It’s time for Presentation Quick Tip #2 and this time I wanted to talk about how to use quotes in presentations. Specifically, how to use a quote to introduce topics because I think a lot of people are confused by how to best use quotes in presentations. And so I’ve got a simple, super-useful way to use quotes that you’ll find very handy.
Instead of your typical, “Now I’m going to talk about Topic A,” start talking about your topic with a relevant quote.
Here’s how it would work…
If your topic was about increasing productivity, then find a quote about getting things done. For example, here’s a great quote from one of my personal heroes, Bruce Lee: “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
What YOU can say during your presentation is, “Bruce Lee once said, ‘If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.’ and that’s why I wanted to discuss some ideas about increasing overall productivity.
But here’s the coolest part…
You can now summarize your presentation using the quotes, instead of just listing what you said. Now you can say, “We heard that Bruce Lee said, ‘If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.’ I then introduced three ways we could boost productivity.”
Pretty cool, huh? I knew you’d think so.
Anyway, below is the video I made about this Presentation Quick Tip and the video script is just below the video.
Hope this helps and talk to you again soon.
Thanks.
Carl
If YouTube is unavailable in your area, please left-click to view or right-click to download the video here: Presentation Quick Tip #2 – Use A Quote To Introduce Topics
Video length 0:53
Transcript:
Hey there, it’s Carl Kwan here.
So in this video I’m going to give you another presentation quick tip, while on vacation.
What you can do when you introduce a topic to get the audience’s attention is to use a quote.
And one of the best ways you can do that, is to say, “Henry Ford used to say: If you think you can, or you think you can’t, either way you’re right.”
That’d be a great way to segue into a topic about motivation or getting things done.
Then at the end of your presentation, you can then repeat the same quote to reinforce what you taught to your audience or what you said to your audience, help them refresh their memory.
So use it to introduce your topic, then also use the quote to summarize your presentation.
And that is a presentation quick tip for you.
If you have any questions or comments about this one, please let me know by leaving your questions or comments below this video and we’ll talk to you again soon.
Thanks. Bye-bye.
There are 4 comments
Hi Carl. Hope you’re well. Nice clip – I really like the wide-angle composition and the lighting. On my laptop, the background looks quite dark but your face is very well lit, so that really focuses attention on you – good stuff. Looks like you must have used some kind of reflector to balance the light on your face. Can you tell me, what did you use for that? (Another video secret revealed!)
Now for my shameless plug – I’ve got a recent post that gives 6 tips for showing quotes on your slides. It uses a quote by Garr Reynolds (author of Presentation Zen) as an example, and another from Nancy Duarte’s new book (HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations):
http://remotepossibilities.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/how-to-use-quotes-in-your-presentation-tips-six-minutes/
I hope you find it useful! By all means leave a comment there with a link back to this or other posts of yours. Cheers!
Hi Craig,
I love your post about quotes! Very well-written and well thought out!
As for the video, it was shot with my Kodak Zi8 and audio was recorded with my iPhone held near my mouth out of the shot… In the alley behind my parents’ house in Vancouver! And yes, I did use a reflector… The garage door! 🙂
But I also applied some colour correcting and editing tricks to make the background darker and myself lighter. One of my favourites is a very subtle vignette.
Thanks again for your comments and for sharing your awesome post!
Carl
Thanks for your kind words, Carl, and for the “making of” tips – very enlightening (ho ho), especially about the garage door!
On the subject of vignettes, just in December I read a post by Nolan Haims on Geetesh Bajaj’s blog that got me onto using those to make photos look better:
http://blog.indezine.com/2012/12/gradient-boxes-and-vignettes-by-nolan.html
It’s such a pity PowerPoint still doesn’t do a good job of making a vignette on a slide. I’m guessing Keynote is better in that respect?
No, nothing in Keynote for vignettes. For photos, I’ve done it using an image editor. For videos, I do it in my video editing software. It can also be done on my iPhone using an app called TiltShift Video.