The 4 mistakes to avoid in presentations

By | 18.01.2021

Too often, business presentations are like baptismal photos of the firstborn: only those who took them like them.

If at the mere expression: ” Maybe at the marketing meeting tomorrow I project a couple of charts “, colleagues vanish, perhaps your presentation style it’s not that effective.

Don’t worry, you are not alone: ​​many professionals, even at a high level, show some weaknesses when it comes to getting on stage and presenting a topic to an audience.

Want to get out of the tunnel of nightmare presentations? Here are the 4 mistakes you shouldn’t make

1. Using the length of the presentation as a measuring unit of its effectiveness

As long as it is appreciated? Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the more substantial your presentation, the more the audience will think you have done a super job.

Just as the productivity of an employee does not depend on the hours he spends in the office, so the quality of a presentation does not lie in the number of pages, but ‘the effectiveness of his content and in the document’s ability to help the speaker be convincing and emotional.

Remember: less is more. Both in the number of charts (dry as much as possible) and in the number of words per page (better to stay under 10: use short introductory attention getting statements, to give you the expository momentum) .

2. Using too polished words

Delivery, charge ability, top priority, proactivity, affordability, high-fidelity: business big words often help the speaker set a tone and convince him to be able to impress the audience.

A status target that conflicts with message decryption: If you have to sell your ideas during the presentation, you absolutely must make sure that the audience understands what you are communicating perfectly. Clarity of presentation is therefore fundamental.

The rest, however, is just a sterile exercise in style.

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3. Making slides that are too dense

If you are a loyal customer of the wall slides, remember that people came to your presentation not to read, but to listen.

The presentation document, therefore, must be lean and with little text, to support your speech, without overlapping.

To facilitate the audience, and leave them free to give you attention, provide them – after the meeting – an explanatory document that deepens the concepts covered.

At the beginning of the presentation, you anticipate that “at the end of the meeting I will distribute an in-depth document containing everything I have told you today. For this, down your feathers and eyes to me! ”.

4. Not knowing how to conclude

Like a novel, there is no worse presentation than the one without an ending. Your last words during the presentation, in fact, will be the ones that will be most remembered and which must therefore leave the audience with a good taste in their mouth.

For this make sure you say goodbye to the audience very effectively. How? In addition to the classic recap – an evergreen of standard presentations – the best way is to involve the ‘audience and encourage ‘ interaction, by launching a challenge, prompting an ‘action or asking a question to the audience.

The goal? Arouse commitment, consolidate some key concepts, or arrange next meeting to discuss follow-ups.

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