The
Average Presentation
If I asked you whether or not
you would set a goal of being an average presenter, you'd
probably say NO. And I'm glad, but not for the reason you
might think. Your first thought was probably, shoot no, I
don't want to be AVERAGE! I want to be great! That makes
sense, but that's not why I'd demur. I
don't like it because if you set your sights on average,
you'd still be terrible! The
average corporate presenter whom we see (those whose job it is to do
other things) is routinely terrible.
They start late (every time, I
think: really? You want to be
thought professional, and you start when
you feel like it??). They don't
know how many slides they
ought to have. They haven't prepared. They haven't
rehearsed. They talk so quietly some people in the room can't
hear them. They think that rambling is seen as they intend it, as a
sign that they're thinking out
loud. As if thinking out loud
was appropriate! They
don't repeat questions that are asked. They don't
sum up when necessary. Trust us - it's bad.
With all of the modern thought
being put in to how to get ahead, how to outperform, how to save time,
how to be more clever than your peers, how to be faster to market, how
to be more connected, how to have better ideas...it might be
good to think, how can I get
better at the stuff we all do pretty regularly
anyway? If you're reading this,
there's an 85% chance that
you're a notably poorer presenter than you think you are.
What to do about it? For now,
just focus on your next presentation. Just that ONE. And do three
things:
- Cut
your slides down to one for every ten minutes
- Use
the Notes feature in PowerPoint to script a draft of your comments.
- Rehearse
even just once (Say all those words out loud)
And that will make you above
average, if only in preparation. And if you do it semi-regularly, it
will make you above average at presenting too. ;-)
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