Creating curiosity as you prepare a presentation

This vlog talks about how using curiosity in your preparation can make the content resonate with your audience.

Creating an active experience

Here’s the summary if you don’t have the opportunity to watch the video.

Make your content resonate

One of the things we often think of when we go into a presentation is that it’s probably quite a passive thing.

You know, we sit down, we get ourselves comfy, and then we just listen to the speaker.

But actually, if you’re a speaker and a presenter, then what you want to do is make that experience a very active experience for your audience.

How can you do that then?

And one of the key ways of doing that is to get people curious…

What’s going to happen?

Where is this going?

What journey is this taking us on?

Think about setting up curiosity right from the very get go, from your perspective. This is all about you being in a state of curiosity when you’re pulling your presentation together.

Because here’s the thing. If we think ‘right, this is what I’m going to tell them’ with no sense of curiosity, we’ll end up downloading stuff that we want to say with no regard for and no involvement of our audience.

So in our preparation, we need to be curious and preparation therefore is guided by questions to yourself about your audience.

Examples of creating curiosity

For example, what is it that they need to know in order for them to understand the point that you’re making? What do they already know that you could connect with? And link on and build on in order for them to get the point that you’re making.

What is their lived experience? Remember that that audience aren’t just there to listen to your point. They are people, human beings that have got a real life around and about your topic, your expertise, and your desire.

And therefore, you need to be curious about that to fit in what you’re talking about, to make it, resonate with them. What is the relevance of what you’re talking about? To them and to their lived experience as well.

Create intrigue and interest

And finally, how can you intrigue and interest your audience with all of that particular content? Making sure that it’s what they need to know. It builds on what they already know. It’s part of their lived experience, and it’s very relevant to them.

So when you next put the presentation together, I suggest that you start off with a series of questions based around your audience and therefore that spirit of curiosity will seep through your preparation, your crafting, and your delivery.

If you’d like to know about using hooks in your presentations, this video explains them in more detail.

Have a go and let me know how you get on. And of course, if you need any help, please get in touch.