speaking engagement. It ensures that you have the necessary information to make strong points and back up your statements.

Before writing your speech, take time to research your topic to gain familiarity with different perspectives, facts, and counterpoints. This will help you to craft an argument that can stand up to scrutiny while also adding a breadth of knowledge to your speech.

Interviews can be a powerful source of evidence and anecdotes, so try to include one or two relevant interviews in your research process. Relying solely on secondary sources such as books and articles can lead to a narrow scope of understanding.

Interviews provide an opportunity to hear directly from an expert and create an interesting dynamic in your speech by adding personal experiences as well as commentary from a professional.

In research it is important to stay objective. Gather a variety of perspectives and be open-minded about their merits. Don’t forget to consider both sides of the argument when researching for your speech.

Doing this allows you to understand the opposing perspective and enables you to anticipate potential counter arguments from your audience.

By acknowledging them beforehand, you may increase the persuasive power of your speech by showing confidence in the points you make.

Once you have collected all sources, review them carefully and separate the most pertinent information from the less useful material.

Synthesising this information into concise yet impactful points is a critical part in delivering powerful talks without overloading your audience with too much data or going off track during your speech delivery.

Organizing Your Speech

Before you start putting your words together, it’s important to consider how the different parts of a speech fit together. By taking the time to organize the ideas in your speech , you’ll be able to deliver a presentation that is well-constructed and easy to understand.

One way to help with organizing your speech is to write an outline . An outline is like a map or plan that will provide you with a framework for each section of your speech.

Start by writing out your main points and then include additional details underneath each one. This will help keep your speech focused and provide direction for where you are going next.

Another approach for organizing your speech is known as the “inverted pyramid” method. This structure starts with your conclusion at the beginning of the speech, and then works backward by providing more explanation and detail as it moves toward the introduction.

This method can be helpful when speaking about topics that are unfamiliar to the audience since it doesn’t require them to wait until near the end of the presentation to learn what you’ve been talking about.

No matter which organization approach you choose, make sure to practice it before giving your speech so that you are comfortable with its flow. Lastly, remember that it’s ok to adjust things while you speak if they don’t seem or feel quite right.

Now let’s take a look at how we can use these organizing techniques to actually put our speeches together – starting with structuring our speech.

Structure Your Speech

Creating a strong structure for your speech will ensure that the audience stays engaged and understands your main points. As you are developing an outline, map out how you want to begin and end your speech.

Break up the information into smaller sections with either verbal or visual cues so that your audience can clearly see how you are transitioning between topics . Consider adding humor judiciously throughout your presentation as this could help engage the audience and lighten any tension.

The length of your presentation is also important. You will want to make sure that you include all of the necessary information without going over time.

Oftentimes less is more; if you can say it in five minutes why use ten? Make sure that you practice timed rehearsals so that you can gauge how long you’re actually speaking.

In contrast, avoid trying to pack too much content into one presentation as this could overwhelm both you and the audience. If needed, offer supplemental reading materials for those who may be interested in delving further into the subject matter.

Paragraphs can also be helpful when organizing large amounts of content within the body of your presentation. Utilizing paragraph breaks gives your audience a break and helps to highlight key ideas or summaries before moving onto a new topic area.

Finally, it is crucial to remember what your desired outcome is from the presentation; plan accordingly by ensuring that the beginning, middle, and end serve their respective purposes and adhere to that goal.

With careful deliberations, structuring a successful presentation can be achieved with relative ease.

Having established a solid structure for your speech, it’s important to focus on another key element: rehearsal. The next section will discuss the benefits of practicing before delivering a powerful public speaking performance.

Rehearse Your Speech

Rehearsing is integral to giving a successful speech. When you rehearse your presentation, you give your mind an opportunity to become familiar with the notes and concepts that you are presenting. It also increases your confidence and reduces anxiety or self-doubt.

In fact, studies have found that those who rehearsed their presentation had higher scores in public speaking performance and language proficiency evaluations.

When it comes to how much rehearsal is enough, opinions are divided. Some people believe that over-rehearsing can lead to a more robotic speech with less natural emotion and connection with the audience .

On the other hand, others argue that no matter how well-versed someone is on the topic, additional rehearsal time improves both the delivery of the speech and memorization of key points and facts.

Ultimately, it’s important to practice until you personally find the most comfortable level for yourself, as this will ultimately result in a more engaging delivery.

Finally, if at all possible, try to practice in front of a friend or colleague for honest feedback on any elements that need improvement before the big day. Rehearsal dedication may be tedious, but it results in big rewards on stage–enabling you to deliver your content with clarity, confidence, and poise.

With thoughtful preparation complete, it’s now time to step into the spotlight and give your speech!

Giving Your Speech

The key to success when giving a speech is to be well prepared and confident. Every individual’s preparation process will vary, but the basics should stay the same.

Start by studying your content, understanding the material and being able to repeat it in your own words. Clarify any potentially difficult points. Create visual aids like PowerPoint slides or handouts that supplement the key ideas in your speech.

Practice your public speaking skills with informal conversations with friends and family or rehearse it alone in front of a mirror. Use visualization; imagine yourself confidently delivering your speech. Consider addressing a practice audience if possible to become more accustomed to a live size group.

On the day of the event, arrive early and plan for any potential obstacles: What if my computer doesn’t work? What if I forget something? Allow sufficient time for setup and check-in.

When you are ready to give your speech, take some deep breaths, focus on the positives, and distract yourself from any anxious thoughts with positive affirmations. Remember you have prepared diligently for this moment, you are well prepared and you will succeed!

Start strong by engaging the audience immediately with an attention grabbing opening statement. Speak clearly and make sure that everyone can hear and understand your message.

Slow down and emphasize points as needed throughout your presentation. Be aware of pace, volume, and tone of voice: too fast/monotone can confuse/bore listeners while pauses add a dramatic effect that keeps their interest piqued.

Ultimately, giving a successful speech will depend on knowing your material well enough to speak confidently in front of your audience without hesitation or missteps.

When you do make a mistake (and they happen!) don’t panic – know that mistakes are inevitable but don’t be discouraged; get back on track as soon as possible and continue at the same energy level you had before the mistake occurred.

Having successfully given your speech, take a moment to reflect on what went well and what could be improved upon for next time before transitioning into the next step: mastering delivery.

Master Your Delivery

Mastering your delivery is the key to an effective speech. Without purposeful body language and careful emphasis on certain words , your speech may lack wow-factor and prevent listeners from tuning in. Following these simple tips can help you get started with delivering an engaging and memorable speech:

The most important part of delivery is practice. Rehearse and perfect your speech ahead of time – this allows for more natural flow and confidence during your presentation. It also helps to create pauses between sentences for clarity, emphasize key points, and not be too casual or stiff.

Practicing inflections and varying tones adds interest to your speech by keeping listeners’ attention.

Additionally, it’s important to project your voic e so everyone in the room can hear you; make sure you’re speaking loud enough but don’t feel pressure to shout or yell at any point unless that’s part of the atmosphere of the event.

It’s also crucial to maintain good posture while speaking – stand tall with both feet on the ground, keep your back straight, hold yourself up without gesturing too much or leaning against a podium if applicable.

To further engage listeners, use purposeful hand gestures as they help emphasize certain points and add visual interest – however, avoid overusing them as it can hinders communication.

Make meaningful eye contact with audience members throughout the presentation – otherwise you might come across as unenthusiastic or bored with what you’re saying which deters attention away from the content itself.

By mastering your delivery, you can boost the impact of your presentation considerably – providing a memorable experience for your audience that stands out from others’. As such, it’s worth investing time into practicing ahead of time until delivery feels comfortable and second nature.

Having said this, making use of visual aids such as PowerPoint slides can greatly improve the impact of a speech once delivery has been mastered – let’s look into that next.

Use Visual Aids

Using visual aids can help presenters express concepts more clearly and engage the audience.

Visuals are particularly useful when conveying complex information, such as data, trends, or statistics — they impart meaning at a glance. But some public speakers may wonder if visual aids can be distracting or unnecessary.

Even though visuals can attract attention away from a presenter’s verbal delivery, carefully designed visuals can actually support the speech and help provide clarity. If done well, visuals are effective for capturing an audience’s interest and helping them to better understand the content being presented.

For example, a graph or chart should relate to the points made in the speech and should be discussed in more detail during its appearance onscreen. The presentation can also include larger images that effectively reinforce the ideas conveyed in the speech.

Videos and sound clips are other powerful forms of multimedia that could be employed to make the speech more meaningful.

To ensure that visuals enhance the message of the presentation, key factors to consider include relevancy to topic, good graphic design or aesthetics, accurate size to prevent distortion or blurriness, and seamless integration into the keynote slides or printed handouts .

In this way, visuals offer an opportunity for presenters to demonstrate their creativity and keep their audiences interested in what is being said. Thus, used wisely and aptly, visuals can add tremendous value to speeches by presenting arguments more efficiently and driving home important points. Now let’s explore effective techniques for speech giving that will allow you to craft and deliver your speeches with confidence.

Effective Techniques for Speech Giving

There are a number of effective techniques for giving a speech that will help you deliver it with confidence and poise.

First, practice your delivery in advance. You should practice both in front of a mirror or recording device to check for any distracting habits such as talking too quickly or mispronouncing words.

Second, use simple, clear language and short, concise sentences. Avoid overly technical terms and jargon that may leave your audience confused.

Third, work to establish a connection with your audience by using appropriate facial expressions and hand gestures while speaking.

Fourth, utilize effective persuasive techniques such as presenting evidence, strong arguments supported by facts, personal anecdotes and vivid metaphors.

Finally, articulate an organized structure for your speech. Your speech should have an introduction, body and conclusion to clearly communicate the main point and provide the audience with the necessary context to understand it better.

While these techniques may sound intimidating at first, they can be learned over time with practice and will make all the difference in how successful your speech delivery is received by your audience.

To build on these skills further , the next section will provide tips on how to build confidence when giving a speech.

Building Confidence

Building confidence is key when giving a powerful speech, as it will enable you to deliver the speech in a more poised and credible manner.

To create this confidence , start by understanding that any hesitation or butterflies prior to your speech are completely normal and should not be feared. Instead, view them as natural states of anticipation for something exciting, knowing that you are about to give an amazing speech.

Next, understanding who your audience is and tailoring your speech to meet their expectations will help build your confidence.

Familiarizing yourself with their interests and knowledge on the subject matter ahead of time can equip you with the understanding needed to respond appropriately if questions arise or objections surface during the speech.

Further, practice is key when building confidence for a public speaking engagement . Rehearsing with friends or colleagues before hand will give you an opportunity to learn where problem areas are within the content of your speech, as well as help solidify your delivery by becoming more comfortable with each step.

Checking sound levels in the room you’re presenting in coupled with learning where exits/emergency locations are located within that space can also help alleviate stress levels and boost self-assurance while delivering the speech.

Finally, wearing comfortable clothing and dressing professionally adds an extra layer of confidence when speaking in public.

If possible, bring an additional outfit on hand during the presentation in case of spills or accidents that would require a quick change between sections of the talk. Having this back-up plan in place can aid in keeping peace of mind at ease throughout the speech.

In conclusion, building confidence prior to a public speaking event can mean the difference between a good and great delivery of your message.

By taking into account each of these tips you can ensure that this part of your preparation runs smoothly and sets you up for success when delivering powerful speeches.

With a well-crafted note card of talking points and strong sense of self-assurance, it’s time to start speaking with passion!

Speaking with Passion

As a public speaker, your audience expects you to engage not only with your words but also with your emotions. To share the most impactful message, it is important to speak passionately about your subject.

Doing so will make your speech more memorable and thereby more effective in convincing your audience of its legitimacy.

The power of speaking authentically with emotion lies in its relatability and connection. Showing feelings allows people to connect with you as a person rather than just a speaker. It opens the door to understanding through empathy and active listening .

Examples might include adding personal stories , telling jokes, or displaying your feelings openly during the delivery of your message.

However, not all topics lend themselves easily to expressing emotion. If the subject matter is overly complex or technical there may be less opportunity for emotional expression—but this doesn’t mean those conversations can’t incorporate emotion.

Even if faced with a difficult situation such as death or financial turmoil, emotions can still be conveyed in a respectful way that keeps audiences engaged.

Remember that how much emotion you show depends on the type of audience you’re sharing it with—using sensitivity when delivering passionate speeches helps avoid awkwardness or embarrassment for any attendees who may find opinionated language uncomfortable for whatever reason.

Striking the right balance between being straightforward and showing compassion takes practice, so take the time to develop a style that works best for you and improves upon each performance.

