Presentation Training Tips:
Make It Interactive if You Can

By James A. Baker
Presentations Training Institute.
February 2009

The topic of presentations or public speaking covers a whole lot of territory. It can refer to anything from delivering a nomination speech at a political convention in a packed auditorium to presenting a sales opportunity to a 4-member client panel in a back office. It might involve training a group of volunteers for the local Children’s Advocacy Services Agency or presenting a technical lecture to a workplace safety convention. Anytime someone gets up in front of other people for the purpose of delivering important information to them, a presentation is taking place. Another thing that is taking place is that someone is probably daydreaming about their vacation that is starting next week, or maybe they are simply counting the ceiling tiles.

The biggest challenge to delivering a high-impact presentation at any level is making it interesting and engaging enough that your audience will pay attention and remember what you told them. Even the most experienced and respected public speakers will admit that it can be hard to keep people focused. Anything from temperature in the room to the time of day to the quality of the sound system to the comfort of the chairs can undermine the effectiveness of a presentation, and that is assuming that the presenter is highly skilled at his or her job. A poorly prepared, unskilled presenter can have even bigger problems. How do you keep people engaged and focused during your presentation?

Well-known life coach and seminar leader Tony Robbins reports that if you just stand their and talk, people remember about 5% of what you say. If they take notes while you talk, their retention goes up to 30%. However, if you combine talking with note-taking AND active participation, the retention rate goes up to a whopping 70%. Clearly, the key is to keep the presentation lively by creating ways for the audience to interact with the process. How can you accomplish this?

For smaller groups – anything under 50 participants – one of the best things you can do is request/require audience participation. This is especially important if you are leading any kind of training event. Throughout the presentation, plan spots where you will call on members of the audience and ask them a question, or ask them for their opinion about the topic at hand. You might even ask them for feedback about what someone else just said. Make the process feel like one big backyard conversation, but make it clear that anyone could be called on at any time. Invite people to come up and write on the flip chart or whiteboard. Break the audience into small groups of 4-5 and ask them to brainstorm on a problem for a few minutes. At the end of that time, ask them to share their ideas with the group. Anything you can do to keep them moving, thinking, and talking back will boost their interest and their retention.

What about with bigger groups, say, anything over 100? You can still draw them in. Ask them to repeat key phrases back to you, call on volunteers from the audience to come up and participate with you in an exercise of some kind. You can even have the entire group stand up and engage in some guided body movements that are coordinate with a point that you are trying to make. Any kind of movement or audience participation keeps things loose and lively. People won’t have time to let their thoughts wander because they will be preparing for the next surprise you could be throwing their way. They will probably also be having so much fun that they won’t be tempted to stair off into space, thinking about ceiling tiles.