The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Giving Presentations

The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Giving Presentations:

Learn more in Tom Kennedy's Nov. 8 webinar Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers

Think about the worst presentation you ever sat through. Did it feel like you were experiencing “death by PowerPoint”?

If the speaker was like your typical speaker, he relied completely on his PowerPoint slides and bored the audience by reading verbatim the text on those slides. Just thinking about someone doing that is enough to make you yawn.

That approach is the primary mistake people make when giving a presentation, says Tom Kennedy, who is giving a webinar November 8 titled Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers.

“There are probably three primary mistakes,” Kennedy says in a recent RainToday.com interview. “First of all people calling the slides the presentation. They aren’t. And when someone says send me the presentation, the only answer is ‘I can’t’ because you’re the presentation.”

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Listen to the complete interview here:

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Other mistakes people make when giving presentations:

* Using your slides as notes: Slides can be effective, but not if you load them up with your speaker notes.

“There’s nothing wrong with having slides. Great visual aids are wonderful,” Kennedy says. “But text on slides is invariably the speaker’s notes. Have notes, but don’t show your audience your notes.”

* Failing to target the audience: Often speakers feel they need to talk about themselves. If it’s a keynote or seminar, they’ll spend the first 10 to 15 minutes talking about themselves, their firm, and their accomplishments. If it’s a sales presentation, they’ll talk only about their services. The audience wants to know how what you’re discussing affects them. They don’t care about you.

“It’s always about [the audience]. It’s not about the presenter,” Kennedy says. “The ‘I/me’ talk I call it—about us—is not the way to target the audience. Make it about them.”

The key is to cultivate a relationship with your audience, particularly if it’s a sales presentation, he says.

“We buy from people that we like and trust and are comfortable with. So, it’s all about relationship. It’s not about the data,” Kennedy says.

* Handing out your slides in advance: Audience members often want a copy of presentations in advance. Don’t do it, says Kennedy. If you do that, people will look ahead and not pay attention to what is being said.

It’s better if you provide a handout after your presentation. And that handout can include more information than what you included on your slides, such as your speaker notes. That way people can pay attention while you speak, and they won’t worry about taking notes.

Everyone is a salesperson, says Kennedy. Whether you’re presenting to a client, giving a keynote, or networking with prospects, the people you speak with matter the most. Develop a relationship with them and you will then be able to sell yourself and your ideas.

Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers

Attend Tom Kennedy’s webinar Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers. In it, Kennedy will coach you on how to give presentations that not only get prospects to pay attention to you but also help you build relationships with them so that they ultimately buy from you.