Finally, incorporating passion into a speech gives it life and makes it relatable and engaging—which are essential elements to speaking effectively.

Having passion means giving ourselves permission to take ownership over our stories, making them deeply personal in order to reach our goals and touch people’s hearts in meaningful ways. With that said, let’s move on to discussing how we should tackle dealing with challenges while giving a speech.

Dealing with Challenges

The process of delivering a speech can be challenging, but it is also rewarding. Difficulties can arise during the process that may threaten to derail your success. To ensure you are adequately prepared for these possible pitfalls it is important to consider strategies for proactively mitigating the risk of encountering these challenges. 1. Public Speaking Anxiety: Many people experience some form of anxiety when asked to speak in public. There are a number of techniques available to combat this fear and increase confidence, such as deep breathing exercises, mental rehearsal, positive self-talk and visualization of success.

Learning about the audience, creating an engaging presentation and using props or visual aids can also help reduce anxiety levels and create a better overall experience for both the speaker and the audience. 2. Unfamiliar Topics or Audiences: When presenting on unfamiliar topics or to an unknown audience it can be difficult to prepare effectively.

In this situation it is important to conduct research on the topic and familiarize yourself with the needs of your audience so that the content is tailored accordingly. It is also helpful to use humor or stories related to the topic in order to engage your audience and make them more receptive to your message. 3. Lack of Support: If you lack support from family, friends, colleagues or mentors, it can be difficult to push through difficult conversations or speeches without any additional motivation.

To overcome this challenge, seek out peer mentorship opportunities or find compatible online communities where people discuss similar topics or objectives. Here you can share ideas, provide feedback and learn from others who have experienced similar issues. 4. Time Constraints: One of the biggest challenges when giving a speech is managing your time effectively in order to deliver an effective message without going over allotted timeslots and boring your audience .

To successfully address this challenge try setting manageable goals for each section of your speech and practice regularly. Replicating real-time conditions as closely as possible will help you stay within time constraints when delivering your speech on the day itself. In conclusion, there are many potential challenges you may face when giving a speech or taking part in a public speaking event – but with proper preparation and practice they are easily managed if approached correctly.

With knowledge of techniques for dealing with such scenarios comes increased confidence when stepping up to the podium – further improving your chances of delivering an effective speech that resonates with your audience members.

Responses to Frequently Asked Questions

How should i end my speech to leave a lasting impression.

The best way to end your speech is by reinforcing your main point and summarizing the key takeaways. You should also encourage the audience to take action, whether it be to sign up for a newsletter, make a donation, or visit your website for more information. This final call to action will not only leave a lasting impression on the audience but will also help you achieve any goals you might have had when making your speech in the first place.

What techniques can I use to keep my audience engaged during my speech?

One of the best techniques for keeping an audience engaged during a speech is to keep it interactive . Ask questions throughout the presentation, as well as allowing for audience input and discussion. This can help to keep people’s attention and create a more engaging experience.

Another great tip is to use humor. Even if you don’t consider yourself a natural comedian, sprinkling in a few jokes here and there can break up the monotony of long speeches and keep people interested. Humor can also help to make points stick in people’s minds, making them easier to remember.

Finally, try to be enthusiastic about the content of your speech. If you show too much indifference or lethargic behavior, it will discourage your audience from paying attention and taking your message seriously.

Instead, be passionate about what you are saying so that the energy of your words carries into the room and engages your audience with excitement.

How can I use storytelling to make my speech more interesting?

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used to make any speech more interesting. Telling stories in your speech will help engage the audience and make your message stick. Here are some tips for using storytelling in your speech:

1. Choose stories that are relevant to your message and audience. Think about stories that will best illustrate the point you are trying to convey, or evoke emotions in your listeners. 2. Use vivid descriptions and visuals when telling your story. Be sure to include details such as setting, character descriptions, dialogue and plot points. This will help to bring the story to life for your audience. 3. Make sure the story you are telling has a strong conclusion or moral at the end. This will help add emphasis to your message and make it memorable. 4. Practice telling stories out loud before delivering a speech with them. Rehearsing will help you deliver your story more effectively and with more confidence in front of an audience. By using these tips, storytelling can be an effective tool to make any speech more interesting, engaging, and persuasive!

How can I prepare for my speech effectively?

Preparing for a speech effectively is essential to delivering an impactful and memorable presentation. Here are some tips: 1. Have a clear goal in mind. Before starting to prepare, ask yourself what the purpose of giving the speech is: what message do you want to convey? Defining this will help to structure your content and focus your research. 2. Research thoroughly. Make sure you understand the subject matter well, so that your delivery sounds confident and inspiring. Using facts and data will strengthen your arguments and make your talk more convincing. 3. Outline your speech. Make a rough outline of how you want it to go – from beginning to end – well in advance of the actual presentation. This will give you a strong foundation upon which you can craft an engaging talk with an effective narrative arc that keeps audiences interested and engaged. 4. Practice regularly. Rehearsing your speech out loud several times is key to ensuring that you know it well enough to feel comfortable when delivering it live in front of an audience.

5. Time yourself. Record how long it takes for you to go through your entire speech, so that you can adjust the length as needed before delivering it live – remember that most speeches should last no more than 10-15 minutes. 6. Identify potential questions from the audience and prepare answers before hand. Knowing ahead of time what kind of questions people may ask can help reduce the anxiety of not knowing what comes next, enabling you to stay confident when speaking in public. 7. Work on building up confidence levels before delivering a speech. Visualize yourself succeeding in delivering a great presentation; practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or positive self-talk; or use props during practice sessions such as water bottles or stress balls if needed to remain calm during the real thing!

What strategies can I use to reduce my anxiety when giving a speech?

1. Plan Ahead: Create an outline of your speech beforehand and practice it multiple times to become familiar with the content. Doing a trial run with the audience can also help you get used to speaking in front of people.

2. Visualize Success: Positive visualization is a great way to reduce anxiety before giving a speech. Imagine yourself confidently delivering the speech while feeling relaxed and composed.

3. Get Organized: Make sure you have all the materials necessary for your presentation, including notes, slides, etc., to reduce any additional stress that may come from not having what you need when you speak.

4. Take Deep Breaths: Before and during the speech, take a few deep breaths as this will help calm nerves and make sure your breathing is regulated throughout the duration of your presentation.

5. Speak Slowly: It is common to feel anxious while giving a speech and try to rush through it too quickly. Speaking slowly helps maintain composure while delivering your message effectively and clearly.

6. Pay Attention to Your Body: Your posture, stance, movements , facial expressions can all influence how confident you appear to your audience and how nervous you may be feeling inside. Check in with yourself frequently throughout the presentation and correct any tense body language or physical actions if needed.

7. Focus on the Audience: If you notice that your anxiety levels are growing as you present, shift your focus onto the audience instead of yourself as this will help refocus your attention away from negative thoughts that may arise from fear or insecurity.

8. Make Eye Contact: Establishing eye contact with your audience is a key confidence-builder for public speakers—it shows that you’re strong, engaged with them, and receptive to feedback or questions they might have regarding your speech topic .

9. Practice Positive Affirmations: Positive thoughts will boost your self-confidence as well as your mood which can help increase performance quality significantly during speeches or presentations in general—so don’t forget to tell yourself “you can do it!” several times throughout the day leading up to the event!

10. Seek Support of Friends & Family: Many experienced public speakers suggest seeking support of close friends & family members prior and during their speeches—not only does it allow helpful critique regarding content but it also creates a more comfortable atmosphere while speaking which can reduce pre-speech jitters drastically.

More Than 10 Tips Toward Fearless Speech-Making

Even the timid can learn to make career-enhancing speeches..

Posted March 19, 2012

Like most people, I never dreamed I'd someday find myself speaking before groups about matters of importance to me. Even more unbelievable, that I'd do so without terror.

When my first book, a guide for parents full of creative activities for kids, came out, years ago now, it hadn't occurred to me that speaking in public about it would be necessary or helpful. Then I got a call from a local bookstore asking me to give a workshop for a small group of families. In spite of my panic, I agreed. Preparing for that first talk was so stressful that I resorted to asking my doctor for a prescription for some calming medication . And I brought my teenaged son along for support.

Before long, I was talking to larger and larger groups, at bookstores, organization meetings, and even conferences. My confidence increased a little with each speech. When my book Writing in Flow came out, I spoke at so many places, and with such relative ease, that the book landed on the L.A. Times Bestseller List. As timid and self-conscious as I was, I managed to get comfortable enough at a podium to speak to a full auditorium at a Festival of Books held at UCLA.

STRESS-BUSTERS

Odd tips have always circulated for putting yourself at ease in front of a group, including visualizing your audience naked. The reasoning behind that idea is to keep in mind that your listeners are just ordinary people like you. What works best for me, though, is to remember what it feels like when I'm the one sitting in the audience: I come to a speech to learn something in an engaging way. I'm not grading the speaker (unless I've paid a fortune to hear him or her). I'm easy to please, so long as I come away with something memorable for the time I spent. And I like to assume that my audience is similarly pleasable. In reality, your audience is mostly pleased it's you up there and not them.

John Greene, an expert in communication anxiety at Purdue University, found that if you concentrate on communicating rather than performing , those butterflies will likely drift off and bother someone else. On the other hand, don't forget that the state of emotional arousal that comes with feeling a little nervous is good for your energy level. Not too anxious, but not so ho-hum that you're bored and boring -- that's the right balance. Sounds like the same balance you need to enter flow, and sure enough, if you can get there while speaking, the time will fly.

If you're genuinely interested in the audience and their needs, they'll feel it and enjoy the talk. With experience, you learn to judge the audience. You can develop your friendly story-telling ability by going through your material and choosing the most amusing or evocative anecdotes. People love stories and specifics they can identify with.

10 TALKING TIPS

Here are ten widely-agreed-upon field-tested suggestions for taking the terror out of public speaking :

1. Write your own mini-biography to send or hand to whoever is introducing you, and then you won't have to repeat that stuff in your talk itself. It's always more palatable to hear nice things about the speaker when the speaker isn't the one saying them. Keep it simple; if it's too detailed and laudatory, the audience may become suspicious that you wrote it.

2. Know who you're talking to , why they're attending this particular meeting, and what they expect from you. Discuss all this with the person who invited you to speak, and ask to be sent a copy of the announcement about your talk in advance so you know for sure there are no crossed wires over your topic.

3. A handout of some sort can be useful, especially if you have statistics to share, but keep it simple so that your audience isn't pulled into reading rather than listening to you. Same with all visual aids: they can be distancing and distracting, so use them thoughtfully.

4. Prepare . The better prepared you are, the more you'll be able to make your talk sound informal and friendly. But that doesn't mean it should come across slick or hokey. You may want to print out your notes in a large font (so you don't have to wear reading glasses). I would paste mine in order onto 5 x 7 cards. It's great if you're smooth enough not to have to refer to your notes, but a casual glance down now and then is better than rambling and forgetting your main points.

5. Give your audience the big pictur e in your introduction, then fill in the details. Stick to one or a very few main points. A startling statement is a fine way to begin. Find something that hooks your listeners right away. End with a brief summary but don't repeat exactly what you've said or they'll tune out.

6. Aim for a balance of emotional and rational content. When you're new at public speaking, you may need to think about this explicitly. People learn in different ways, such as via seeing, hearing, or doing, so try to include some variety in your presentation.

7. Humor is almost always welcome , but sophisticated audiences hate hearing obviously canned jokes. With practice, you'll find out what works, what gets a laugh, what gets a groan, and what is met with silence. The humor ought to come naturally from the material, if it lends itself to that.

8. Practice modulating your voice -- there's nothing worse than a monotone.

9. Practice in front of friends , family, or a tape recorder. At first, even this seemed terrifying to me, so I'd just practice my talks speaking quietly while sitting at my desk and checking the time. You must hear yourself at least once before you go public, however. It's the only way you can decide what should be edited out: whatever sounds "off" or boring or doesn't add to your main points in an engaging way.

10. Make eye contact with your audience members, a few seconds each, and smile. Your warmth will come across and your audience will be in a mood to like you. Most of them anyway, and that's all that matters.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Susan K. Perry

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. , is a social psychologist and author. Her current focus is on the creative aspects of rationality and atheism.

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Public Speaking Tips & Speech Topics

“How To” Speech Topics, Ideas & Examples

Amanda Green was born in a small town in the west of Scotland, where everyone knows everyone. I joined the Toastmasters 15 years ago, and I served in nearly every office in the club since then. I love helping others gain confidence and skills they can apply in every day life.

Want to speak in front of an audience but are terrified of freezing or being boring? I know the feeling. If you’ve ever had to give a “how-to” speech, you know that it can be incredibly intimidating. It also entails coming up with how-to speech ideas and creative examples.

