Bookends start and finish a set of books on a mantle piece. The books would collapse without them. Bookends also apply to dealing with people. Simple conversations, business presentations and corridor negotiations all have bookends to keep them intact. In this article, I focus on business presentations and tell you what I mean about bookends and their importance in delivering a successful and professional presentation.
We have a very short time to make an impression at the start of a presentation. Our audience will quickly decide that our presentation has merit or not and will then sort through what is being said to find evidence that their first impression is correct. If they decide that we are worth listening to or that our presentation is informative or challenging, they will listen for evidence to support this impression. Negatively, if they decide the contrary, they will seek evidence to prove that their first impression was also correct. Have you ever noticed yourself thinking ‘This is a very professional presentation!' Perhaps you have noticed yourself thinking ‘I wish I could get out of the room unobtrusively'.
Here are some ways of starting a presentation in an impressive way that will have your audience attentive and motivated to look for positives.
Start with a story
Simply jump straight into a story that has relevance to your topic and finish with a linking statement. ‘The point of this story is to get you to think about ways that we could all....' A very clever way of beginning is to tell half a story at the start and finish the story at the end - bookends.
Start with a question
Does anyone believe that we could not improve our level of service? OK...how could we improve our service?
Open with a quote
Find a quote that is relevant to your presentation and start with it.
Tell people something interesting about yourself
A personal bookend is to tell people something about yourself that is relevant to the topic. If the topic is change then tell the audience about a change in your life that ended well.
Tell people what you are going to tell them.
Start with an explanation of what you are going to cover and how you plan to cover the material. "I will be speaking about safety today. I will begin with the main cause of accidents in our organisation and then offer solutions'.
Let's jump now to the final bookend.
People are more likely to remember the final bookend than anything else you present. They will remember the last few minutes providing you tell them that the end is near. A simple statement like ‘Now let me summarise what we have covered'. You will need to raise your volume a little to make sure they know that the final bookend is upon them. If they have been nodding off, here is your chance to get their attention back so you can send them away informed or motivated or both. Here are my final bookend suggestions.
Tell them that the end is near
‘Now! Let me summarise what we have just covered'. If you don't tell them that the end is around the corner, they may miss the end and the opportunity to make sure that they got your point.
Summarise briefly
Go back over the main points you have made...backwards. Start with your final point and move towards the first one. ‘I have covered three ways that we can improve our service. The last one is...".
Finish with a story
Perhaps you have been courageous enough to split your story and you can now finish your story and tell them the point of the story. If not, tell them a story that embodies the point you have made during your presentation. e.g Loyalty is better than satisfaction.
A final call to action
This final call to action is the purpose of the presentation embodied in the final moments. If you have been speaking about ways of building customer loyalty, you could finish with a challenge to the audience to use the ideas that you have presented immediately.
My challenge to you is to use this information immediately. The next chance you get to speak to a group is a wonderful opportunity to open and close in a way that you have not tried before. You will know that you have tried something new if you get feedback confirming this. More importantly, you will know that your presentation was effective if people change their behaviour.
Click here to view the continuation of this article 'Building the body of your presentation'.
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