Three Most Common Presentation Mistakes

Sure, there are a lot of things that could go wrong in a complex presentation. But here are the three most frequently occurring mistakes I’ve noticed over the years. Make sure to evaluate your own presentations for these blunders!

Content: Me, me, me.

One common pattern that speakers fall into is spending the first five to ten minutes of their presentation talking about themselves, their credentials, and how great their business is instead of focusing on how they can help the audience. Give your bio and credential information to the host as your introduction, or provide this information in a handout. The introduction of your presentation needs to be all about the audience. What’s going to steal their attention from their smart phones and wandering minds and lure them in to what you’re about to present? It won’t be your CV.   
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How to Choose A Topic How to Choose A Topic for Your Next Presentation or Training

Have you ever been asked to speak for a group because of your experience, reputation, or expertise? What an honor! After enthusiastically agreeing to the opportunity, did a moment of panic settle in and you asked yourself “What should I talk about?” Don’t worry. Here are some tips that will help you the next time this happens.
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Creating "B" Moments

If you want the audience to focus on what you have to say at a particular moment in your PowerPoint presentation, hit the B key on your keyboard. This will turn your screen black and you’ll suddenly see eyes shift to you to focus on what you have to say. This is a powerful strategy to use right before you tell an emotional story or if you want to wake up the audience and do an activity that requires audience participation. If you decide to try this, use it only once during your presentation to have maximum impact.

To return to your PowerPoint presentation, simply hit the B key again.

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Preparedness 01/15/2012
 

Preparedness: Being ready for the unexpected

So, your suit is immaculate. Your script is flawless, your printed materials are vibrant, your slides are gorgeous, and your hair looks great. You are prepared to not only engage and entertain your audience, but you’re pretty sure some of them will want to invite you over for dinner. However, even when you’ve done everything possible to pave the path to your success, the unexpected can creep in.

One of the most common ways a presentation’s outcome is challenged is a hardware or software failure. A laptop overheats with no warning, a conference room screen is MIA, or a backup file is unreadable by a loaner computer. Speakers are able to not only embrace these unforeseen events, they can thrive with and be prepared for them! Here are some tips help you adapt to a slide-less presentation:

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Avoid Blasting Your Audience with Bright White

Here’s a quick and easy design tip to help your images remain the focus of your presentation slides. When designing a PowerPoint slide that has an image that doesn’t quite take up the entire slide or you want to place multiple images on the same slide, set your slide background color to black. The reason why is because white backgrounds projected in a dimly lit room tend to blast the audience with bright light, taking away the focus from the images.

Also, for a dramatic effect to get the audience to focus on what your saying, have a slide set to black with nothing on it. This is like turning off the TV and focuses the audience’s attention to your speaking and body language. This cool tip is only effective when used sparingly in your presentations.

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Acrobat Reader to the Rescue!

Want a PowerPoint alternative to show your cool slides? How about a backup option just in case your PowerPoint doesn’t work properly? Acrobat Reader is to the rescue! Set your multiple-paged PDFs to play as a slideshow in full screen mode. For those PKN presenters out there, you can also set it to advance after 20 seconds. Check out this tutorial.

CreativeTechs’ article Build an Acrobat PDF Slideshow

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Professional Development, Personal Growth

Professional development is an area that’s sometimes pushed to the side for business owners, seasoned professionals, and freelancers since it sometimes viewed as an “extra thing”. However, well-planned professional development can be a source of inspiration, a mechanism to avoid burnout and a way to set you apart from your competition. Professional development can be as simple as reading a book in your profession, subscribing to a trade magazine, attending a training, enrolling in a class, subscribing to a blog in your profession, or planning regular critique meetings with respected colleagues.

If you’re looking to ramp up your presentation skills, here are some great book recommendations:
As for my personal professional development goals, I plan to finish the Competent Communicator manual in Toastmasters, participate in all six Bemidji Pecha Kucha Night events this year and find a TED event to attend this year. I just attended Duarte Design’s Slide:ology workshop in Mountain View, CA and it was awesome (if you can’t attend in person, they have some  Webinar opportunities).

How about you? What is one thing you will do in 2011 for your professional development?

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A Peek into a Presentations Designer's Media Kit

Being involved in presentations means that you are not only prepared, you are the virtual Swiss Army Knife in your clients’ pockets. These are some of the essentials in my personal kit:

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