1. Presentation Inspiration
KineticFuture: Leadership Communications Coaching
Adding Variety & Vitality
Changing pace will keep your audience listening and make them respond in the right way. Every
great presentation changes pace several times.
You can test for pace simply by talking it through. What are you hearing? If you’re bored think
about the poor audience.
The whole point of changing pace is to suit your material & help you get the key points across.
You need light and shade to add variety. It’s what we do naturally when we have conversations.
When you want your audience to stop and think use techniques that slow the pace. Use ‘fast
techniques’ to help them hurry onto the next point or conclusion.
For acceleration, try repeating a short phrase (Churchill’s we shall fight them on the beaches, we
shall fight them on the landing grounds…)
Another way to accelerate speech is to begin sentences with connecting words ‘ But.. However..
In other words.
A string of statistics builds up pace. A quirky statistic can slow it down.
A vivid metaphor or simile speeds things up if it’s instantly recognizable ‘float like a butterfly sting
like a bee’ and slows things down if the audience needs to think about it ‘my opponent floats like
a butterfly and stings like a bee’.
To slow down you can simply plan to pause. Use the ‘did you get that pause’ to emphasise really
important points. Count to three before moving on. Or imagine an Alka Selzer plopping and
fizzing in water. When it’s fizzed move on. The pause may feel like a lifetime to you but it gives
the audience a chance to think and realize the importance of the point you are making. Just don’t
over do the really big pauses! Choose your key points.
A question can slow things down. But if you ask a rhetorical question which you intend to answer
yourself such as ‘why are we now in this situation?’ – ask and answer it quickly before someone
in the audience supplies the wrong answer.