After all, how will they finish listening if the audience isn’t hooked by what you’re saying right away? To help ease your worries (and inspire those ideas!), here’s everything you need on “how-to” speeches: topics, samples & potential pitfalls — so read ahead!

Writing a How-to Speech

The speaker needs to consider several important factors when preparing to give a how-to speech. The how-to speech should identify the problem that needs to be resolved, explain how the problem can be fixed with a step-by-step approach, and list any potential obstacles the audience may face.

It is also important for speakers to choose how-to speech topics that are of interest or relevance to their target audience. This will ensure maximum engagement and retention throughout the speech.

How-to Speech Ideas That Are Funny

When it comes to funny “how-to” speeches, the possibilities are endless! Whether talking about how to make a perfect paper airplane or how to be the life of the party, humor can enhance your presentation and help keep your audience engaged.

Try using puns, silly props, or even anecdotes that provide insight into the process while still making people laugh. The goal is to not only impart valuable knowledge but also entertain your listener.

With some creativity, you can develop a humorous speech that achieves a comedic effect and explains its topic.

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Interesting How-to Topics

When asked to present a speech, many people immediately search for the most interesting ideas for a how-to speech. From tidying up after the biggest mess to baking a delicious cake, speeches about how to do something can be informative and entertaining.

While it may seem challenging to come up with fresh ideas, an infinite number of topics could be used. Some great suggestions include teaching viewers how to create a simple budget plan , explaining plant-based diets and their benefits, explaining how to instruct others effectively, or even how to ace an interview.

No matter what topic you go with, remember that the important thing is to be passionate and provide audiences with detailed instructions. When done correctly, choosing an interesting “how-to” topic for your speech will surely have your audience applauding in no time!

Choosing a Demonstration Speech Topic

Choosing a demonstration speech topic may seem daunting, but it can be simple and enjoyable with the right guidance. Identifying the topics appropriate for a demonstration speech is the first step in navigating this process.

Demonstration topics should be grounded in facts and provide pertinent knowledge about your expertise or interest. They should also focus on something that can be demonstrated in a tangible way, such as making a craft or performing an experiment.

• Your Interests

Choosing engaging good how-to speech topics based on one’s interests can be daunting yet rewarding. Taking the time to reflect on potential topics and thinking carefully about what topics truly interest you is fundamental to assembling a captivating presentation.

As such, it is paramount to begin by reflecting upon your hobbies and leisure activity ideas that you find most intriguing, as well as any activities or tasks you feel passionate about sharing with others.

Additionally, curating ideas from other media sources, such as newspaper articles or magazines, helps provide further insight into new and novel subjects or angles that can motivate your research process.

Only through this deliberate effort to understand our interests and apply them creatively towards developing a worthwhile “how-to” speech topic can we find the contentment of presenting a presentation with which listeners will engage.

• Who the Speech Is For

Choosing a “how-to” speech topic is critical in delivering an effective presentation. When selecting your topic, it’s important to keep the audience in mind.

Decide who your speech is for and make sure it is relevant to their interests. Select something specific that can benefit them or be beneficial in a general sense. Choose something the audience wants to learn about and that you are comfortable presenting. This will ensure your presentation skills are on display, as well as your knowledge about the topic.

Ensure your topic has enough depth for you to use additional research as support. This will strengthen the content of your presentation and demonstrate personal effort.

Ultimately, with careful consideration of who your speech is addressed to, you can craft a “how-to” topic that adds value both for yourself and your audience.

• The Setting of the Speech

Choosing a “how-to” speech topic based on the setting of the speech is an important step in preparing for an effective presentation.

It is essential to consider the purpose of the speech, the audience’s interests and needs, and any limitations or restrictions that may be present to construct an appropriate topic and choose relevant information to include.

Anticipating questions or topics of interest related to the audience is helpful when selecting a relevant topic.

• The Time You’ve Got to Prepare the Speech

Deciding on a “how-to” speech topic can be daunting. But the task becomes much more manageable, considering how much time you have to prepare for the presentation. Start by narrowing down the possibilities based on how much time you have.

If you have more time to prepare, opt for something more challenging. If you have only a short amount of time, choose a simpler topic.

Once you have determined the complexity level and estimated preparation time, consider your interests to find a topic that is both engaging to yourself and hopefully your audience.

As with any speech or presentation, researching and practicing before the actual event will greatly benefit your delivery and engagement with your audience.

Although finalizing a speech topic for a “how-to” presentation can be stressful, understanding constraints and utilizing interests will help make this process easier.

• The Time You’ve Got to Give the Speech

When selecting a “how-to” speech topic, the amount of time you have to give the presentation should be considered. It is wise to carefully analyze the time frame constraints of the assignment and assess which topics can be thoroughly explored in the allocated duration.

Attempting to cover too much material within a limited timeframe may lead to rushed communication and limit your opportunity to expand on the subject matter. Instead, select a focus that allows space for further discussion but remains concise enough to explore properly within your allotted time.

It is also advantageous to choose a topic that naturally interests you. This will heighten enthusiasm and engagement throughout your presentation, thus helping create an impactful delivery. Doing so will ensure you stay on track and avoid exceeding the assigned timeframe.

• The Guidelines for Assessment

When choosing a “how-to” speech topic, it is important to ensure that the topic meets all of the guidelines for assessment. It is a good idea to consider current and relevant topics, informative, interesting, and new, demonstrating the speaker’s understanding of their subject matter.

Choosing a topic with an appropriate difficulty level can help ensure that your speech will be comprehensive and engaging for your audience.

Demonstrative Speech Topics

Selecting topics for speeches comes down to choosing something you both know and can present effectively. As you brainstorm possible show-and-tell ideas, narrow the topics until you arrive at one that is interesting to you and your audience and fulfills all criteria needed for an effective demonstration presentation.

Once you’ve chosen a successful topic, preparing the speech will become much simpler, allowing you to demonstrate confidently and successfully.

Here are some easy demonstrative speech ideas for how-to.

Animals/Pets

Giving a speech to educate an audience about how to care for animals/pets can be an enriching experience.

It is important to research and thoroughly understand the topic to provide the audience with accurate and applicable information. This will entail researching different animal species and their specific characteristics, needs, and behaviors.

Moreover, ample time must be allocated for preparation so all aspects of proper pet-keeping can be explained clearly and confidently.

Topics ideas could range from a persuasive speech on how to pick the best breed to an informative speech on pet health. 

Gardens/Yards

Talking about creating and maintaining a garden or a yard requires proper preparation to ensure that the information relayed is accurate and beneficial. Researching various gardening elements beforehand will provide a strong base for discerning audiences to build on.

Be sure to present topics such as plant selection, design ideas, pest prevention, watering methods, and other environmental factors in an organized fashion that is easy for your listeners to follow.

Offering clear instructions throughout the speech with examples showing the steps in action can help ensure that your audience walks away feeling confident about their newly acquired knowledge.

Topics could cover how to identify poisonous plants, how to get rid of garden pests, how to make an indoor herb garden, and even how to make garden art. 

To give an effective “how-to” speech about crafts, the speaker should start by introducing themselves and properly framing the topic. They should provide a brief overview of what the audience will learn in their presentation and then begin with the most basic information, slowly building up to more complex concepts.

Crafting often has visual aid speech topics. At every stage of presenting, visuals should be provided for illustration. Visuals could range from diagrams or step-by-step photographs showing how a craft is made to video or actual physical models.

Once all of this information has been presented, the speaker should summarize the key points covered and allow time for questions from the audience before concluding their presentation.

Games/Sports

Giving a “how-to” speech about games/sports is an excellent way to share knowledge and teach important concepts. It requires the speaker to do comprehensive research and prepare in advance.

To give an effective “how-to” speech, start by introducing the game/sport accurately and make sure to tailor the presentation for your specific audience. Additionally, focus on one topic at a time, explain each step with vivid examples, and use visuals like charts or diagrams if possible.

Once you have covered all steps necessary for playing the game/sport, end the speech concisely and provide resources that can be used after the presentation.

Topics here could range from how to perfect your golf swing to even how to teach basketball.

Food And More

Delivering a successful “how-to” speech about food and drinks requires careful preparation. First, it is important to do research on the topic so that you have an understanding of the background information.

Once this has been accomplished, the next step should be to focus on a specific field within the topic and craft your presentation around this selected focus. Be sure to collect illustrations, charts, or photographs relevant to your chosen material, as these visual elements can make all the difference in bringing your words to life.

How to Structure a How-to Speech

Structuring a “how-to” speech can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Firstly, you should brainstorm the steps needed to accomplish your desired outcome with as much detail as possible. Secondly, organize the steps in chronological order.

This will give the rhythm of your speech a natural flow. Then, begin by introducing yourself and the topic by providing background information on why it is important.

Following completion of the step-by-step instructions, summarize what was just explained and explain why it matters in general terms. Finally, address any foreseeable issues and offer solutions to avoid them.

How-to Speech Template

A “how-to” speech template is an effective method to prepare a speech. This is especially useful when speaking on topics that may be largely unfamiliar to the audience, as it provides a straightforward structure for organizing the material.

The basic format of this type of speech involves:

• Introducing the topic.
• Describing the purpose and benefits of knowing more about it.
• Decomposing the subject matter into easily digestible sections.
• Concluding with a summary and reflection on what has been covered.

Additionally, including visual aids and personal anecdotes can further add interest and clarity to speeches, helping ensure everyone remains engaged throughout the presentation. Use this blank demonstration speech outline to craft your own any time!

To Sum It Up

Giving a great how-to speech is mostly about choosing the right topic. As how-to speeches often require visuals such as PowerPoint slides and handouts, these should be reviewed pre-speech to guarantee smooth delivery during the presentation itself. Speaking confidently and clearly while allowing time for questions and feedback is also essential in delivering an effective how-to speech.

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Five Tips for the Most Boring Speech of All Times

If you listen to some of the speeches shown on TV or during public events, you could think there was a competition going on. Speakers seem to outdo one another with their worn out phrases and powerless performance styles. Beginners often feel intimidated by this. They get anxious their own speeches might never reach the high level of boredom that seems to be required in business and politics these days. But don’t worry! With these five tips you too can sweep your listeners off their feet like a pack of Valium.

Tip Number 1: Pick a Dull Opener

What is true in everyday interactions also applies in public speaking: You won’t get a second chance to make a first impression. This is why you have to bore your listeners stiff right from the start.

Some of you may now think: Well, I would love to give my speech an uninteresting opener. But I don’t have boring ideas. No problem! If you want your speech to start as stale as possible, all you need to do is to ask yourself one simple question: What do your listeners find interesting? Of course, they like things that are new, surprising and funny. All this, your speech opener must do without.

Instead speak about something that your audience already knows, for example the occasion. Many of the great masters of boring rhetoric know this all too well. That is why so many speeches start something like this: “Welcome everybody to the 60 th birthday celebration of Mr. Winterbottom. I am glad that so many of you could join us here today.” This way, you start your speech with probably the only piece of information that everyone in your audience already has.

Tip Number 2: Think Simply, Speak Intricately

In order to make sure that your audience can make little or no sense of what you are saying, you shouldn’t waste too much time on preparing your speech. You better just blabber without putting any previous thought into your words.

Many famous speakers were able to achieve great success with this technique. But only few have reached such great heights as the former US president George W. Bush. His famous technique consists of the many little tricks – also known as Bushisms – that you can study and easily integrate into your own public speaking style, like the clueless stutter, the overuse of filler words like or the frequent repetition of extremely unimportant details. If you practice Bush’s public speaking tricks thoroughly enough, maybe one day your speeches will get millions of clicks on Youtube as well.

Tipp 3: Focus on a Stiff Body Language and a Monotonous Tone of Voice

Speakers who plan to bore their listeners until they faint, can not only rely on a boring speech content. At least half of the effect of a boring speech comes from an inexpressive presentation. Don’t waste this potential!

A great example for a boring body language is Angela Merkel. Only the German chancellor manages to deliver even the most important of speeches as if she was reading a vision-test at her eye doctor’s office. Of course, it takes a lot of practice to present speeches as lifeless and dull as Merkel does. But with a few simple tricks even beginners can make quick progress.

A monotonous tone of voice can easily be achieved by reading your speech off the manuscript word by word. While doing this, you should never look up and avoid eye contact with your audience at all cost. Also, you should cling to the lectern like a drowning man to a log of wood. This way you avoid emphasizing any important statements with accidental gestures. If you practice these simple techniques you have good chances to join the elite club of the world’s most boring speakers.

