If you have nodded off during a business presentation, you are not alone. An online survey by U.S.-based software company Infommersion Inc. found most business executives — 71% of those surveyed — admit they have fallen asleep or felt sleepy during a presentation. Almost half (43%) of these execs have observed other people catching a few zees during speeches, training sessions and meetings.

This may be an amusing bit of information — and not exactly a shock to those who have snoozed through their own share of seminars — but it loses some of its hilarity when you are the one doing the presenting.

How do you keep your audience from drifting or dozing off when running a seminar or making a presentation? Here are a few ways to keep your audience engaged — and awake:

> Nail your opening. Christina Kaya, head of Toronto-based Kayaco Seminars Inc. , which offers communications coaching, recommends practising your opening bit until it is as comfortable as your favourite pair of shoes. This is particularly critical if you are opening with humour, which will sound more natural if practised without notes, she says. She suggests practising the opening at least six times: “The opening statement shouldn’t be left to chance.”

> Edit wisely. “One of the key principles to holding attention is with the use of timing,” says Kaya, who also performs hypnosis shows at casinos (see page B4). Blame the frenetic pace of today’s popular entertainment — think 24 — but our attention span can’t take much more than 45-second cycles of information. Chop the presentation into manageable bits and time each one, she says: “As soon as you’ve gone past a minute, you’ve lost them.”

> Move a little. Use your space but make sure that you plant yourself once you’ve found your spot, advises Kaya. Weaving or pacing is distracting, she says. “The perception is that either you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re not sure or you’re lying.”

Another common mistake is using your own reference points for past, present and future. If you are gesturing about something in the past and naturally would motion to your left, you need to think of the audience’s point of view and point to their left instead, she says.

> Tease their brains. Ron Williams, president of The Lumen Institute, which runs public speaking courses across Canada, suggests that speakers encourage mental agility in the audience right from the start. Throwing a riddle or brain teaser their way will open up their minds and give the presenter the chance to get comfortable, he says.

> Make eye contact. “You have to make each one of [the audience members] feel that you’re talking to them individually,” says Williams. That’s not to say that your head should be moving back and forth “like some judge at Wimbledon,” he says, but making the effort of looking at each audience member provides them with the sense they are part of the discussion. You can even go so far as to toss in the names of audience members: “Isn’t that right, Sally?”

> Read your audience. If you see them drifting, do something about it. As a rule, any change — movement, voice or media — will snap them back to the present. Asking a question, rhetorical or otherwise, works well because an upward inflection attracts attention. During a longer seminar, Williams says, it’s important to encourage the audience to stand up and stretch at certain intervals to keep their minds engaged.

> Mix it up. Mimic the evening newscast when using different media in order to keep your audience interested, advises speech coach George Torok of Burlington, Ont. In other words, if you’re using PowerPoint, avoid the common tendency simply to highlight statements pulled from your talk. Instead, he advises using visuals such as charts and pictures. “If a slide is only words on a screen, it’s about as interesting as turning pages on a book,” he says. “If it’s a bad book, turning pages doesn’t make it more interesting.”

> Keep it real. A good presentation should be as effortless and compelling as a discussion between peers, according to Torok. A natural tone, a sincere sense of enthusiasm and a good dose of humility go a long way toward making an audience feel positively engaged, he says: “A presentation should not be a lecture; it should be a conversation.” IE

@page_break@