Presentation Tips

5 Common Mistakes Presenters Make When Presenting

Doing a brain dump. You may know your topic so well you don’t know when to edit; you have too many points. You think, ‘this is important, I’ve got to tell them this and that’s important, I’ve got to cover that or this is critical, I’ve got to make this point’. You can’t possibly cover in 30 minutes, an hour or a day what it took you years or a lifetime to learn. Select a point or two and build your presentation around that.

Reading to the audience (GASP!). This is appropriate only when your audience is made up of 4 year olds who can’t read themselves! I am continually amazed when the presenter reads every bullet on their power point word for word. Why not just give hand outs especially if you don’t expound on the bullet points.
Talking to the screen when reading your bullet points. Hope the back of your hair looks good because that’s what your audience is now focused on. They can’t hear you because your back is turned and they can’t see what you are reading because you are probably standing in front of the screen.
Too many words on your slides. This encourages you to read your slide when you don’t know your topic well enough or you haven’t rehearsed your presentation. Use bullet points as talking points.
You forget to inject life, enthusiasm in your presentation. A spark of life is always encouraged in a presentation. Use your voice to inflect a change in tone, volume and pace. Make it easy for your audience to listen to you.

Monroe's Motivated Sequence
Monroe's motivated sequence is a five step technique for organizing persuasive speeches that inspire people to take action.

Attention - grab the attention of your audience using a dramatic or shocking story, startling statistic, compelling quotation etc
Need - Show that a significant problem exists and it will not go away on its own
Satisfy - Provide specific and viable solutions that can solve the problem
Visualization - Be very visual when telling the audience what will happen if the solution is implemented or the consequences if it is not
Action - Convince them there is a need for action to be taken. Tell them what action they can take.

Accent vs. Dialect
Accent is how a person sounds when speaking. The sounds and intonations of your native language carries over when you speak a second language.
A dialect is the way people speak in different regions of the same country. It has a distinctive pronunciation and vocabulary. "Hey, hi yew" is southern speak for "Hi, how are you?"
A southern accent, a Boston accent, a New York accent, a mid west accent are all very distinct but are still American English.
Whether you are presenting to a few in a board room or hundreds in a ballroom if your audience can't understand you they will tune you out no matter how great your content.