Tip Number 4: Overwhelm your Audience with Numbers

Boring speakers do not intend to inspire their audience. Their aim is to bore their listeners out of their minds until even the very last one of them lethargically stares out the window. The most efficient way to achieve this is to overuse numbers. Make sure that each number in your speech has at least two digits after the decimal point. Also, each number should be compared in the same sentence with an equally difficult number. The use of incomprehensible technical terms from the world of economics can also be very helpful. However, it is not important that your audience understands your calculations.

Just tell them about the such and such comma such and such million dollars that your company has earned before tax in the last quarter, and why that is namely a currency adjusted minus of such and such comma, such and such per-cent compared to the same quarter the year before, but that over a five-year horizon this means a pleasant increase of such and such comma, such and such per cent.

This will make even your most interested listeners pull out their cell phones and secretly check emails.

Tip Number 5: The Longer, the Duller

Sometimes, despite all your troubles, even the most boring speech will still contain one or two interesting points. The best way to stop your listeners from noticing them is to give a very long speech. This will make even fascinating pieces of information seep away like drops of water in the desert. Therefore, when it comes to the length of your speech, you should not be satisfied too easily. With a little effort, even the longest speech can be extended by a few sentences.

At this point you may say to yourself: How long is long enough? Well, that is easy to tell. The answer lies in the reactions of the people in front of you.

It is a good sign if your listeners are yawning, but at this point, you are nowhere near success. Even if people look at their watches with an annoyed expressions on their faces, you shouldn’t stop speaking. Only when they start shaking their wrists to see whether their watches are still working, may you relax and slowly come to the end.

Conclusion: With the right techniques, you, too, can bore your audience like the famous speakers from business and politics. If you practice them for a little while, you will soon bore any audience to tears. Look forward to rolling eyes and slow clapping. You deserve it.

Do you need support preparing your next speech? Do you want to learn the craft of speech writing? Send me an email or call me on the phone (0049 30 288 679 84). I have many years of experience working as a professional speech writer. I can provide a hand-tailored solution for any of your speech writing challenges.

16 secret ways how to speak to a bored audience

• Filed under: Public speaking tips and tricks , Speaking tips , Speech delivery

One of the many nightmares of public speaking is having a bored audience. It happens to everyone, but it doesn’t make it any less worrisome. Sometimes an audience is obviously bored, and other times you just get the feeling they’re not enjoying your talk. Either way, you should know these tricks to keep an audience engaged.

Quickly, here’s how to speak to a bored audience: Be animated, invite participation with a show of hands or applause, shock them from the start with an interesting story, tell a few tasteful jokes if appropriate, and don’t be afraid to go off script.

There are many more tips to share here, so keep reading. You’re sure to learn something new that you can use in your next presentation or speech.

Also, whether you’re a good and experienced or you’re just starting, check out these best public speaking books currently available.

Table of Contents

How to speak to a bored audience using body language

Imagine watching a movie where nobody moved and no one had any facial expressions. That would be incredibly boring! Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of speakers behave when they step into the spotlight. And, as a result, that’s how you get bored audiences.

Using your body and face to express important aspects of your speech or presentation helps keep audiences engaged. It’s good advice, but it’s advice that often confuses people who aren’t used to behaving that way.

I try to explain it as if you were an actor on stage. You’re playing a part. You need to use your body to show your audience something interesting. Use it to emphasize a point or direct attention.

#1 Move around the stage to grab attention

The most obvious way to use your body in a speech or presentation is to simply walk from one point to another . I mean this figuratively and literally.

When changing points in your presentation or moving onto a new sub-topic, begin slowly walking to a new spot on your stage. It’s a not-so-subtle visual reminder that you’re moving on to a new subject.

Walking is best done slowly and during your segue. Take deliberate steps, emphasizing important words or phrases with another one.

You can also use large body movements and changes of location during long stretches of explanations or during stories. This keeps the audience’s eyes on you . Emphasizing certain points by appearing to move to a new location, then stopping in your tracks is one way to show a problem that needs to be solved, for example.

#2 Use your hands

If space is limited or you feel you’ve walked around enough, you can still use your body to speak to your audience. The best way to do so is to use your hands.

Don’t take this to mean you should flop them about like a crazed bird. Your movements should be smooth, comforting, natural. Or maybe not.

It’s okay to use some sudden hand motions in exciting parts or shocking parts. However, you don’t want to make a habit of this. Too many quick or sudden movements can be distracting and annoying. It can also imply you’re uncomfortable.

For some visual tips, try watching videos of professional magicians. They have the best hand movements in any spectator event. You may not be performing magic tricks at your next event, but you can learn a lot about fluid hand motions by watching the pros in action.

Recommended books

How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World's Most Inspiring Presentations

Jeremy Donovan

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences

Nancy Duarte

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Scott Berkun

Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds

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The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

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The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything... Fast!

Josh Kaufman

Here is a thorough article which talks more about “ What To Do With Your Hands During a Speech? “

#3 Exaggerate facial expressions

For the people in the front few rows, your face is going to tell more of the story than your words and body can do alone. When you learn to properly exaggerate your expressions, people even farther back can reap those benefits, too.

There is a fine line between appropriate exaggeration and becoming a laughing stock. Too much emphasis or exaggeration and you’ll lose credibility. Not enough, and your audience will get lost.

Be sure to practice this at home in a mirror. It’s also helpful to ask friends or colleagues to watch your expressions and give feedback.

Look to live plays (or recordings of plays) to see this in action. Stage actors are trained to reach everyone in the theater. Even in the nose-bleed seats. Watch how they use exaggerated facial expressions, often holding them just a second or two longer than natural to help emphasize. They also slowly turn to be sure everyone gets a chance to see.

#4 Be animated to keep attendees interested

Being animated doesn’t mean being obnoxious or flamboyant. It means you should find a balance between standing perfectly still and adding overall movement to your speech.

Animated speeches include hands, body, and facial expressions. They should work together to give an overall emphasis or to indicate movement within the presentation, for example.

Try to keep your actions natural, but enhanced. This takes some practice, so grab your video camera and watch yourself.

How to speak to a bored audience using your voice

Body language is just one important aspect to keeping audiences engaged. Yet you can be animated and active all day long, but if your voice is drab and boring, you’ll still lose your audience’s attention.

Here’s how to use your voice to keep the audience engaged.

#5 Use emotional inflection to capture listeners

I remember listening to my middle school history teacher drone on and on about politics in other countries. It was excruciating to sit through. I’d have rather spent time at the dentist than listen to one more of his speeches.

The issue wasn’t the topic of his speeches; it was his tone. He was so monotone and lifeless, I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment. Because of his speaking habits, I dreaded every long second in that class. I vowed to never speak like that man, and you should too.

Use inflections during emotional parts of your presentation. Emotions can be anything from excitement to sadness to shock, and everything in between. Emotional inflection can be used in conjunction with animated movements to help drive the point home and get audiences in the right mood.

To illustrate this point, I like to direct my readers’ attentions to old-timey radio broadcasts. Those actors knew how to use emotional inflection to grab listeners. They didn’t have the added benefit of a screen—they had to use their voices.

#6 Modulate your volume

A subtle way to keep an audience engrossed is to change your volume. You can go two ways with this.

First, you can use appropriate modulation. What I mean by this is that you raise your voice at an expected moment. During an exciting story, for example. This will keep audiences engaged because you’re behaving as they expect. It’s a way to keep them comfortable, too.

Second, you can choose to use unexpected voice modulation. For example, you could become quiet during an exciting moment , leaning in and encouraging the audience to lean in close, too. This unexpected behavior will grab their attention and show them this is not an ordinary presentation. You’re not an ordinary speaker.

But why stop with those two methods? Mix them up! Change your tone and volume to keep your attendees on the edge of their seats.

#7 Change the pace of your words

There should always be a flow to your speeches. You need a specific cadence to your words to help them ring true. However, this can backfire in a bad way if you’re not mindful.

This is especially imperative information for longer speeches. The longer you talk, the more likely you’ll bore your audience. To prevent the hypnotic nature of perfectly-paced speeches, change your cadence.

Sometimes, you should be speaking at a normal, conversational pace. Others, you should go quickly, making your words move in fast succession. Use smaller words during these parts so it can be more engaging.

Use slower pacing for other parts, using longer words and perhaps drawing out a few pauses for emphasis.

There is no perfect pace, so be sure to mix it up and keep changing as you go along.

Here is a thorough article which talks more about “ How to Use Your Voice Effectively in a Presentation? “. And here you can read more about “ 13 Effective Ways How to Make Speech Pauses “

Entertaining speech pointers for bored audiences

Sometimes, boredom is unavoidable. You can do everything right and your audience may still be bored to tears. Usually, these are people who aren’t at your speech voluntarily. They don’t want to be there and so they’ve walked in with the assumption they’ll be bored to death.

It’ll be tough, but you can still win these people over!

#8 Shock the audience

If you anticipate the audience may be bored right from the start, plan to begin your speech with something shocking . This can be an outlandish announcement that you later debunk as a part of your explanation. It can be a piece of incredible industry news that most people don’t know yet. It can be pure speculation or a thought experiment.

Honestly, this shocking element can be just about anything, as long as you can work it into your speech. Just be sure it’s relevant to your topic and to the industry you’re speaking about.

Here you can read more about “ How to make a speech introduction that grabs attention? “

#9 Hint at something incredible

Humans are naturally curious beings. If you drop a hint early in your presentation that implies you’ll be revealing something amazing later, your audience will be curious and may perk up. Keep dropping hints as you go through your speech to keep reeling them in.

Just be sure the incredible thing at the end is really worth their time. Nothing is more anger-inducing during a speech than empty promises.

#10 Ask questions

Bored audiences disengage fairly quickly. You can often see it happening. If you do notice this, try to ask a question. Ask anything that will get people’s attention.

You’re feeding off the natural human desire to be seen and heard. Something as simple as asking for a show of hands can keep people engaged. It shows that you, the speaker, acknowledge the audience and their opinions. It makes the listeners feel like a part of the presentation instead of just spectators.

#11 Go off script

This is pretty basic advice, but it’s good enough that I want to repeat it here. Too many people stick too closely to their speech notes. It’s robotic and unnatural. Don’t be afraid to go off script if the audience seems to be losing interest in your planned route.

This is also helpful if your audience is particularly interested in one aspect but loses interest when you change topics. Find a way to circle back around to the thing that grabbed their attention. Even better if you can integrate the perceived boring part into the exciting one.

#12 Tell a story, even if it’s not true

There is a saying that goes “learn by example”. Another saying goes “Make a point, tell a story”. It means that you should learn a lesson based on someone else’s experience, whether good or bad. In the case of speeches and presentations for bored audiences, you can use a story to pull them back in.

The story doesn’t have to be true, but it’s helpful if you present it as such. If it isn’t true, it’s always best to let them know at the end that it wasn’t. That way they don’t feel duped.

Just let them know you wanted to get their attention by telling a story that could have happened. This is particularly useful for people selling products or services, but it can work for many industries.

#13 Begin with a problem

Bored people need something to do. Give them a problem to solve and they may brighten right up.

This tip can go along with the story-telling or the shocking tip, too. Be creative!

When you begin your speech with a problem, you’re telling people why they should listen in the first place . You’re also giving their brains something to do in the background.

Don’t solve the problem right away. Hint at the answer coming later, but keep pulling back to it so the audience remembers why they’re listening.

Take a look at the article “ How to write a speech: 20 good and effective tips “

Boring the audience: To slide or not to slide?

I hear a lot of questions regarding the use of slides during presentations and speeches. There are good and bad points to using them, but we won’t cover those in this article. Sometimes, slides are unavoidable.

Right now, I want to discuss how to speak to a bored audience when you have to use slides.

#14 Don’t read from the slides

The number one way to bore an audience with slides is to read them word for word. Your audience can read just fine on its own. There is no reason to read the slides for them. It’s insulting, boring, and repetitive. Your listeners will zone out pretty quickly this way.

#15 Paraphrase

Since you can’t read the slides, what should you do? Simple. Just paraphrase what the slide says. To keep an audience from dropping into boredom, paraphrase the slides in an interesting way.

If you’re feeling cheeky, paraphrase them in rhyme. If you don’t have that kind of levity available for your topic, you can paraphrase in simple industry lingo instead. There are as many ways to restate a slide as there are topics, so just use your imagination.

#16 Use Easter eggs

I don’t mean that everyone should get up and look for actual Easter eggs under their chairs, though that might be fun. Easter eggs in this sense are referring to hidden bits inside movies, games, and yes, even slides.

