Please Make Me Feel Something: The New Imperative in Business Presenting

Business presentations have never been more common or more challenging. Every day, millions of professionals stand before colleagues and clients to share ideas, insights, and recommendations. Every day, many of them wrestle with the same uncomfortable truth:

You can’t simply turn up and read your slides anymore

That era is over. Audiences expect more, much more. They expect expertise, clarity, and credibility, of course, but they also expect something presenters often overlook:

They expect to feel something.

The Five Words That Change Everything

Please make me feel something.

These five words are the heartbeat of modern communication. They are the difference between a presentation that informs and one that influences. Between a speaker who delivers data and one who creates impact.

Yet in business presentations, these words are often forgotten. Many presenters still believe their job is to transfer information, facts, figures, charts, and evidence, and while those things matter (and failing to deliver them could cost you your job), they are not enough.

Your audience’s minds may crave data, but their hearts are craving something else.

Why Feeling Matters More Than Ever

It’s easy to make an audience feel something: bored, numb, restless, indifferent. That happens when presenters hide behind slides, speak in monotone, or treat their message as a data dump.

But high-impact presenting demands more. It demands that we connect emotionally as well as intellectually.

These five words, Please make me feel something, force us to rethink everything:

– Who is my audience, really?

– How do they feel about this topic right now?

– Why does this matter to them personally?

– How do I want them to feel when I’m done?

– What must they feel to think or act differently?

This is the shift from presenting to connecting.

Stephen Covey’s timeless advice applies perfectly to presenting:
Begin with the end in mind.

In our coaching and training, we ask every presenter one critical question:

“How do you want your audience to feel?”

The most common answer?
“Informed and engaged.”

Informing and engaging are the bare minimum. They are expected and mandatory, but they are not feelings. If your only intention is to inform and engage, you risk boring your audience, even if your content is excellent.

Maya Angelou captured the truth perfectly:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

How to Make Your Audience Feel Something

Once you know how you want your audience to feel, everything you say, show, and do must align with that intention. Here are the essential tools of emotional connection.

Smile — the simplest form of connection

A genuine smile tells your audience:

– I like you

– I’m glad to be here

– I care about this

– You matter

Smiling is one of the most underrated skills in business presentations. It signals warmth, confidence, and humanity, the foundations of trust.

Create intimacy

Not candlelight and violins, connection.

Your audience came to hear you, not your slides. Let them see the real person behind the content. Share a little of yourself. Be willing to be human, not corporate.

As Thomas Leonard said:

“All problems exist in the absence of a good conversation.” 

Look them in the eye

Eye contact is about making a connection, not scanning the room or glancing.

Your audience wants to feel seen, not as a crowd, but as individuals with thoughts, feelings, and concerns.

AJ Harbinger put it beautifully:

“Eye contact is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to make a person feel recognised, understood and validated.”

Express yourself — fully

Movement signifies energy. Gesture conveys meaning, and expression fosters connection.

Don’t trap your hands or freeze your body, and don’t hide your face.

Let your body speak:

– Step forward when talking about the future

– Step back when referencing the past

– Let your gestures illustrate your ideas

– Let your face reflect your emotion

As Dale Carnegie said:

“Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.”

Loosen up — professionalism doesn’t mean rigidity

You don’t need jokes. You need humanity.

A light moment, a relatable anecdote, a touch of humour, these things make you more approachable and more memorable.

Elbert Hubbard captured it with a wink:

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”

Make it emotional — not just logical

Data informs. Emotion transforms.

Use stories, images, metaphors, and moments of suspense. Build curiosity, create drama where appropriate and keep your audience feeling something from start to finish.

Maya Angelou reminds us:

“Words go into the body.”

Your words should energise, inspire, and move.

Create Relationships, Not Listeners

Most business presentations are still one-way broadcasts, but audiences don’t want to be presented to; they want to be connected with.

Once you know how you want them to feel, your job is to build a relationship, not deliver a monologue.

Presenting is easy, connecting is more challenging and your audience is silently begging you:

Please make me feel something

If you’d like to learn how to make people feel something in business presenting:

– Book yourself onto a powerful public speaking course.

– Invest in some really good one to one public speaking coaching.

– Get yourself some excellent presentation training

Image courtesy of: Canva.com