Are audiences sweet-toothed?

If you are giving a presentation to teach a group of people or you are a trainer for executives/managers this post is of great relevance to you. Even if you are none of the two, you should keep your eyes & ears open to what I am going to say next.

Audiences are sweet-toothed. Offer them chocolates and keep them hooked on.

It's true!
I made a presentation earlier this week to a large audience of 40. Most of them were first year interns who had come to my organization for a summer project. To make the presentation interactive and to avoid anyone sleeping off especially post lunch I went with a bag full of chocolates. Over the four hour animated & lively presentation I managed to get their complete attention through regular (and generous) doses of chocolates. For every great question asked by the audience, there was a chocolate. For every right answer to my questions, there was a chocolate. All in all I distributed some 40 chocolates in just 4 hours!

Was it the chocolate that did the trick?

Well both yes and no. People do like chocolates but more than that they like appreciation. Don't think its only the students who love appreciation, its also the executives and managers irrespective of their age. We all love appreciation. But instead of only verbal appreciation, I decided to give them a small token in the form of a chocolate. It costed peanuts but did a great job of keeping the audience hooked on to every question I asked and to every word I said.

It made the presentation really and truly interactive. But more than that it made the presentation fun and made it memorable. Something my audience had never seen or heard before.

If you are going to present to a group of students or executives where the purpose is training/teaching or something related to that, try giving chocolates as tokens of appreciation. I bet it'll work wonders for you!

Do you remember sitting through any memorable and interactive presentation? Think for a second and tell me what made it memorable? What made it interactive? Leave a comment.