From the course: Win New Business by Running Great Client-Facing Meetings

The provocative opening

- What's wonderful about a presentation is that the first few minutes of a presentation is where your audience listening attentiveness tends to be highest. So if you think about that coming into a presentation, the very first few moments are the highest levels of attention you're going to get. So it's about grabbing it and keeping it at that level. As opposed to needing to bolster clients, you actually want to grab their attention and keep their attention. I think one of the mistakes people tend to make at this stage is they dive into information that's really incidental or boring or logistical. So someone will get up in front of a stage and they'll start talking about, "Thank you so much for coming." They'll talk all about themselves. They'll talk about a bunch of logistics. What I like to do is do something that I call (snaps fingers) the provocative opening. I like to come in and say, "My name's Molly. "Thanks so much for that kind introduction. "I have a question for you." And then all of a sudden this high level of attention starts to engage the audience right away. Or I might say, "I was just reading an article this morning. "I'd like to share a little bit of that with you," and I'll bring something provocative in right at the very beginning to catch attention. That way, while client attention is high, the audience attention is high, I'm using it to their benefit, and I'm making something happen that's of interest to them. Later I can get to the logistics of housekeeping and how long the presentation is going to be and the agenda and so forth. But right away, I want to say something that's provocative or engaging, gets them to move their body, raise their hand, something that really trips their interest right away.

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