So, there you are, ready to step out and make your carefully prepared presentation. You step on stage you welcome your audience and then you bring out the big opening, you tell them your best joke. The one you always tell to get a laugh. Well you better be sure it’s a good one or you are about to blow your credibility out of the water.

Are you sure your joke isn’t offensive to anybody in the audience? Will everybody understand the punchline? Will most people laugh? Have you got the delivery right? If you aren’t one hundred percent certain of the answer to any of these questions (and please double check even if you are sure) then ditch the joke.

Telling jokes is risky business in a presentation. Although people definitely want to be entertained and informed by your presentation, telling jokes may not always be the way. The problem with jokes is that they can polarise an audience. While one section of your audience may find your joke hilarious, others will think both you and the joke are dumb and another section may find both you and the joke offensive. With your first sentence the whole audience will have formed an opinion about you and your subject based on a joke that may not even be related to your subject.

When you open your presentation you are looking to make an impression that engages your audience in your subject and arouses their interest. So even if you are blessed with the ability to tell jokes and can choose appropriate humour, save it for the body of the presentation, use the opening lines to make an impact that is key to your subject.

Your opening line should challenge, surprise, intrigue or shock your audience. Make a bold statement about what they will get from your presentation (as long as you can back it up) and grab their attention. Tell part of a relevant story (even if the relevance is not immediately obvious) and leave them on a cliffhanger with the promise of the rest later.

Whatever strategy you use, your opening line needs to grip your audience and make them want to pay attention to see if your presentation lives up to the opening. Don’t let the dangerous business of telling jokes spoil the impact of your whole presentation.