Tell your audience at the start of the slide show that there are a certain number of Easter eggs hidden within them. You can ask the audience at the end if they found them all. Then, if you’re feeling nice, you can show them where they were hidden.

It’s an interactive way to keep the audience engaged and actually paying attention to the slides and your presentation. You can add clues within your speech, too.

Just be sure your Easter eggs are relevant to the topic and your slideshow.

Final thoughts: How do I stop being a boring speaker?

Bored audiences can really ruin your experience. They can make you feel terrible about yourself, your speech, or even your career. But you must not take it personally. Many audiences simply start out expecting to be bored, and it has nothing to do with you.

Your best bet is to walk into your speech knowing the audience might start out bored or get bored halfway through. Be prepared with the tips I’ve provided above, and you’ll be much more likely to leave the audience entertained and engaged.

Related Questions

How to keep audience attention during a presentation? Keeping an audience’s attention during a presentation is as simple as: entertaining them with stories and anecdotes. Asking questions. Taking a poll. Moving and being animated while you speak. Posing a problem or conundrum.

How to make a boring subject interesting? Add interest to your speech or presentation by bringing in humor. Use creative slideshows or props. Put a creative twist on boring materials by using unexpected examples such as pop culture references or strange stories from history. Add videos with upbeat music and action.

What are some engaging presentation tools? Use videos to make a point or tell a story. Use slideshows with bright colors and bold text—be sure the words are few and succinct. Stop videos or slideshows in the middle to poll the audience, ask questions, or add a personal anecdote. Use props or even take-away gifts to help tell your story or make your points.

Useful reading

• 12 effective impromptu speech tips you should use
• 10 great tips on how to give a killer speech without notes?
• How to memorize a speech in less than an hour?
• How to be comfortable in front of a video camera? 14 great tips

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7 Tips To Ensure Your Presentations Are Not Boring

We have all experienced a presentation that was boring and was slowly putting us to sleep. The speaker was so focused on their content and their script that they forgot that they were speaking to a live audience.

Have you ever been that speaker? Have you ever struggled to engage your audience and keep them awake and interested in what you are saying? If so, here are 7 tips that you can use to keep your audience engaged and reduce the risk of you being seen as a boring presenter.

• Don’t read from your script

Reading from a prepared script word for word is a sure fire way of putting your audience to sleep. Rather than read from your full script, do your preparation, know your content and either use a mind map, or a one-page outline or use a page with headings and bullet points to guide you through your presentation. This will help you achieve more of a conversational speaking style.

• Don’t read from your PowerPoint slides

We have all heard of death by PowerPoint where the speaker reads from their slides, word for word, as if it is their teleprompter. Reading from your PowerPoint slides just shows that you are under-prepared. Your PowerPoint slides should be more of a visual aid than just words and a script. Your PowerPoint should enhance what you are saying – not replace what you are saying.

• Involve the audience

Rather than just speak at the audience, or lecture to them, you should try and Involve the audience. Get them doing stuff and get them thinking. I use a little Model described to me by Matt Church. Use a cycle of;  TELL  –  SHOW – ASK  – SHARE . So tell your audience something, show them a visual ( slide, flip chart, prop) ask them to think about how that might apply to their situations, get them to share with the group or the person next to them.  If you run this cycle every 10 to 15 minutes within your presentation you will keep people engaged, thinking, and applying the information to their own personal circumstances.

4.  Be passionate and excited about your topic.

Passion is everything in a presentation. You need to show that you believe in what you are saying. You must be congruent with your message and you need to want to be before your audience. Passion is the best way to demonstrate that you believe in your message. Steve Jobs always said – “What makes your heart sing”.

• Use your stories to engage the audience

Tell a story that illustrates your point effectively and takes your audience on an emotional roller coaster and you will never be boring.  More and more literature is surfacing on the importance of storytelling in public speaking and the role it has in engaging your audience. There is that famous saying, “people will not remember much of what you have said, but they will remember how you made them feel”. So tell powerful, relevant and engaging stories, take your audience on an emotional journey and you will be remembered.

• Use appropriate and congruent body language

Simply put you need to “Walk the Talk”. Your body language and your non verbal’s speak louder than the words you say. One way to always lose me and put me to sleep is when a good message is not backed up with appropriate body language.

• Show the audience that you care about them

As a speaker if you clearly demonstrate that your presentation is about the audience, for the audience, designed to help the audience, then you are less likely to be seen as boring. The term we use in public speaking is WiiFM – “What’s In It For Me”? If you demonstrate a clear WiiFM then you will be engaging and keep your audiences attention.

The next time you undertake a public speaking assignment, what are you going to do to ensure you are not seen as boring and that you engage audience.

If you would like more information on this article there is a 30 minute webinar recording that expands on the content.

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Add Enthusiasm to a Boring Presentation Using These 5 Tips

Enthusiasm and Energy is the absolute, most-important skill in public speaking. If you take only one piece of advice about public speaking, make sure that it is this pearl of wisdom.

If you focus on this one simple thing, the number of times you say “uhm” won’t matter. In addition, if you focus on this one thing, your gestures and not knowing what to do with your hands won’t matter. If you focus on this one thing, then the occasional loss of train of thought won’t matter. In fact, if you focus on this one simple thing, you can break just about every rule that public speakers are supposed to abide by, and you will still win over your audience.

Enthusiasm and Energy Make a Boring Speech More Interesting.

This one simple rule has transformed countless mediocre speakers into good speakers, scores of good speakers into great speakers, and numerous great speakers into world-class speakers.

This simple rule that can make or break a speaker is… ENTHUSIASM.

Delivering a Boring Speech Is a Choice. However, Enthusiasm Is Also a Choice.

That’s right, if you have a little excitement in your talk and a spring in your step, people pay attention. Your audience will have just about as much excitement about your talk as you do, and no more. So, if you want to win over your audience, add a sparkle of enthusiasm.

One of my mentors told me that there are two rules to live by in the world of professional speakers. She said, “Rule number one is to never speak on a topic that you yourself are not enthusiastic about. Rule number two is that if you ever violate rule number one, fake it ’til you make it.”

Frank Bettger in his book How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling said it a different way. He said, “If you act enthusiastic, then you’ll be enthusiastic.”

I like to explain it a little differently. In my experience, there is no such thing as a boring topic. There are only boring speakers. So, no matter what you are speaking about, your audience will never be more excited about it than you are.

Nervousness Can Actually Be Perceived as Enthusiasm.

For those of us who get nervous in front of groups, it’s even easier. When we are nervous, we often cut out preambles and get right to the point. (We want to get it over with.) In addition, our rate of speech typically speeds up. We also tend to move around a lot more. In many cases, we may move our hands around more than normal. Well, when we are excited about something, we do the exact same things.

Years ago, when I was a sales manager, I was often amazed at the number of times that a brand new salesperson without a lot of product knowledge and absolutely no experience could close sale after sale while my more seasoned people were struggling. The more times I went on sales calls with these new people, the more I started to notice a pattern. New salespeople are often nervous. So when they walk into an office on a sales call, they tend to cut right to the chase. They also generally talk faster because they are afraid they’ll forget something. They have a tough time sitting still because of the nervousness, so they move around a lot.

I noticed that these symptoms of nervousness worked to the advantage of these new salespeople. Their customers perceive the salespeople as being extremely enthusiastic about what they were selling. I would imagine that these potential buyers were saying things to themselves like, “If this person believes so much in this product, it must be good.”

We as speakers can also use our nervousness to our advantage. When we turn that pent up nervousness into energy and enthusiasm, our audience can’t help but be energized as well.

Five Turnkey Ways to Add Enthusiasm and Energy to Any Presentation

There are about five key things that a speaker can physically do at any time to insert energy into his or her presentation.

• Speed Up : Many people think that speaking fast is bad, but in reality, a person who speaks quickly is inserting energy and enthusiasm into his or her presentation. Walk faster, talk faster, and move faster.
• Increase Your Volume : Speak up just a little louder than normal, and you’ll get noticed. If you have a naturally quiet temperament, then you might need to stretch yourself to increase your volume.
• Move More : Move your feet more and gesture more to increase your energy. Most of us speak with our hands when we talk with someone one-on-one. Do the same thing in front of a group.
• Gesture Bigger : The bigger the room is, the more exaggerated your gestures will need to be. Small gestures portray timidity and shyness. Big gestures portray confidence and competence. Bigger gestures add enthusiasm.
• Change your Tone or Emphasis : When you come to a word or concept that is important, punch out the information with power. Place emphasis on important words. Place less emphasis or pause on concepts when appropriate.

Act Enthusiastic And You’ll Be Enthusiastic

If you do any of these five things in your speech, you will be perceived as an above-average speaker. If you do all five of these things, your audience will LOVE YOU! Your enthusiasm as the speaker is what makes you exceptional. That is if your energy level is high! Act enthusiastic when you speak, and you will be enthusiastic.

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7 Proven Tips to Never Be Boring In Conversations Again

No more awkward silence here are 7 simple tricks to turn boring small talk into interesting conversation. it is all about what you say and how you say it..

We have all been there.

You’re in a room full of people and you were having a fun conversation with one of your friends and a girl he introduced to you. But at one point he leaves for the bathroom. So here you are standing next to this girl, clueless what to talk about.

With her big eyes, she is looking at you, waiting for you to tell a funny story. The pressure is real. Your palms start sweating, knees feel weak and your arms are heavy. Your face turns redder than Mom’s spaghetti sauce.

* God, this silence is taking a little too long… *

In the absence of sound, you can hear your heart pounding in your chest.

* Wait, why is she looking around? * * Is she looking for her friends? * * Does she think I’m boring? *

There must be something we can talk about. At least say something. Literally anything will do.

“It was raining quite heavily this afternoon.” — “Yeah.”

REALLY? That is all I could think of? The weather?!

After this awkward exchange, your friend comes back from the bathroom. Thank god.

How To Get Rid of Boring Conversation

Just imagine how different this situation could have been if you were able to grasp the girl’s attention and never let it go. What if you could enter every conversation with confidence?

One of our biggest fears when socializing with others, is that we are boring.

But there is one thing we need to acknowledge right now:

No person is boring, but we feel boring.

Boring is a state of mind. We get the feeling that we come across as boring, because we fail to understand what makes our lives interesting or we cannot effectively communicate exciting stories. So from now on, I don’t ever want to hear you say that you are boring. With the tips below, people will listen to your stories breathlessly and hang on your every word.

It is all about what you say and how you say it .

How To Talk So People Want To Listen

Create story gaps.

A great way to make people listen attentively to your story, is by creating a story gap. A story gap is when you give the listener a hint of how the story ends to spark curiosity, then you fill in the blanks.

To show you an example how this works, imagine you want to tell the following story:

Last week you were sitting at home, and suddenly you felt this intense craving for fast food. You drive over to Burger King and order a Whopper meal. As you were looking around for a spot to sit, a man gestured to you that he and his family were just about to leave. You walk up to the table and the guy wants to stand up, but he steps on a onion ring and his foot slips. To regain his balance, he grabs the table, but also squashing a bag of tomato ketchup in the process. The red sauce splashed all over you, and your entire sweater got covered in ketchup. The guy apologizes and hands you a couple tissues to clean yourself up.

This in itself is already a moderately fun story to listen to, but the build-up is a bit too slow. The intro is too long to grasp attention. There is a risk that people will lose interest before the end of the second sentences and interrupt you or simply stop listening. You need to give people a reason to care. You can achieve this by starting your story off with the punchline.

Now obviously, the punchline in this story is being covered in ketchup, so you would start off with:

“I got to tell you about the time I got covered in ketchup at Burger King”

[to make the listener wonder how that happened]

“So last week I was sitting at home and I felt this intense craving for fast food…”

[start the story from the beginning]

It works like a riddle.

You’re asking the other person’s brain to think of all kinds of scenarios.

“Take a guess: How did I get covered in ketchup?”

And starting off with the end result of a story creates a sense of mystery, and people won’t interrupt you until the mystery is resolved. The listener will be so occupied with thinking of what could’ve happened, that they will not think of other stories.

Use words that evoke emotion

Words can be triggers for emotions and feelings. A simple change of word usage can impact the attention you are receiving drastically.

Before telling a story, determine the exact emotional state that you want the listener to get into. Then sprinkle your story with adjectives and nouns that evoke this emotion.

If you want to evoke curiosity:

• Let me tell you a secret
• What no one tells you
• Want to hear a scoop?
• Have you heard about
• Off-the-record, …
• I have confession to make.
• You haven’t heard this from me, but

If you want people to relate:

• Something embarrassing happened the other day
• I was in total panic
• I can be such a coward sometimes
• It was the most pathetic thing ever
• Have you ever felt like
• Talking about awkward situations
• Tuesday was a disaster

If you want to evoke anger:

• Don’t you hate it when
• You know what’s stupid
• Something that really annoys me
• Ever felt like bashing someone’s head in?

