It isn’t new to you that we live in a world where everything can be judged by anyone, especially when it comes to a presentation. When you stand in front of your audience, another version of you has entered the room and if the criticism of the crowd is not enough, you judge yourself too. Sounds threatening? Rightly so.
No one ever said that presenting a speech is easy, the opposite is true. Every move you make and every single word you say should be carefully planned to minimize the level of judgment you get from the audience.
You should know that the opening of the presentation as well as the closure should include your self-confidence that the message that you send is right. After we have seen how a person can increase his self-confidence effectively, I wanted to talk about the importance of the closure of a speech.
The closure influences the ongoing impression of your audience about yourself and your presentation. Your final words of wisdom that close the presentation could lead the crowd to an action. If the opening part catches their attention, the closing part should amaze them.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” Maya Angelou
Here I’m going to give you three effective ways to close a presentation and amaze your audience:
1. Go back to the beginning
One of the best ways to tell your audience an “official good-bye” and thank them for the experience you went through together, is to return to the starting point and remind them how the presentation began and where they are now. Here you should repeat a quote, a story or anything you think you may want to say again. This will emphasize the new subject they had learned from you. This way, you create a circular closing that often appears in movies in order to make the idea memorable in an effective way.
2. Repeat your important points
Successful presentation is often based on something we define as “power points” or main points. Use the closure to remind your audience all the main points you talked about during the presentation – “We started with… We went through this…We learned that …” I usually create a slide which contains frames and screenshots that show the main points of the entire presentation. This is highly recommended as it helps the audience to see the macro process.
3. Call to Action
In most presentations in which I participated during my life, there was no “call to action”. This kind of action is supposed to speed up the process of thinking and processing of the information that the audience has just received into its hands. The audience is willing to spend between 30-90 minutes in an interesting lecture because they want to increase their knowledge and add other values to their life. So make sure you tell them what to do and how to use the information that was acquired. When you close a presentation with a checklist of actions or enlightenment, your audience will be very satisfied from the entire journey.
You are probably reading this post because you have the will to get better and grow as professionals and your presentation skills are an integral part of this process. If you love this post you should take those tips and use them but also continue to spread them to your colleagues! Sharing is caring, as they said. You can also use emaze, our online presentation software, to create an engaging and professional presentation that will wow your audience.
