Presentation skills are perhaps one of the most prized soft skills in business – now that may sound like a bit of a big statement, OK, but pause to think for a moment and consider the following mistakes that most presenters make – I know I have made them all !
There is no point being the best engineer or technician in the company, if you are unable to present your projects, products, services etc. to your peers and ultimately your clients.
Roscoe Tanner famously remarked, “The brain is a wonderful thing, it starts working even before we take our first breath, and only stops functioning when … we stand up to speak in public.”
Anyone who has sat through a presentation with an ostensibly perfectly intelligent human being taking the stage, can relate to this.
So if you really want to flunk a presentation, just follow these 20 easy points, a lot of people are already doing a lot of these already… :
1. Failing to reveal the real you and being humble: People can relate to real people, a presenter needs to reveal themselves as a normal human being going through a slightly abnormal process – standing up and speaking in public.
2. Thinking you have to be perfect – You don’t! Most people in the audience will help you out when needed, only glad that it is You standing up in front of them doing the presentation and not them .. There but for the grace of God go I.
3. Failing to have an objective with the audience – not knowing why you are standing there in front of them causes both frustration and confusion – Think! What do I want the audience to do after having listened to my presentation. If you are not clear then there is a good chance that the audience won’t be either – this can often be seen on their faces – what better way to maintain your confidence!
4. Not getting the attention of the audience from the word go – you have a relatively short time to capture the attention – don’t miss this golden opportunity or you will lose it all.
5. Asking for questions right at the end of the presentation – The last thing that people remember stays firmly in their head. If you have a Q & A session that gets sticky with negative questions or questions that you don’t manage effectively, they will leave the room with the “bad-presenter-taste” in their mouths, don’t let this happen.
6. Waffling – talking at length about pointless detail or being side-tracked by the audience. Get to the point and stay with the rythmn of your presentation.
7. Not taking the needs of the audience into account – An overly technical presentation for an audience with low technical knowledge or a general presentation for an audience with high technical knowledge of the subject will certainly send them off to sleep.
8. Turning the lights off in the room – apart from inducing sleep, especially after lunch, brings no real advantage to your presentation.
9. Leaving a slide up for too long – use the “B” button when you want the interaction or the attention of the audience away from the screen and to your speech.
10. Slouching, dancing on the spot, fidgetting or tapping – this will get their hackles up and annoy most audiences.
11. Not including a call to action – this needs to be the message that your presentation has converged to – What I want YOU (the audience) to do! This is closely linked with N°3. If you don’t tell them what to do – they just won’t do it.
12. Not giving signposts, where you are going with your presentation – when questions can be asked (or not – but tell them) and how long you are speaking for. If you are scheduled to give a presentation at 11am or at 5pm, What are the audience thinking about? – Yeah, lunch or going home – if you don’t reassure them that they will be able to leave in time to eat or pick up the kids then you will lose them.
13. Answering a question directly to the person who asked it. In a large room this is guaranteed to lose 95% of the audience – use the STOP method – repeat and Share the question with the rest of the audience, this ensures that you include everyone and also checks that you are answering the right question, furthermore, it gives you time to think about how you are going to answer it. Thank the person who asked the question graciously, not going over the top. Only answer the question that was asked – or throw it open to the audience, or defer to the expert. Politely verify that you have answered the question adequately. Or the CAR method – Catch, Answer, Return.
14. Don’t go for “Death by PowerPoint” – it is always fatal! Only use slides, colours, charts, diagrams, images etc. if they add to your presentation – a presentation is NOT the Powerpoint slideshow! Powerpoint can add to your presentation as a useful tool, but it is not THE presentation. Animation, noises and colours can have a negative effect on an audience – use with parsimony.
15. Generalising the benefits for the audience or giving examples that are not pertinent can turn an audience right off. Be aware that about 95% of the people in the audience do not want to be there – quite simply because their work is piling up on their desk while they are away – make it worth their while and communicate the benefits that outweigh them being away from their desk.
16. Giving too much information – people can only absorb so much information from certain media in certain ways – one of the biggest failures in presentations is the overload of information – a presentation should be planned with just enough information – no more / no less.
17. Reading directly from slides, the audience aren’t stupid – they will read a slide before you can! If you need to read a slide out then you have missed the point – just send them a mail or give them a Word document to read. You will also be, probably looking at the screen – so no eye contact with the audience and may also have your back to the audience while you are reading – I rest my case.
18. Don’t apologise if you happen to have missed a slide. If it is important just go back to it – if not, carry on as if nothing has happened – the only person who knows that you have made a mistake is yourself – well that is up until the moment that you let the audience know about it …
19.Be enthusiastic and enjoy your presentation. Enthusiasm is one of the few things on earth where there is no antidote – if you are enthusiastic then everyone around you will catch it – it is contagious, then again so is boredom. If you want to send the audience to sleep DO use a low monotonous voice, tell them from time to time that your subject is “boring” ,”complicated” or “difficult to understand” – you must have attended a presentation where the presenter suggested this – I know I have, and most of the time we comply – we get bored, we don’t understand and we don’t want to understand!
20. Not preparing yourself for the presentation – Know your material and your subject but most of all know yourself! No actor would go on stage without preparing themselves mentally, stretching, relaxing and doing voice warm-up exercises – however, most presenters seem to believe that they can wing it in some way, going “on stage” with minimal if no, preparation.
Rarely, if ever, does a presentation exceed the planning that went into it – planning is at least 95% of the presentation process, which includes preparation of yourself, your material and the venue.
If you fail to plan – you plan to fail! It’s as simple as that.
Presentations in business are all about change and moving things along – there are no “Just for information” presentations – we may give information but what we really want is to facilitate or catalyze change – think about this when planning the objectives of your next presentation.
You are in an extremely privileged position when giving a presentation, regardless of the objective – YOU are the expert, YOU have been chosen to represent the department / project / company – YOU!
Go out there and make the most of it – enjoy your presentation – it can be seen, felt and heard – get the enthusiasm across to the audience – manage the energy levels in the room and stay enthusiastic.
Active Consultants train people from Blue Chip companies in France and in Europe to give excellent presentations through their 2- day Seminar based training and accompanying E-Learning courses.If you have to give presentations to your team or to a crowded conference center – contact us to see how we can help YOU become an excellent presenter or trainer who relishes the opportunity of the next presentation.
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