If you want to evoke excitement:

• You know what was funny
• Oh it was wonderful
• I feel so blessed to have
• I was thrilled
• It felt like I was on top of the world

In some cases you literally tell the other people what to feel, without it being too obvious. And it works. Once you master this technique, you have full control over what people feel during your stories.

You can link several emotional states together to create a chain of emotions and take your listeners on an emotional rollercoaster they will never forget.

Modulate your voice

Imagine someone who only talks at a single pace with the most monotonous voice ever. Even if the person would talk about the best solution for world peace, I doubt that many people will stay committed to listening.

The story is missing suspense and surprise. You need to keep your conversation partner on his toes.

Now this is an art that will not come easy. But luckily it is trainable. There are a couple of tricks you can keep in mind that will elevate your style of speaking and keep your listeners engaged.

Speak In Volumes

If you want people to listen, firstly make sure that people hear you. You need to speak loud enough that people hear you loud and clear. Do you want to grab attention? Speak louder than the person before you.

Vary the volume of your voice. Most people think that you need to speak loud if you want people to listen. MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT YOUP NEED TO SPEAK REALLY LOUD IF YOU WANT TO PEOPLE TO LISTEN. Well yeah, it works. But not if you speak that loud all the f*cking time.

When you really want people to pay close attention, you start speaking softer. People will lean in, direct their ears at you and look at how your lips move. Most people around you will naturally quiet down and those who don’t listen will be silenced.

Loud and clear, soft and intimate

Changing your volume to match your content plays a key role in getting your message across.

Loud and soft words both serve their purpose. Loud words evoke a sense of excitement, anger or confidence. Soft words evoke a sense of intimacy, secrecy and fragility.

“SO MY GRANDMOTHER DIED THE OTHER DAY, IT WAS SO SAD!!!”

It just does not fit well. Nobody will tell you about their diseased grandmother while shouting at you. You should know when to adapt your volume, but at least you should play around with it. The more you speak in one monotonous voice, the less emotions you convey. The less emotion, the less attention.

Speed Up and Slow Down

Mixing up the pace of your speech is an excellent way to keep people listening. You can do this by varying the length of your sentences. Instead of being a boring narrator, it will be like you are singing your story with an unique melody.

Gary Provost wrote an excellent example on varying sentence-length, that can also be applied on telling stories:

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. My speech is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. My words sing. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the listener is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

So talk with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just speak words. Write music.”

The Art of Silence

Whenever we tell stories, we can get too excited or nervous, causing us to rush through our stories. If you are more conscious about your speech and put in a few pauses, you can greatly improve the impact of your sentences.

Moments of silence allow your listeners to recapture what you said and puts extra emphasis on words that come right before or right after. And when you are speaking, you want to do just that — emphasize.

It might be the most underused tool of all — silence.

Listen to silence. It has so much to say. ~ Rumi

Animate your speech

There is more to your story than the words you use. Hand gestures are a fundamental part of our communication. When you watch a video on mute, a speaker’s body language will still tell you whether it is a sad, happy or disgusting story.

Hand gestures convey emotions and amplify that emotion in the person you are talking with. So use your hands!

If this is something you struggle with, your best guess is to overdo it. Practice at home in front of a mirror and literally try to picture every word that comes from your mouth. Imagine that you are a pantomime player giving a world-class performance.

Another good way to practice this is by playing charades with friends.

A handful of proof

The impact of hand gestures is enormous. A study by Science of People analyzed hours of TED Talks and found that the use of hand gestures had a significant effect on video performance. The least popular TED Talkers used 272 hand gestures, while the most popular TED Talkers used 465 hand gestures – that’s almost double!

If you need more proof, just look at Italians.

Include other people in your stories

Addressing people is a simple way getting people more engaged in a conversation. You can do this indirectly by taking the end of their story as a starting point for your own story. You can link stories with sentences like:

“Talking about awkward situations…” “That reminds me of the time…” “Something similar happened to me…”

Combined with the sentences mentioned in the previous paragraph, you can use this to make your story more relatable before you even started the first sentence.

Probing and calling people out

You can also address people more directly. You can do so by asking a probing question or by calling people out.

“Did you ever wonder how I got this scar?” “You know what surprises me?” “You like secrets, right?” “I thought of you last week when I was…” “You will find it hilarious what happened to me the other day”

or literally:

“Hey Jeremy, did I tell you this story about”

This might feel a little unnatural at first. But if you pay close attention to people who grab all attention in a room, or the best public speakers, they seem to do this naturally.

The same old story all over again

If you are thinking of a story that you would like to tell, but you know that one of your conversation partners has already heard it, mentioning the person will help as well. Simply acknowledging them will make them feel special for being the first person to hear the story.

“I was just telling Daniel about the time someone spilled ketchup on my sweater.”

A nice side effect of addressing conversation partners is that people will naturally like you more when you call them out. This is especially true for people you have just met. It shows that you value the other person and that you will need know his/her name in the future, building a relationship. And the more often you repeat their name, the more likely you are going to remember it when you bump into them two months from now. Only wins here.

What To Talk About

Live a life worth telling about.

If you do the same stuff every day, you will find it harder to find something new and interesting to talk about. You have to escape your daily routine and get out of your information bubble. Inspiration can literally come from anywhere if you open your mind up to new possibilities.

• Take a different route to work.
• Pick up a new book to read.
• Volunteer at a nursing home for a day
• Try a new sport
• Turn of WiFi for 24 hours
• Type a random combination of two letters into Netflix and go watch the first suggestion the algorithm serves you.

Literally any new experience can be a great start for conversation. Telling about something new allows people to live those experience through you.

Talk to more and new people

Every time you talk to someone new, you are entering an uncharted territory. The conversation can take you anywhere. Not only will these social interactions have a positive effect on your mood , they can also be a source of stories for when you are talking to others.

“I met this guy on the subway…” “I had a really interesting conversation with a granny at the park…” “You never guess who I ran into the other day…”

Practice makes perfect

Also by talking to more people, you get more chances to practice your stories. This will help you memorize the essential elements of the story and you can analyze which parts had the most impact.

Basically you are doing exactly the same as a stand-up comedian does. During a tryout, the comedian will try out all of his jokes on a small audience. This interaction provides him valuable feedback.

The first jokes he had to read of a paper, but then he starts to memorize some too. Some jokes may not roll of the tongue that easily as he had in mind. Or he sees that the audience does not react to the punchline the way he imagined. No biggie. He can still rewrite some of the jokes.

But then when it really matters — when he is performing at a huge venue in front of thousands of people waiting to be entertained — he is confident that he will make this audience fall of their chairs laughing out loud.

Find topics you have in common

When you are not that comfortable having conversations, because you don’t know the person well enough, it is best practice to find some common ground first. You can scan the person quickly and think of topics you have in common.

Read the news. Following one of the major news outlets on Twitter or Instagram will do. Most people only read headlines anyway. It is just so you are up-to-date with trending topics that go on the world.

Talk about their favorite topic: Themselves

When you run out of topics to talk about, you can always start talking about everyone’s favorite topic: ourselves. People love talking about themselves. When people are able to vent their stories, they feel a sense of delight. Self-disclosure is gratifying.

Break the ice and melt their heart

The secret to get other people to talk is to ask open-ended questions (what / why / where / when / who / how) and try evoke emotions. Some excellent questions you can use as icebreakers to get any person talking:

• What has taken you the longest to get good at?
• What topic could you give a 20-minute presentation on without any preparation?
• What takes a lot of time but is totally worth it?
• What are some of your guilty pleasures?
• What skill would you like to learn?
• Who had the most influence on you growing up?
• You’re going sail around the world, what’s the name of your boat?

Complimentary questions

If you don’t like the idea of asking a prepared question, you can also try to improvise your questions. For inspiration, you can do a quick scan of the person. If you see a girl wearing remarkable sneakers, ask her about it. If the guy looks muscular, ask him how long he has been working out. This way you can precede your question with a small compliment. “I really love the tattoo on your wrist, what is the story behind it?” or: “That necklace looks really good on you, where did you get it?”

Once you get the hang of making other people talk, there will never be another awkward silence. And you are not just feigning interest to please the other person. It can also help you produce more stories of your own. The other person might bring topics to the table you weren’t thinking of, providing the perfect segue for telling your own story.

More on this topic

7 Deadly Sins of Speaking

By freshsaga.

Certain things are not done when you are having a conversations. Julian Treasure called these the 7 Deadly Sins of Speaking ; common habits you should try to avoid when engaging in conversations or people will actually dislike talking to you.

How To Turn Awkwardness Into Confidence

By charisma on command.

We have all been awkward at different points in our lives. Sometimes that awkwardness gets in the way of connecting with other people or even feeling confident in ourselves. But awkwardness doesn’t need to be the end of the line. In fact, if you handle yourself well you can turn awkwardness into confidence.

In this video, you will find why Tom Holland is way less awkward than Mark Zuckerberg. It all comes down to adjusting your body language, being able to handle friendly teasing, sharing embarrassing stories and not giving a fuck about other people’s opinion.

Author:  Daniel

Hi! My name is Daniel, creator of FreshSaga. I write accessible and thought-provoking articles about self-improvement. Also check out the interactive story games that I made or FreshSaga's YouTube channel . Hit me up by Email or Instagram .

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5 Fool-proof Ways To Turn A Boring Topic Into An Exciting Presentation

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation , Public Speaking

To build interest in a topic in an audience which is ready to bolt out the door the second they get a chance may seem like a daunting task but what we are missing out on is the numerous possibilities and opportunities it presents us!

What is a “Boring” Topic?

Lets get this myth out of the way immediately. A topic. Any topic, can never be boring. There are only two ways that it is may seem “boring” either:

• It hasn’t been presented in the right angle.
• It is being presented to the wrong audience.

These are the only two reasons I can think of for a topic being termed as “boring.”

Think about it: A person who has taken Biology their whole life, have studied it and are doing PhD. in that respective field would find only one subject boring? Maybe if taught in a different angle, it would be one of their favourites!

In Case of Wrong Audience: For an audience homogenously established as sports fanatics, a presentation on the etymology of the word: “word” would be nothing more than a waste of time. If your don’t get to choose your topic or audience, you can choose your style of presentation. Use sports references, create games, take the presentation out in the field. Keep reading to learn how to use these techniques effectively and more!

How to Start a Presentation Effectively

At the end of the day, it is all about grabbing the audience’s attention. How do we do that right at the beginning? There are various tricks and tips that we can use, some are listed below!

You could start with a thought provoking or rhetorical question, get the audience thinking and creating their own opinions about your topic before you even begin, this could get them invested and excited about your topic as they begin to compare your presentation to their thoughts and point of view.

Here are a few other ways you can start a presentation:

• Short Story
• Audio / Video / Visual Screening – grab move their attention towards the stage.
• State a shocking or thought provoking fact
• Use powerful quotes
• Small talk – short greeting and expect a reaction from the audience viz.,. nods, gestures, verbal confirmations.

If you are looking to learn more about how to start your killer presentation with the perfect entry, you can check out our video on the same!

How to Make an Exciting Presentation

We are now following the above mentioned assumption that there is no Boring Topic.

Now that, that is out of the way, lets get to checking out the techniques to find the right angle and / or topic for your next killer presentation!

1. Establish a Theme

One major reason we tend to feel bored about a topic is because it becomes repetitive.

Once a speaker establishes a Theme – For example: Hard Work, there seems to be a lot of circling back to it and you may not realise until you hear the first snore that it is becoming a bit to repetitive.

While establishing a theme and sticking through it gives the audience a sort of connecting touch-point to your whole speech lets try to not be completely on the face about it.

1.1. Show Don’t Tell

Some of your might have heard of this technique.

Show, don’t tell is a writing technique used to guide writers to help show the readers an emotion and create an opportunity for them to empathise with the character instead of simply telling the emotion the character is feeling.

This creates a form of connection between the reader and the character and that keeps them hooked onto the story.

This is a great technique which can be used in presentations to avoid repetitiveness.

Once you’ve established a theme with the audience (our current example being: Hard work), all you need to do is show how hard work pays off.

You can do it with anecdotes, a story or just examples throughout your presentation showing the positivity that hard work brings into ones life.

Remember, since we are showing the audience what if feels like to work hard, our main goal is to avoid the word “hard work” and wield our examples, and other additions to our presentations as weapons to get the message across.

