Controlling your climax

Controlling your climax:

How to deliver a perfect business presentation

By Nick Fitzherbert, author of Presentation Magic

“And then we shall close on questions and answers”.   It’s pre-ordained isn’t it? Presentations always close on the Q&A; that’s the way it’s always been done and we see the concept upheld to this day everywhere from the village hall to the Dragon’s Den. But you need to think about your climax and how you are going to control your climax to make your presentation truly memorable.

As a coach in Presentation Skills I take serious issue with the traditional placement of Q&As and generally advise anyone to avoid putting them at the very end if they can help it. As a member of The Magic Circle I am keenly aware of the importance of controlling your climax and just as attention must be in the right place for the ‘ta-dah moment of a magic trick, so too must business people send their audience away with their key messages.

If you leave questions until the very end, then it might be that someone asks you a really insightful final question and it might be that you give a brilliant answer, so that everyone goes away with that ringing in their ears. But it’s leaving to chance; it’s much more likely that some misfit at the back finally gets to have their say and brings everything down to his level.

Or perhaps no one asks a question. Everyone goes away with the memory of an embarrassing silence. Here you should step in to fill the silence with a Frequently Asked Question along the lines of: “Something I am often asked is….” This will be easy to answer and usually it kickstarts a series of real questions – the problem is often that no one wants to go first.

You want to send your audience away with a clear climax that embodies your key messages. So my general recommendation is as follows:

· Just before your conclusion say: “Before I conclude, what questions would you like to ask?”

· You answer a few questions and state that you have time for one more.

· You answer that and then say: “Thank you for your questions, now to conclude….”

· You hit them with your pre-prepared climax that contains your key
messages, including a call to action.

As I say, it’s the real world equivalent of the ta-dah moment at the climax of
a magic trick – the bit that the audience is going to go away and talk about.   So
you want as much focus and attention around that moment as possible and, above all, you want to be in control of it.

Presentation Magic is published by Marshall Cavendish and for more information go to presentation-magic.co.uk or business-bookshop.co.uk

ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com

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Controlling your climax