Sir Winston Churchill pithily highlighted the challenges faced when delivering a speech.......

"There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you"

Business presentations are made easier when started professionally. I.N.T.R.O. is a way of ensuring that your presentation kicks off in a confident way ensuring your audience are settled and engaged to listen.

Interest

Anything we can say that helps grab audience attention. Ideas include:

- Use of humour

- A relevant anecdote

- Quotations

- Pose a question

- Present some startling facts/statistics of the 'Did you know that.....' variety

- A qwerky title

- The key thing is that it's relevant to the content of the presentation.

Need

Why does your audience need to listen? How will they benefit? e.g. cost reductions; better way of working; more sales; faster way of doing things? Let them know to 'hook' them in.

Title

The title of your presentation, normally shown on the opening slide with your name and job title.

Related Information

Other things you may need to tell your audience include:

 - Who are you? Give some background to sell your expertise

- Duration of the presentation?

- Any comfort breaks scheduled?

- Health and safety considerations? e.g. fire evacuation proocedures

- When can questions be asked?

- Will a handout be available?

- Any ground rules? e.g. mobiles on silent

Overview

Give a brief 'road map' of the areas your presentation will be addressing. Normally accompanied by a contents slide.

So make your audience mentally and physically comfortable, with a thirst for listening, using the I.N.T.R.O.

Visit our website blog for more e-learning tips to circulate to colleagues and friends. Bryan Edwards is Managing Director of ABC Training Solutions Ltd (www.abctrainingsolutions.biz) which delivers training and markets a range of fully-designed, ready to deliver workshops, self study packs and other training exercises for the busy trainer. He can be contacted on 07747 602215 or [email protected]