Last week, I made a video about using video to help you get and keep the audience’s attention during a presentation. I mentioned that I was going to do a follow-up and teach you something else about getting the audience’s attention and so, here we go. In case you haven’t seen the previous post about this, I highly recommend that you check it out because one of the techniques I’m going to teach you in this week’s video builds upon last week’s lesson.
Identity Crisis

The three techniques you’ll learn in the video were inspired by a recent trip to the Lotte Department Store in the Myeongdong area of Seoul. I was helping some tourists from Hong Kong and messed up what I wanted to say to them. Afterwards, I realized I made some simple mistakes that every presenter has probably made, as well so I wanted to help you learn from my mistake.

So check out the video below or you can skip the video and read the transcript underneath it. Either way, let me know if you have any questions about what I teach in the video.

Thanks and talk to you again next time.

Carl Kwan is a presentations, promo-video, and marketing consultant based in Seoul, South Korea by way of Vancouver, Canada. Carl specialises in presentations skills training, customised presentation design, video work to promote your company and marketing advice for local and global clients. Carl has been making presentation tips videos since 2009.

Get in touch with Carl by phone at 82-10-9087-2086 or by email to discuss how he can help you and your organisation give better presentations, grow your brand and sell more of your products and services.

Transcript

Some of you know that I live in Seoul, South Korea. But not all of you know that I’m not Korean. I was born in Hong Kong and grew up in beautiful Vancouver, BC, Canada. So I’m actually Chinese-Canadian… or is that Canadian-Chinese?

But what does that have to do with getting people’s attention in presentations, right? Well, you see, since I speak Cantonese and a bit of Korean, I sometimes help tourists from Hong Kong if I see them having some trouble when they’re buying something or whatever. In fact, it just happened recently where I helped some people buy some food but in my excitement to speak Cantonese, since I don’t get to do it that often here, I ended up speaking Cantonese but with a Korean word thrown in.

I knew I said something wrong but I couldn’t quite figure it out and these people were looking at me like, “Huh?” I guess I was too excited to show off that I can speak some Korean and Cantonese and got a bit anxious and ended up confusing people, instead.

Anyway, I thought my experience would be a good presentations lesson in getting the audience’s attention during a presentation, especially when you have to give a presentation in another language, like English, or if you’re a bit nervous or anxious during your presentation.

For those of you following along at home, this is a follow-up to the video from last time where I talked about using video during your presentation to get attention.

Ok, so here are the three easy ways to get the audience’s attention during a presentation.

First, slow down at the important points in your presentation and speak really clearly, like you’re overemphasising those words.

This will help you say what you want to say correctly, unlike what I did, and overemphasising certain words will get the attention of your audience because there is a change of pace in your speaking and in your voice tone.

Second…Pause…

For emphasis.

Whenever you briefly pause just before you say something important in your presentation…

The audience gets drawn in. You only need to pause for a couple of seconds because any longer and people might think you forgot what you were gonna say.

Third, repeat your key message.

A little while ago I made a video called “How to give a memorable presentation with one sentence” where I talked about having a key message that you repeat. In this case, what you can do is repeat your key message using one of the techniques I just taught you. So for example, you could say your key message slowly or you could pause just before you say it. This will not only get the audience’s attention, but will also help them better remember your key message because you’ll have repeated it several times.

There you go… Three easy ways to get the audience’s attention during a presentation.

And they were…

Number one, slow down at the important points in your presentation.

Number two…Pause…

For emphasis.

And number three, repeat your key message together with one of the other two ways I just told you about.

What’s something you’d like to learn about giving a presentation? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for watching and talk to you again next time.