One Minute Pause No 44

We have seen about 4000 presentations in the past three years. Here are the top six reasons why they tend not to have the impact they need, in reverse order:

6. Worshipping at the altar of PowerPoint

Too many people stare at PowerPoint rather than maintaining eye contact, and therefore diaglogue, with the audience.

Recently we trained a global logistics company in presentation skills. There was one problem common to everyone: their presentations all suffered because of their use of PowerPoint. They were stilted in speech, turned their back on the audience and let the screen take over the presentation.

We banned the use of PowerPoint in the second day of the training and by the end the audience was receiving lots of eye contact and we felt the presenter was actually establishing a connection with us. Most of the people vowed that they will greatly reduce their dependence on PowerPoint. We’re not calling for the abolishment of PowerPoint (yet), just its correct use. Seth Godin has an excellent PDF called Really Bad PowerPoint - you can get it for free here

5. Too many features, not enough benefits

Whether explaining something to a group, selling a product or producing a project update, most presentations are feature-heavy. “And another thing, and another thing…”. Benefits are much better than features as they make your presentation personally relevant for the audience. For example: A new HR Intranet is a feature, but the benefit of this is that each employee will save up to a day a year by not relying on paper based HR applications and forms.

4. Not enough examples

Examples are a brilliant way to help your audience understand and buy into your message or vision. The problem is when we present we tend to either forget or undervalue examples. There are always room for more. For example recently I heard a presentation from a key account manager at http://www.totaljobs.com/ talking about the various packages they offer employers. The presentation wasn’t bad, but was devoid of examples, and as such didn’t give the audience anything to sink their teeth into. The newly revised presentation loaded with examples was brilliant.

3. Talking about yourself

Sorry if I’m the first to let you know this, but audiences are typically bored by: the history of your company, how many locations you have, your structure, too much about why you are different, too much background to various projects - and anything else that doesn’t benefit them. If you must mention this sort of stuff, make it a minor part of your presentation or keep it for a handout/question time. Talk about the audience more and yourself less.

2. Drawing attention to your mistakes

If you make a mistake, the probability is the audience didn’t notice it. The probability becomes a certainty however when you draw attention to it. Just move on. No need to apologise, particularly about “hopeless technology, it always lets you down doesn’t it?” (yawn).

1. Cheesy company phrases

You deliver on your brand promise, your people are your greatest asset, you have value-add solutions, you’re an agent of change (possibly a pioneer) and you are looking for synergies given that you are largely mission-driven.

Leave out the cheese and tell us what you really mean! Bring some personality to your presentation. For example, if people really are your greatest asset, then tell us about what makes them great: “Rachel personally drove to Manchester one night to help a client prepare their financial statements” says a lot more about your people.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 3:10 pm and is filed under One Minute Pause, Presentation mistakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.