Make an impact with your personal presentations

How do you feel when somebody is pitching to you and they are no good at it? And how come most people making a sales presentation get it so wrong?  What about your organisation – are you guilty of making many of the same mistakes that they do?

A two year on-line survey conducted by one of our clients and strategic partner, The Speaker’s Friend, the presentation skills coaching specialists, reveals that the most common mistake speakers make is being boring – lack of movement, variety in voice, gestures, facial expressions etc (39%).  The second is speaking for too long (17%), and in joint third place are speakers not knowing their subject properly and using bad English e.g. Um, er, you know, like (10% each).

Here are some top tips to help you avoid making the same mistakes:

Firstly, three of the top four mistakes relate to presentation delivery. Being boring, speaking too long and using bad English are all about how the audience feels about what you are saying to them and how you are saying it.

These five simple steps will help you overcome these problems:

• When preparing your pitch ask yourself the question “ if I were in their shoes what would I want the speaker to say to me and how should it be said?”  What do you know about their world, their own issues and challenges that will lead you to present only information they will find interesting and relevant?

• Structure your presentation so that it will have maximum impact from the start.  People can start to feel bored within seconds – plan to grab their attention and then keep it.  Remember – if they already know what you are going to tell them, they probably don’t need you to tell them.  However, when you help them discover new things, things which are directly relevant to them, they can’t help but be interested.

• Use plenty of good illustrations, stories, anecdotes, similes and lessons; these make it accessible, lively and memorable – but above all keep it relevant to them.

• Always plan to stop speaking before they stop listening!  Practice so that you know how long it will take.  If the first time you deliver it is when you do it for real, don’t be surprised if the timing is wrong, making you look unprepared and unprofessional.

• Having prepared yourself, all that remains is for you to present your message with conviction and purpose.  If you concentrate on communicating with (not “to” or “at”) the audience as you speak, by speaking from the heart (and not a script) and focusing on keeping them engaged throughout, you will avoid three of the top four most common mistakes speakers make.

The remaining problem relates to the audience believing that the speaker doesn’t know their subject properly.

Yet, the only basis they have for coming to this conclusion is what the speaker says and how they say it.  Most people who speak do know their subjects.  Their problem is that they can’t get the audience to recognise this, and people who make sales presentations are towards to top of the list of culprits!

Ways to avoid this include:

• Avoid unexplained jargon

• Avoid unfamiliar TLAs (three letter acronyms)

• Keep it clear and simple – don’t give unnecessary or irrelevant detail – but do make it real

• Lead the audience, rather like a good tour guide, pointing out the key information and items requiring decisions/action.

Whilst there are millions of other techniques, hints, and tips which might help you become a world-class speaker, if you implement the ones listed above they will put you in the top 25% as far as most audiences are concerned.

Free down load of the Top 10 Presentation Tips from The Speaker’s Friend.