[powerpress]
If you want to emphasize an important point during presentation or speech you need to do it in a specific way where it gets through the crowd and breaks through the clutter. Often people will zone in and out of your public speech and won’t be paying attention the entire time. I want to share with you ten ways to emphasize an important point during your presentation or speech.
It’s important to emphasize certain points that are really important so that we recapture the audience’s attention and make sure that they’re tuning into us when we’re talking about the really important things.
I want to go through 10 ways that you can emphasize your important points during your speech or presentation.
1. Call It Out
Call it out and that’s saying to the crowd “listen here”, “listen closely”, “this is important”, “I want you to hear this” etc.
All of these sayings are ways to call out this point before you say it to say that this is really important; I need you all to refocus, zone in and listen to this. One of the things I hear people say all the time which is great is “if you only take away one thing from this presentation this should be it”.
When as soon as someone hears that oh, what? I need to zone in. I need to hear what that is because I can just hear that and that’s the most important part of the presentation.
Step one call it out.
2. Use Repetition
Rather than just saying your point and moving on say your point, stop, pause and then say it again.
Use repetition to get that emphasis and to get that important point across.
3. Talk Softly (aka Whisper)
We are conditioned as humans that when someone whispers or talks softly we naturally want to listen to what they have to say because we think it’s an important secret.
If you talk softly and bring down the tone of your voice, bring it down to a soft whisper then you can really pull people in and engage them.
Again you can mix these points up so you can talk softly and call it out by saying look really need you to listen to this point. This is so important okay; listen closely. Then you can really grab their attention.
Another way would be to talk loudly. If you’re getting pumped up and you need to give something that just drives your message home then talk louder, pick up your decibels. Talk loudly and start yelling.
Obviously this doesn’t suit everyone but it depends if your point calls for it then use it. Talk loudly and emphasize it, yell it out to the crowd.
5. Slow Down Your Voice During The Point You Want To Emphasize
If you have a very important point, say it but slow your voice and really make a point of emphasizing that sentence that you want to get across.
Say it slowly. You can really engage the audience.
6. Instigate Intense Eye Contact With Your Audience
Make sure that when you’re giving your important point you’ve dropped everything; you’re not looking at your slides, you’re not looking at your PowerPoint presentation; you’re not looking at your cards, you’re not standing behind the booth.
You need to be standing out in front of the crowd. You need to have intense eye contact with the crowd and look directly at people and say to them your important point while giving intense eye contact.
7. Stop Moving Around The Stage and Assume The Power Stance
Tip number seven will be to stop moving and assume the power stance.
This means you stop moving, you stand facing the crowd completely in the center of the room or just off to the side of the room with your legs shoulder-width apart, power stance facing the crowd.
If you stop moving people will tune in during that important point.
8. Sit Down
If you have a stool or something like that that you’re using, maybe sit down during the important point as well because sitting is a way of reflect, a way to slow down the conversation with the crowd. S
itting down can help to bring people’s attention back to you to help you emphasize your point.
9. Simplify Your Slides
Tip number nine if you’re using slides and you have a PowerPoint or a Keynote presentation then make sure that this is the only thing on your slide or even better if you’re giving away a stat or something like that (we see Steve Jobs do this during his presentations) just have the number on the screen or just have the statistic on the screen or just have an important picture on the screen.
Make sure that the slides are not a distraction so people aren’t reading through the slides while you’re trying to give this important point.
Make sure it’s the only thing on your slide.
10. Make It the Climactic Ending to Your Story
Stories really help to engage people and when you start to come up to the end of the story where you’re kind of tying everything together and giving the moral of the story, by making your important point the moral of a good story makes it more memorable and something that people walk away with deep ingrained with them.
They will remember the story and they will remember the important point about why that story was told.
There’s your ten tips, ten ways to emphasize an important point during your presentation or public speech. I hope that this has been helpful to you.