How to snap 500 people to attention in under a minute

Posted by Sean D'Souza on 21 July 2011

In the final part of his 12-part series on giving perfect presentations, Blackbelt Presentations author Sean D’Souza explains how to use props to gain your audience’s attention, make your presentation more memorable and increase sales.

How do you snap a crowd of 500 people to attention? The same way as you snap a group of 10 people to attention: You use a prop.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been speaking …

If you pick up a prop (any prop) you’ll find that the audience is immediately riveted in the direction of the prop. And you know the reason why: it’s just a factor of curiosity. As humans, we’re highly sensitive to change of any kind, and there you’ve been blah-blahing for the past fifteen or twenty minutes, and the only change has been the onslaught of slides.

Well the props provide a very welcome change from moving slides

In fact, props do a lot of outstanding work during a presentation. So we’ll examine the main role of props, why you need them in advance, how to handle them right, and of course how to use them at the right moment.

So what do props do very effectively?

They change the speed of your presentation. They create instant attention (no matter what’s happening). They educate the audience in a unique manner. They create a wave of response.

1) Speed of the presentation

Every good presenter is like a good long-distance runner. They pace themselves. Sometimes they go fast, sometimes slow. And what props do very effectively is break the momentum. Now you may wonder why it’s a good idea to break momentum. After all you’re sailing along nicely down the track. Why would you want to change your pace? Change of pace is important from an attention point of view. Even a slight change of pace immediately wakes up the brain and re-focuses your audience.

So if you’re going fast, the prop instantly slows things down. If you’re going nice and slow, the prop can speed things up a lot. In most cases, you’re going to use a prop to slow things down, because as a presenter you tend to get lost in your slides and it’s slide, after slide, after slide. And so you need a break and the audience needs a break. And the prop comes out. And slows things down just that little bit.

So let’s take an example

In The Brain Audit presentation for instance, I have several props. One prop is just a whole bunch of scrap paper. Another prop is an empty water glass. And of course the now-famous chair.

I stand on the chair, sit on the chair, stand on the chair, sit on it. 
And then explain how most marketing is broken. Because unlike a chair, which is built on science, most marketing is based on whimsy and a lack of understanding of customer behavior. I use this chair at the start, middle and the end of the presentation. And so the chair forms an indelible memory of the whole concept.

What’s important however, is that the chair speeds things up at one point (right at the start). And then it slows things down and makes a point in the middle. And then it encapsulates the entire concept as a form of take-off point or crescendo. It’s just a single prop, but based on when it’s introduced, it changes the pace and achieves different goals. What’s important is that the pace changes instantly.

No matter how fast or slow the pace has been right until that very moment, it now goes into a pace determined by me, the presenter. This is control. And props will give you this control, because breaking pace is critical for attention. And talking about attention takes us to the second point: Getting attention no matter what’s happening.

2) Getting instant attention

As you probably already know there are points in your presentation when the attention is just ragged. This could be the start, the middle, just past the middle or towards the end. And having props at pre-arranged spots is not just nice to have, but critical to keep ‘waking up’ the audience.

You need to know when you’re going to wake up the audience and do it often enough. This breaks the ‘monotony’ of your presentation and instantly creates a sense of renewed energy in the room.

As your hand goes to pick up the prop—and it doesn’t matter what the prop is—you’re going to get attention. Having these props on hand is critical. For example, you’ve read how I use the chair in The Brain Audit presentation. At one point, I also throw a whole bunch of sweets into the audience.

Now this throwing of sweets, rolled up balls of paper etc. are not only planned, but they have to have a reason behind them as well. You can’t just try to get attention by doing random stuff.

Each of the props must fit logically into your presentation, otherwise the audience will see the props as gimmicks, leading to a complete loss of credibility on your part. So using the props judiciously is important.

3) This brings us to education

You can stand on a podium and say something like this: “You should not try and market to everyone, because you’re wasting money and you’re wasting energy.” Or you can have a prop like sweets. I throw a whole bunch of sweets into the audience and most of them fall on the floor. And then I say: “That’s your advertising. If you just aim it at everyone, most of it gets wasted.” Now you see how the prop really helped get the message across better than empty words or just a slide? A simple prop can make a massive difference.

Talking about massive difference, I have a little musical prop (it’s a tiny music box) that plays ‘Hey Jude’ by The Beatles. If I hold it up in thin air, it plays the music beautifully. But if I put it on a wooden surface, that music gets amplified many times over, giving the same music a rich, wonderful sound. And this is an example of how a simple change can result in tremendously improved results. So instead of empty words, a simple prop can drive home the point extremely well.

4) Props create audience response


When the audience is excited by the prop and the education, they respond. They laugh. They clap. If you throw things at them, they even throw them back.

This excitement changes the audience mood, even elevates it. I know this sounds repetitive, but anything that lifts the audience’s mood lifts your mood too. And this makes your presentation so much more effective, memorable, and while we can’t show exact proof, does increase sales.

Having props is crucial. Knowing when to use them is just as important. And guarding them so they’re not mistakenly taken away is always a good idea. So get a prop and use it to good advantage!

More great advice on presentations

This is the final part of a 12-part series on writing perfect presentations by Sean D’Souza, author of the Blackbelt Presentations series

Read more about Sean D’Souza’s new Blackbelt Presentations series

Read Part 1: Simple steps to take the fear out of your presentation

Read Part 2: Why variation is the hallmark of outstanding presenters

Read Part 3: Do you quickly want to get the attention of your customers when you’re speaking?

Read Part 4: How to keep your audience coming back for more

Read Part 5: How to get your audience to remember what you said more

Read Part 6: Should you take questions at the end of your presentation?

Read Part 7: How the wrong example alienates your audience

Read Part 8: How to be a rock star presenter

Read Part 9: How to handle questions when training

Read Part 10: Why ‘Impossible-To-Goof-Up’ Questions Relax Your Audience

Read Part 11: Why presentations need one thought per slide