I can’t overemphasize the importance of capturing and holding attention. As a public speaker, it’s the first place you can fail to be understood, remembered, and believed.<\/p>\n

[embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Lz-S00ybt14[\/embedyt]<\/p>\n

Holding attention is very important in a presentation. Otherwise people won’t listen to what you say or hear what you say. That means you will also fail to persuade<\/a> them to take the action you need them to take.<\/p>\n

I think inside the mind of\u00a0all your audience members, they are thinking that this presentation is probably going to be boring.\u00a0 That’s the bad news.<\/p>\n

However, the good news is that this gives you an opportunity to take them by surprise and do something unpredictable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may\u00a0be a great business speaker<\/a>,\u00a0but no one will notice if you don’t start with a powerful, intriguing opening sentence.<\/p>\n

After all, smokers don’t like matches that fail to light with the first strike, and listeners don’t like speakers who fail to get to the point and say something interesting.<\/p>\n

Let’s say you want to talk about cyber security. Well, it’s not a good idea to say, “I’d like to take a few minutes to say a few words about a subject that’s very near and dear to my heart. And, I hope it will be near and dear to your heart when I finally get around to talking about it. And, that is the subject of cyber security.”<\/p>\n

Rather, you should say something like, “When you lose your data, you will lose money. You will waste\u00a0lots of time, and you will probably lose your mind to boot.”<\/p>\n

Here’s another tip:\u00a0 at the beginning, don’t say, “Hi there!\u00a0 Thanks for having me!”<\/p>\n

The six people who spoke before you have already said that. Your listeners have heard it six times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Capturing and holding attention is an art, but one that’s easy to master. When you begin, you’ve simply got to say something unpredictable–don’t be ho-hum!<\/p>\n

If this article was valuable to you, please support Sims Wyeth by sharing it. Find us and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t overemphasize the importance of capturing and holding attention. As a public speaker, it’s the first place you can fail to be understood, remembered, and believed. [embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Lz-S00ybt14[\/embedyt] Holding attention is very important in a presentation. Otherwise people won’t listen to what you say or hear what you say. That means you will also… Read More »Importance of Capturing and Holding Attention<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[336,24],"tags":[774,18,88,145],"yoast_head":"\n