Pro Tip: Sometimes while we begin explaining things we tend to exaggerate way more than necessary and this makes our sentence too complicated to understand or follow. For Example: 1. The statue felt rough, its aged façade caked with dust and grime as I weighed it in my hand, observing its jagged curves and Fanta-coloured hue. 2. It was heavier than it looked. Some of the orange façade crumbled in my hand as I picked it up. The second sentence makes it easier to follow and gets the message across quickly – It was heavy and old.

1.2. How to Establish a Theme?

While we’ve spoken a lot on what to do after establishing a theme, lets give some time to figuring out how to establish a theme in the first place!

1. Through the Title

A great way to be clear about your theme and avoid any confusion is title your presentation in a very direct sense.

For Example: Hard Work Pays Off And Why

This gives away the theme clearly to the audience and they know what you mean whenever you try to make metaphorical jokes! Bye Bye Blank Stares!

2. In the End

Another option would be give out your theme in the end.

One perk with this is that you could build suspense try to keep the audience guessing until the very end, and once you mention the theme, everything else about your presentation suddenly clicks and the audience suddenly sees your whole presentation in a new, more relevant angle.

Or you can direct your presentation to well rounded off moral that the audience kind of sees coming and is proud when they guess correctly.

Either way, it is a win-win!

2. Storytelling

Storytelling is a great and sure – fire way to get your presentation the applause it deserves!

Storytelling is the technique which speakers use to liven up their speeches / presentations while using other public speaking techniques to add to the flare.

Storytelling could be extremely effective if your topic is one which can be turned into a moral or has a strong take home value.

There are various tools like voice modulation and tonality, body language and expressions, stage usage and so many others that play a major role in the effective delivery of a story.

Check out our video on Storytelling to get a fair idea about the same!

3. Build your Presentation Skills.

An exciting presentation needs to be structured well and appropriately organised. Lets figure out how to make a solid presentation.

3.1. How to make a good presentation?

First things, first, you need to figure out the structure of your presentation. If you have your speech ready, you can use that as an outline or work on the topics you want to cover and try to make them as systematic and chronological as possible.

Your presentation needs to be formal, yet fun, simple, yet colourful and there might be many other conditions set for an effective presentation, we are not here to remind you of that nightmare, we’re here to help. 🙂

The easiest way through this is to pick out 3-4 colours that complement each other, make sure they are soft and not extremely bright.

If you find that a template would be easier, there are multiple sites that provide you with templates for various types of presentations. Here are some popular ones:

• Slides Carnival

Once you have your colours ready you can add infographics, (templates usually have a slide dedicated to them, so do multiple sites.)

A good presentation should be both engaging and at the same time self-explanatory. Self – explanatory presentations are a great asset, because if for any reason someone needs your presentation for reference, it would be easy to understand.

Another cool feature in presentations are flow charts and other infographics. Infographics are a great tool when you need to keep things concise and to the point. You can also add avatars and other animations in your presentation if you are going to be engaging a younger crowd or will be presenting in a more informal set up.

Check out our article to work on your presentation skills!: 5 Presentation Tools To Use With Multimedia Presentations

Apart from your presentation making skills there are a few others things you should focus on while presenting.

3.2. How do I present?

Once you have your presentation ready, lets get working on your delivery.

Some accessories which I find really cool is a laser pointer and a remote to switch slides. If the organising committee is providing them, JUMP ON THAT OPPORTUNITY, or if you find them as cool as I do, you can always invest in one!

Know that all the points in your presentation while self-explanatory are still just points and the audience is relying on you to elaborate on them. Those points are only there for your reference.

DO NOT READ FROM THE SLIDE. I can’t stress on this enough, while you’re trying to make a topic interesting, it is not going to help if you simply turn your back on the audience and begin reading from the slides.

Check out this video to help you understand and work on your presentation skills:

4. Explain with Examples

Examples are an extremely important tool. They help build a connection with the topic and at the same time help us remember.

For Example:

Without Example: Companies need to be held responsible for their actions and accountable of the effect it has on its customers.

With Example: Companies need to be held responsible for their actions and accountable of the effect it has on its customers. Let’s take the McDonald’s Coffee Case. For the ones who don’t know, McDonald’s keep their coffee at an extremely high temperature to make sure they don’t go cold before someone has ordered it. The temperature is so high that a woman suffered 3rd Degree burns and was hospitalised. This is how we know that McDonald’s coffee isn’t just hot, it is unsafe to consume hot. Do you think they should be held accountable for the burns that woman faced?

Taking an example which is easy to relate to and understand helps the audience follow where you are leading them.

The sentence in itself was complete, and would’ve have been okay, but adding an example of coffee – something everyone knows about and a company that is well known piques their interest because who doesn’t love controversies and very “in the news” cases like this one?

(Bonus points if someone in the audience knows this case – this will make them more interested because it is something they already know something about and want to listen to know how that case relates to the topic.)

Apart from getting people excited and interested about your topic, you can also build engagement by asking their opinion about the example / situation.

This brings out different perspectives and opinions and keeps them interested in your presentation.

Taking breaks during presentation could be a welcome change and give you and your audience a chance to freshen up and organise thoughts.

Now hold on. I don’t mean getting up, grabbing a cup of coffee, few finger sized sandwiches and coming back. Not only would this break your flow but also affect your audience’s attention span.

Breaks could be anything from a recap, Q&A session, games and so much more, keeping you in the spotlight and focus while engaging the audience.

Take a few minutes to recap what you have said so far goes a long way when trying to deliver a technical topic. It helps you catch a breath, and mentally form a path in your head to line up the next topics.

You can even create a specific slide at intervals that show the topics covered so far!

5.2. Q&A

Having a Question and Answer session at intervals benefits both you and the audience.

They don’t have to wait until the end of your presentation and maybe forget the questions they might’ve had and you don’t need to go back all the way to that one point when a question is asked. You can time the questions so that they don’t cut into your speaking time much.

You can also fuse recaps with Q&A sessions to make sure no one gets left behind.

Showing this inclusivity might help encourage your audience to pay attention and gives a chance to those who got lost to catch up and refocus their energy!

Everyone loves games! Especially if you are in a room with a presentation going on, you could always use a break from the monotony.

Games could be quick exercises like worksheets or puzzles in their workbooks or quick quizzes to randomly jolt up the energy of the room.

I personally like maintaining a running joke and add it in intervals just to help the audience remember and come back to the present after their stroll through day-dreamland.

Examples of Games that can be played during a presentation

1. jigsaw puzzles.

This is a great idea for both virtual and offline set-ups.

If you want your audience to remember a particular image or topic, you can create a jigsaw puzzle (various sites help you with that) and simply take a break while they try to solve it.

You can create it into a competition just to liven things up!

For Example: You want to show the impact a brand has in our lives, you can take an image / logo of a well known brand (make sure it is popular among the audience’s demographic) and create a jigsaw puzzle!

A quick an easy way to make your audience remember a concept and increase their engagement.

Lets say your topic is fruits.

You can ask an audience member to choose a fruit, eg: Watermelon. The next one now needs to say the previous fruit and add their own new fruit. eg: Watermelon, Apple.

Pro Tip: To keep things interesting, you can pick people at random to make sure everyone is alert and you don’t make any section of the audience feel left out!

3. Crosswords / Find the Words

These types of games are a hit among juniors and seniors alike!

You can create your own crosswords or find the words games with various sites online and share a link on your virtual platform or print them out and send it across to the audience seated in front of you!

For Example: You are presenting the topic: Mental Health Crosswords: You can ask questions on various topics you have covered so far. Find the Words: You can mention words like Kindness, Me Time, Positivity, Calm, Zen, Anxious, Annoyed, Bored, etc., and ask them to circle the ones they find and relate to. To keep things active, you can make it a competition if your topic isn’t a sensitive one like Mental Health, where everyone needs their own space and time.

How to make virtual presentations more engaging?

The pandemic is real and as much as we can try moving on from that fact, we have shifted into a digital world and this digital audience is even more difficult to grab the attention of. However, we’ve figured out a few ways to make a topic seem interesting and your presentations more engaging!

Even in virtual platforms that limit your access to tools like stage usage and body language, you can always count on visuals and reactions to keep the audience attentive and engaged!

You could do so much! Screen videos, show images and flow charts, share itineraries, ask for feedback and reactions and with a little more exploring, this list could be endless!

2. Involve the Audience

There is nothing more engaging in getting to call the shots in someone else’s presentation while you sit and watch what effect you have made in that. I have found the following two ways to be extremely effective in getting the audience interested about your topic.

2.1. Polling

Taking a poll about any segment in your presentation and reviewing them with your audience creates an opportunity to learn not only for the audience but for you as well!

You may see some completely new perspectives and it is okay to admit that it is a new point of view to you and thank the people who have provided it, on the other hand the audience gets to see their opinion on screen and being discussed and understood.

This technique has been inspired form the children’s book: Goosebumps (giving credit where it is due always is a good practice)

The audience gets to choose what happens next. You can create your presentation to be a form of situation and then as each step / segment comes by, you can ask someone from the audience to choose what to do next and review those results and go back to the alternative and review those results as well.

This will create an immersive environment for the audience and you’ll be a hit!

Various Topic Ideas

After so many ideas being bounced about and pitched, you might be stumped about which topic to choose. Below is a list of the topics that have been considered interesting and can perk someone’s ear up at the mention of it. Hope it helps!

• The Human Brain
• The Romantic Era / English Literature
• How To Stay Productive During A Pandemic
• Gender Identity And Sexual Orientation – How They Are Different.
• The Importance Of Inclusivity
• Mental Health And How To Work On Yourself
• Pets And Your Relationship
• The History Of A Particular Topic
• Beauty Standards And Its Acceptance By All Genders
• A Detailed Presentation On A Controversy – Eg: The Illuminati

Last Words:

A boring topic doesn’t exist because what might be unamusing to A might be the most profound piece of information in existence to B.

The key here is to find your interest in the topics you present and project that interest to the audience when you deliver. The methods above are simply tools and some can not be used all the time; understand that a little bit of nervousness is good. It keeps you on your toes.

What you can do is work on yourself, hydrate, practice and know your material. Excitement and interest is contagious, use the above tools as a catalyst and you will get a positive reaction.

Good luck! 🙂

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What Makes a Good Presentation? How to Make a PowerPoint 101

Clémence Daniere

Table of contents

How to create a powerpoint presentation, presentation tips and tricks.

• Create a Video to Share Your Slides After Your Presentation 

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Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and other slide presentations have become an absolutely essential part of any presentation.

They’re easy to use, offer a great way to combine images, video, and text, and require almost no training.

So, why are so many presentations so boring?

All the elements are there for creating effective, eye-catching, and engaging presentations, but so often we’re forced to sit through slide after slide of overcrowded, hard-to-read text and fuzzy (or non-existent) images.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to make your presentations dazzle with just a few easy tips.

Your slide deck has the power to add to or take away from the overall effectiveness of your presentation. Learning how to make a presentation more interesting requires skillful collaboration between the strength of your content and knowing how to make your slides look good. 

So, before you open PowerPoint, let’s go through some basics.

Less is more

Less is more with slide content.  

Your slides should not be stuffed with content, especially text-heavy content. Incorporating bullet points helps your audience follow your message without getting distracted by trying to read the slide.

Use engaging slide designs

You don’t have to start from scratch with every presentation! Chances are, you are not a graphic designer so why not use the templates that have been created by professionals ? 

Using presentation templates can help you make PowerPoint slides, Google slides, or slides for other platforms as well without spending too much time trying to create a professional look. 

You can easily find templates online through Slidesgo and Slidescarnival for Google Slides and for PowerPoint. Each of these platforms offers themes within their software as well. 

All you’ll need to do is make minor adjustements to the design!

Be on-brand

Using consistent branding is an easy way to build familiarity and trust with your audience. If you have an established brand in place be sure to use it when building your slides.  

The colors and fonts used in your design should always adhere to your brand standards without deviation. 

If you don’t have a brand guide to work from, select a specific color palette, using color theory to ensure the message of your presentation is not counteracted by your color choices. 

Stick with just a few colors, and go the same route with fonts. Only choose a few to use, and avoid overly scripted options as they are difficult to read on screen.

Use visual aids

Visuals make a huge difference in your presentations. But there are a few rules to follow.

Stick with high-quality images. Adding images to your slides that are blurry, pixelated, or otherwise low in quality is an easy way to quickly disengage with your audience.

If you don’t have access to high-quality branded photos, use sites like Unsplash and Shutterstock .

Plus, adding screenshots can make your presentation more interesting than stock photos. 

Add screenshots to your presentations with Snagit

Snagit makes it easy to capture and edit the perfect screenshot!

