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The last few moments of your presentation are crucial, since they’re the most likely to stick in your audience’s mind. Here are a few of the twelve tips Open Forum offers to hitting a slam dunk in your last thirty seconds:

A touch of humility. In a world where everyone flashes their achievements and opinions, those with an understated approach shine. Supermodel Cameron Russellends her talk on TED saying, “If there is a takeaway to this talk, I hope it’s that we all feel more comfortable acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.” Contrast this with a bolder, “As I have proven to you, image plays a powerful role in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.” When you make a compelling case in your presentation, there is value sometimes in contrasting this with a touch of humility at the end.

A return to your opening. A standard piece of advice on closing is to return to your opening. For example, refer to whatever hook you used in starting your presentation. This can be a wrap-up of a story you started or an answer to a question you posed. It can also be a reaffirmation of your presentation title or the title of the conference at which you’re speaking. You can’t go wrong with a book-end closure.

Full story at Open Forum.

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