This is part three of a four-part series on how to make your presentations more interesting. This week, we cover audience participation -- how to get your audience to help you deliver your presentation. When you do audience participation well, you can really elevate your presentations!

In the last couple of weeks, I mentioned that there are two major components of a fantastic speech.

First, you have to have good content that the audience wants or needs to hear. And second -- and this is the part that many presenters overlook -- you have to have entertainment value in your presentation.

You can have great content, but if your content is boring, no one will really hear you. So far in the series, we covered seven "impact ideas" that you can use to spice up your presentation.

Each of these seven presentation impact ideas can be used strategically through different types of presentations to build credibility and make your content more fun and entertaining.

This week, though, we are going to spend some time on audience participation. If you are delivering a persuasive speech to a smaller group, this addition to your presentation is like gold. In fact, presenters who get really good at audience participation can actually get their audience to prove to them what they are trying to prove to the audience.

Keep in mind that this is a very high-level type of addition to your presentation. I go into some depth with this one, because it has a high propensity to backfire on the presenter.

So, if you are new to presenting, this might be a tip that you hold off implementing until you get some practice. But for those of you who want to elevate your presentation, this is one of those skills that separates the amateur presenter from the more elite presenter.