Share data analytics or upcoming project plans by taking a simple screenshot. Screenshots are the perfect addition to your presentations.

Third-party tools like Snagit are made just for that. You can add callouts , arrows , and other tools that draw your audience’s attention . 

For a more fun visual, use GIFs to highlight some key points.

GIFs are a great middle-ground option between static images and videos. They can be used effectively to drive home a specific point or to highlight a specific piece of data.  

Visuals always help with memorability and GIFs usually include a touch of humor and personality – both qualities that help information stick.

You can make your own GIFs using Snagit so that they are perfectly catered to your presentation.

We live in a video world. Embedding videos directly into your slides can play a role in creating an interesting presentation. 

Videos can be an easy way to show a tutorial or demonstrate a process. Whatever your presentation is about, there are videos you can make or outsource that will support your point.

However, using too many videos can take away the impact your own content has. Try to stick to three or fewer videos in one presentation. 

According to Forbes , thirty to sixty seconds is ideal for a presentation video.

You want your visual aids to support your presentation, not take over it. The focus of your presentation should still be you and the value you are bringing to your audience!

For your presentation to shine, you need to combine storytelling, authenticity, and visual aids.  

Basically, it’s all about what you say and how you say it.

Tell a story 

Often times when we think about how to make an effective presentation, we focus on the visuals. We add animations and transitions, hoping that will keep our audience engaged. 

If most of your attention and time is spent on design, you are missing out on a key element that is crucial for making presentations interesting – the story. 

The best presentations draw in their viewers with a relatable narrative, but the narrative also helps the presentation to gain memorability as well. 

You should be spending a large portion of your preparation time crafting your content – the actual information you will be sharing and how you will be sharing it. It doesn’t matter how good your slide designs are if they aren’t supporting compelling content. 

You don’t have to weave an epic tale for your presentation, but if you are looking to make your presentation interesting you need to incorporate some storytelling aspects, like personal connection and impact.

To achieve your purpose, you’ll need an outline. That way, your purpose is kept at the center of your presentation and you follow a familiar structure. You need to make sure that you have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Just like a regular story!

Presentations that are interesting from beginning to end take the audience on a journey. Steer away from reciting facts and from long tangents. Find a middle ground that’s personable and informative!

To create an interesting presentation, be sure you structure your content in a way that makes it easy to tell the story and provide your audience with a journey that is relevant and memorable. 

Be authentic and engaging

A key point that often gets forgotten when preparing presentations? YOU are the presentation.  

Leslie Chamberlain , Senior Director, Customer Education explains on The Visual Lounge Podcast :

“What it comes down to. Whenever you’re doing any kind of presentation, whether you’re doing it on a video, whether you’re doing it in front of folks in person, it comes down to your audience is building the relationship with you. Your slides, your images are not the presentation. You are the presentation. So as you go forward to present, be true to yourself, speak from your heart, and enjoy every minute of it.”

Lean into the parts of your personality that best serve the presentation’s purpose. Tell personal stories, speak in the same manner you normally do, and be open. Public speaking is always a little daunting, but with confidence, you can achieve anything!

Your body language should be easygoing, so try to use natural hand gestures and smile. Make sure to maintain eye contact with audience members. It will create a bond between you and them, which will increase their confidence in you.

Your energy is contagious. To make your presentation more interesting, you’ve got to bring the right energy. 

High-energy presenters get more engagement from their audiences while coming in with low energy is a surefire way to destroy any hope of engagement, regardless of how good a story you have crafted with your presentation’s content. 

Memorize your content rather than relying on reading your slides, and be sure to use different speeds and volumes throughout the presentation to make it more interesting, draw attention to specific points, and present authentically.

And don’t forget to use organic visuals in your presentation to support your purpose and drive home the information you’re sharing. 

Create a Video to Share Your Slides After Your Presentation 

To wrap it up, you can make a video of your presentation. That way, you’ll be able to use it again in the future without going through the hassle of presenting over and over.

To do so, you can simply video record your screen and your camera. With Snagit, you can do so easily and use some fun tools like Screen Draw to direct attention to certain parts of your slides. 

Record and share your presentation with Snagit

Snagit makes it easy to record your screen, camera, and audio for the perfect presentation setup!

Once you’re done recording and making simple edits, send the video as a link through Screencast. Hit the Share Link button to create a unique link to your video. Then, send it out to anyone who might’ve missed your presentation!

This is also a great way to get feedback on your presentation before it happens. Record a mock-up presentation using Snagit, and send it to your team for honest, constructive criticism. That way, your presentation will be so much better when the day comes!

Additional Resources

Email will never die. here’s how to make it better, information overload is real: here’s how to manage it, how to create a training manual: steps and tools that make it easy.

Michael Aragon

• March 18, 2019
• business , presentation , presentations

Related Categories

Related courses, free resources.

7 PowerPoint Tips to Banish Boring Presentations

You know it and I know it: PowerPoint is boring.

Why? Because the minute we sit down to create a PowerPoint presentation, we forget everything we know about engagement and persuasion .

How do you make a PowerPoint presentation interesting?

It starts with the realization that attention is the only currency that matters. You need to hook your audience’s attention the moment you begin—and you can’t let go for even a second.

Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think. And in this post, I’ll walk you through 7 PowerPoint tips to make your presentations more effective, so you can banish boring presentations forever.

PowerPoint Tip 1: Think Visual

The #1 most common mistake in PowerPoint presentations—and the reason they’re so boring—is that that we create them for us rather than our audience.

And the temptation is real. If you’re afraid of forgetting an important point, you’ll want to put every word into your slideshow.

But your PowerPoint slides aren’t notecards to keep your presentation on track. They aren’t for you at all. They’re for your audience.

The slides are a supplement to your speech, not a transcript . Their job is to capture your viewers’ attention and clarify your points. And to do that, you need to create a slideshow that’s visual, not textual.

Here is how to make your PowerPoint presentation more visual:

Use text sparingly. You may have a slide with only 1 word, or no words at all. After all, less is more with PowerPoint presentations.

Be liberal with images and graphs. Use them as illustrations for your main points or to add another layer of meaning to your message. And don’t be afraid to let them fill up the screen—with no words at all.

Use videos for pacing and engagement. Videos are especially engaging. They can capture people’s attention at the beginning of your presentation and reengage them after a slow or boring section. They can also be used to transition from one part of your presentation to a dramatically different part, since they create a natural break.

Don’t try to be cute. Visuals should support your presentation. And yes, they may be entertaining, but they should never distract or interfere with the readability of your slides. At all costs, avoid creating slides like this :

Of course, there may be times when visuals won’t work, and that’s okay. In some video sales letters , for example, the words are your visuals.

But even in a purely text-based presentation, you need to think about how it looks. Don’t put too many words on a single slide. Provide lots of white space. Give your audience just one thought at a time, so they stay engaged.

PowerPoint Tip 2: Think “Brand”

Whether it’s your company’s brand or your personal brand, you want to have a recognizable style.

When people see your presentations, they should know it’s yours—because the color and style scream you .

Apple is a good example of this. They’re the masters of “distinctive minimalism,” and everything they do reflects that.

You can pull any 2 slides from their presentations—often even years apart—and they still look like they belong to the same presentation.

Notice the trademark simplicity in this slide from an old Steve Jobs presentation.

And here’s Tim Cook years later. The slides are almost identical.

But how do you make sure you are creating your own well-branded presentation?

Don’t copy other brands’ designs. Your brand should be distinctive. Your presentations should be too. Stick with your brand’s fonts, colors, and unique style.

Design your slides to reflect your brand’s personality. If your brand is bold, go bold in your design. If your brand is understated, go simple. The point is to stay true to your own branded look and feel.

PowerPoint Tip 3: Create a Quality Layout

To create recognizable presentations, you need to develop a high-quality layout that can become your signature style .

A good layout involves everything we’ve talked about so far. It includes the way you come across visually and your branded fonts, colors, and personality. But it’s strategic as well—because you want the layout of every slide to look like you .

To do that, you need to decide in advance how you’re going to handle different design elements, and then stay consistent.

For example, the presentation below could be laid out any number of ways. It could have a traditional layout, like this:

Here, the text primary text box is at the top of each slide, with a secondary text box at the bottom. Images are centered with a yellow border that keeps them from bleeding into the blue background.

But if your brand is more modern, you might choose a more artsy layout, like this:

Now, both of these layouts can work. While most designers would agree the second version is “better,” in reality, the right choice is the one that aligns with your brand and works with the information you’ll be presenting. Here, the image is placed in the background and text is minimized. With this layout, slides are more engaging—less predictable.

What’s more important is that you create a PowerPoint layout that’s attractive to your audience. Then stick with it—don’t jump from one style to another.

And you can do that in several ways:

Use white space to your advantage. White space is the unfilled space between elements on the page (or in this case, the slide). It keeps things from feeling crowded and helps you keep your audience focused on what matters. White space is your friend. Embrace it.

Use animated transitions and multimedia sparingly. Animations can be classy or cheesy—and overdone, they’re usually irritating. An effective use of animation is to show one sentence or bullet point at a time. Avoid garish transitions that could become distracting.

Clip art is almost always a no-no.

Please. No.

Keep your layout simple. Every slide should have just one focal point.

Use gifs sparingly. Movement attracts attention, and gifs move nonstop. The problem is, they can distract people from your main message. So if you use gifs, don’t leave them up while you’re sharing important information. Show them, then move to the next slide while you talk.

PowerPoint Tip 4: Use a Template

Once you’ve settled on a good design for your presentation, turn it into a template. Then create a few variations for the different types of information you’ll present—say, a layout for lists, another for text with an image, and yet another for charts.

For example, this presentation by Edureka! has 3 primary layouts that keep everything looking consistent.

This is the primary template, which has text above and below a graphic:

This is the template for introducing new subtopics:

And this is the template for discussions, case studies, and examples:

Templates can make your life much easier. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time you need to create a presentation, you can simply pull out your template. With the design work already done, you can focus on the content—so you’re sure your presentation will be interesting.

PowerPoint Tip 5: Create Flow

In a strong presentation, every idea leads to the next. There should be no “stops” or awkward transitions. That’s true for your speech and for your PowerPoint slides.

Every slide should bring your audience closer to your final slide—or call to action.

Of course, flow is nebulous. It’s hard to create it, but easy to spot when it’s missing. While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules to ensure flow, there are several things you can do to make it easier.

Know your goal. It’s a lot easier to lead people to a place when you know what that place is. Every slide should bring your audience closer to your final slide—or call to action.

Edit content to fit your template. Don’t depart from your template. If an image doesn’t fit, edit the image. If your text doesn’t fit on the screen, break it up and create extra slides. To make a PowerPoint presentation attractive, you need to embrace the boundaries of your template.

Create transition slides. If you need to transition smoothly from one subtopic to another, create transition slides to bridge the gap.

PowerPoint Tip 6: Test Your Hardware

If you’re presenting live—whether on a webinar or at an event—make sure your technology will work.

Nothing’s worse than apologizing to the audience for 15 minutes because your slide show isn’t loaded and ready. Always have a back-up plan.

For presentations, have your laptop or tablet ready. Make sure your PowerPoint is already open—just in case.

For webinars, do some dry runs to make sure the internet and your hardware and software work.

PowerPoint Tip 7: Use Presenter View

Finally, use PowerPoint’s Presenter View when delivering your presentation.

Presenter View lets you to view the entire presentation—along with any notes you’ve written to yourself—while the audience sees only your finished slides.

PowerPoint’s presenter view lets you see the final slides PLUS presenter notes.

If PowerPoint doesn’t prompt you to select Presenter View when you start your slideshow, you can find the option in the “SlideShow” tab. To find it after you’ve begun the slideshow, look for 3 dots below the main slide view—you can click on them to bring it up.

Use Presenter View to write notes to yourself. This is how you can avoid using your slides as index cards. Add prompts, tips on movements or gestures, or specific stats and numbers that you didn’t want to include on your slide.

Meanwhile, your audience just sees the slides flowing seamlessly, and you look like a genius, pulling stats and figures seemingly from thin air.

Pull up the appropriate slide if someone asks a question. In many cases, questions relate to one of the slides in your presentation. When that happens, find the slide in Presenter View before you put it on the screen—rather than forcing your audience to watch as you flip through the entire stack.

Final Thoughts

PowerPoint can be your best friend or your worst enemy. So many people use it badly that it’s almost synonymous with boring.

In fact, there’s even a political party focused on removing PowerPoint from business presentations.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

With a little thought and time, you can make effective PowerPoint presentations that grab your audience’s attention.

Make PowerPoint your friend: Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Keep it visual. And people will be excited that you’re the one giving the next presentation.

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