By their own on-stage admission, most stand-up comedians are failures. They’re all romantic disaster areas who can’t get a real job, and they don’t mind saying so, night after night, to rooms full of people.
And yet, they’re better at your job than you.
(Pause for gasps from the audience!)
One specific bit of your job, that is: presenting.
So it’s time to up your presentation game. It’ll be fun, because the way to do it is by watching funny people. Like Comedy Store regular and Whose Line Is It Anyway? alum Neil Mullarkey, who’s joining us to talk about why comedy is also like training.
Join us at 'Why training is like comedy'Here’s what to look out for through your laughter.
Comedians can do it without slides
Most comedians don’t want to share your attention. They want it all on them. No distractions.
In most business presentations, that’s just what the slides do: distract. Steal the spotlight from you, the speaker.
Which of your slides do your audience really need to see – and which ones are just there to remind you what to say?
Even scarier for professional presenters: when comedians do embrace slides, they’re great at it:
Clue’s in the name: stand-ups stand up
You don’t see a lot of comedians pinning themselves under desks, or walled off behind laptop screens.
They stand up. They move about. They own the stage.
Standing up to present helps you breathe easier, lets you move more (which draws drifting eyes back to you) and asserts your authority as the speaker. Yes, including when presenting online. Try it.
Comedians can handle a crowd
They’ve learned the hard way. You don’t survive your first month as a stand-up if you can’t shut down hecklers – or strike up spontaneous banter with the brave souls in the front row.
Luckily, you don’t tend to get actual hecklers in a business presentation. But we’ve all encountered that one person who wants to derail the presentation with questions and interruptions.
Learning to roll with the punches like a comedian, so you can address interruptions while staying on track, will have your audience in awe of your confidence and control. But you’re also within your rights to counter with “I’m coming to that” or “Let’s keep things on-topic”.
Comics aren’t afraid to repeat themselves
The repetition is what makes a running gag more than just your average joke. And there’s a reason why so many comedians end their set with a callback to an earlier joke.
You might worry that repeating points will lose your audience’s attention. But if you don’t believe the comedians, at least listen to the psychologists. They’ll tell you that repeating an important point makes it more memorable. Even more so if it’s the first and last thing you present. End your presentation like a stand-up set: with a callback!
Join us at the Comedy Store and Neil Mullarkey will tell you the same thing.Written by Matt Boothman, Senior Writer and Trainer at Definition
