When you’re giving a presentation, a little mystery goes a long way. If you want to grasp your audience’s attention, start off your presentation with some visuals that get them thinking.


Chuck Garcia, the author of A Climb to the Top: Communication & Leadership Tactics to Take Your Career to New Heights, suggests you can build an air of mystery with cryptic slides or photos. That mystery will hook people in and make them pay more attention to what you have to say. Garcia gives an example at Fast Company:

If you’re speaking about the power of value investing, paint a scene that doesn’t give that away right off the bat... show a bottle of Heinz ketchup and a can of Benjamin Moore paint. Put on an apron from the Pampered Chef, and hand out some peanut brittle from See’s Candy. These companies, all investments of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, may not strike people as hot investment properties right away. But you can help set the stage for the idea that extraordinary returns can be accomplished through familiar consumer-goods companies, not just high-tech ventures.


It doesn’t have to be a series of photos either. You could show a graph that’s missing vital information, then build the suspense before revealing what the graph really means. It makes your presentation more like a move or TV show where the audience is brought into a scene before learning what it all means later. It may not work for every type of presentation, but it’s a great way to draw your audience in and get them focused on what you want to say.

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Three Better Ways To Start Your Next Presentation | Fast Company

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski .