Speaker 1: Picture this. You've been working on this presentation for about a week or more. It's time for you to now give that presentation online. Now let me introduce you to Abe. Abe is one of the key people in your audience. You really care about what he thinks. At first, it seems like he's paying attention but then you can tell he's not. You can see his eyes darting all over the place. As a matter of fact, while you're presenting, he has actually cleared his inbox, liked some pictures on Instagram and even responded to an IR. And just when you think he's now paying attention, well, you realize he is not. Abe is actually staring at himself on video. Abe? Abe? I'm sorry, could you could you repeat that? I was, I was multitasking. Hello there, how you doing? My name is Mukhtar. Now it can be a challenge holding people's attention in an in-person presentation. Now this is even more so the case when you do a presentation online. There's so many distractions available. Well, how do you actually keep people engaged in an online presentation? Well, I'm going to share with you three things that you can do that would help you keep your audience very engaged. If your presentation is more engaging, your message will be better received. It's easy for you to get buy-in and it's also not a waste of your time. And you never know the next time you book a meeting, people might just be dreaming about your meeting instead of them telling you that they are triple booked. So if you like this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel so that you can get more videos like this and feel free to spread the message that other people can benefit. Okay, so I'm going to start with a fundamental assumption that you've done your homework and you know what your audience want. You're just looking for how to present your material in a way that's more engaging. Now if you haven't done so, I highly recommend that you go and do your homework as to what your audience want. And some questions I can help you with that are, why should my audience care about this topic? What will they gain by giving me their attention? How will the audience be better from having listened to my presentation? So these are just some questions to consider when preparing for your presentation. Speaking of questions, let's go into our first tip. Tip number one, ask your audience questions. Don't be afraid to ask your audience questions even if they are above you in the organizational chart. Ask them questions. Matt Abrahams, a communication expert and professor at Stanford University says, of all the tools and techniques a speaker can use to make a presentation more effective, the simple question is the most versatile. Think of it as the Swiss army knife of presenting. A well-timed question can accomplish a myriad of communication tasks from building intrigue to fostering audience engagement. And you can ask questions in different ways. One way is to ask a question where you expect a right answer. For example, instead of just going through your chart, you can ask the audience about something on your chart before you reveal it. If you're not comfortable asking questions this way, then you can ask questions that don't really have a right or wrong answer. For example, a poll. If you're giving a talk on productivity, for example, you can ask how many people prefer to work in the mornings as opposed to how many people prefer to work in the evenings. This is just an example. Now make sure you remember to tell your audience how you want them to vote. Do you want them to type in the chat or do you want them to vote on a polling website? Another type of question that you can ask is a question where you don't expect an answer. This also has an engaging impact on your presentation. It can make you sound natural, make you sound more conversational. Like for example, what's the best way forward? Do you know the most interesting thing about this problem? After you've posed the question, then you can go on and answer it. Quick caution, don't overdo questioning. It could have a negative impact on your talk. How you might ask? Well, how would you like it if I kept on asking you questions? Would you be excited about that or would you be annoyed? Would you be just a little bit annoyed or very annoyed? How would you feel if I kept on going on and on and on? Are you getting tired of me now? Have I made my point? Would you want me to continue? Tip number two, tell stories. Telling stories is one of the best things that you can do to raise your presentation game. There's so many things that have been said about storytelling and I will just mention a few. Storytelling allows you to connect with the audience at a deeper level. The best speeches and presentations usually have stories in them. Don't take this from me. Chris Anderson, the head of TED, said that many of the best TED talks are anchored in storytelling. Now, you might be thinking, I'm in the corporate world. This is serious business. There's no time for stories. Well, check this out. This article on the Harvard Business Publishing website mentions research that says that facts are 20 times more likely to be remembered if they are part of a story. And I recently just did a lot of trainings online. And in my online trainings, I make it a point to always add stories. Stories from my past, stories from my work experience, what worked and what didn't work so well. And whenever I get feedback on those trainings, the students usually mention my stories as one of the things that they remember. One of my teachers usually says, let stories do the heavy lifting for you. Well, you might be thinking, I don't have any stories. Well, yes, you do. Whenever you narrate something from your past, that's a story. Merriam-Webster defines a story as an account of incidents or events. So when you tell someone something about what happened this morning, for example, well, that's a story. Now, one formula for telling good stories is this. Your story should have a character. Your story should have a challenge, which is like an obstacle or a crisis. Your story should also have a climax, which is your character overcoming the challenge. And finally, your story should have a conclusion, basically, which is the point of the story, the moral of the story. So these are the four ingredients that make up a good story. This is just one storytelling formula. Now, you don't have to follow this formula to a T, but always make sure that there is a point to your story, that it links to the point that you're trying to make. I recall there was this geography teacher that I had in school, in secondary school or high school, and his lessons were usually very captivating. He was a very good storyteller, but we didn't learn much. We were happy to be in his class, but we didn't learn a lot of geography. Now, thank God I was temporary because my sense of direction would have been way off. And your stories don't have to be long. So the story that I just told you about my geography teacher just took some seconds. So how can you tell stories in your presentation? So let's say, for example, you are about to give a presentation about the solution to a problem. You can tell the story about how you discovered the problem. You can tell the story about how you explored various solutions. And then finally, you can tell the story about how you arrived at the one solution. This is just an example. So remember to tell stories in your presentation. Tip number three, change things up. I recall there was this training that I was supposed to attend and I remember thinking, oh my, this is going to be a long day. But the teacher was actually amazing. Before we knew it, the day was over. And what she did was that she changed things up regularly. So some of the things that we talked about, she asked questions, she told stories, and even more things. She played videos. She did breakout exercises. We took a lot of breaks. So just change things up regularly in your presentation. And you might be asking, or you might be wondering, how often should I do this? Well, you just have to experiment. If you have a 30-minute presentation, for example, you can start with every five minutes and then you can make it more frequent or less frequent as you see fit. But make sure that any change that you make contributes to your message and not detracts from it. Okay, now I have a bonus tip for you because you've stayed this long in the video. And that tip is to use pauses. Our voice can become background noise. It can become white noise. And people will just tune you out if you just keep on speaking continuously in your presentation. Pausing interrupts that pattern. Don't be afraid to take pauses. I know it can feel uncomfortable. In my experience, the pause usually sounds longer to the speaker as opposed to the listener. So try this out. Take out your phone, record yourself for about a minute, and in between take deliberate pauses and then play back as a listener. More than likely, your pauses will sound natural. Whenever I hear my recordings, my pauses usually seem natural even though in my head when I was speaking, it felt like ages. So in conclusion, the next time you're going to have that presentation, remember to ask questions, remember to tell stories, and remember to change things up. Doing these small things, making these subtle changes, could have a big impact on your presentation and make it more engaging. Now I would like to hear from you. Let me know below in the comment section what you do to make your presentations more engaging. If you like this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel so that you can get more videos like this. And feel free to share this video with other people so that they can benefit. Until next time, see you.