I've given hundreds of presentations in the fourteen years since I started Collegewise. And I’ve probably sat through nearly as many as either a willing audience member or as one speaker on a docket of multiple speakers for an evening. I’ve written before (here and here) about how to give a great presentation. But here are five mistakes I see speakers make repeatedly that take away from their presentations and even annoy their audiences. I mention them here in part because they’re so easy to avoid.
1. Don't start without an end in mind.
What exactly are you hoping the audience will do with this information? What change are you hoping they’ll make? What action are you hoping they’ll take? You need to have answers to those questions, and your talk should be built around moving the audience where you want them to go. You might believe the only point of your presentation is to share information—it’s not (if it truly is, then skip the presentation, write it up, and email it to people).
2. Don’t start late.
Too many speakers wait until past the start time to begin their talks. Don’t do that. Yes, you might be tempted to wait until more people filter in, but that just punishes those who had their act together and showed up on time. If you absolutely have to wait, let the audience know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and when (exactly) you plan on starting.
“Folks, I’m having a few difficulties with the mic, so I’m going to spend no longer than 10 minutes trying to get it to work after which I’ll just forge ahead."
3. Don’t over-rely on visual aids.
If your presentation is spent reading bullet points from a slideshow, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time. Visual aids should help drive home the points you make in your talk. It should not make the points for you. Past posts on this topic are here, here and here.
4. Don’t do Q and A during the talk.
The problem with taking extended time to answer questions during a talk is that you lose control of the talk’s content. The questions may not be good. They may bring up areas you haven’t covered yet. And worst of all, the answers may be of no interest to anyone but the person asking the question (in which case you lose your audience). Instead, take questions in person at the end of the talk. And if you do decide to take questions along the way, be vigilant about cutting it off and moving on with a polite, “I’ll take one more question, then I need to move on.”
5. Don’t go over your allotted time.
If the speaker before you went long, eat the time difference and shorten your presentation. The audience will appreciate it.