Avoid These Presentation Mistakes

I’m sure we’ve all sat through our share of painfully boring presentations. It instantly brings you back to college lectures…struggling to stay awake.  Throughout my career I’ve sat through my share of presentations…some good…and some bad but I was surprised entering the workforce seeing people of all levels from entry to executive struggle with delivering an engaging presentation.

For that reason I have vowed never to torture ppl with a dry powerpoint by avoiding the following mistakes…

Mistake 1: Not studying the subject

With every presentation you are asked to give, you should see yourself as the subject matter expert, meaning you should be well informed on the topic you are discussing. I’ve seen people try to “wing” the presentation and you lose credibility when you haven’t done your research

Mistake 2: Your Powerpoint has too much verbiage

Powerpoints are there to guide the discussion by keeping you organized and highlight the main takeaways. The pwpt is everything you want the audience to walk away knowing especially if you are providing a hand-out but you need to refrain from having too much verbiage on the slides. Often times people pack their slides with every resource and reference they can find but this is why its important to know your subject matter so you can narrow down your thoughts to just the main ideas

Mistake 3: Reading the slide

This literally is my biggest pet peeve in presentations and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people do this. Unless your audience is illiterate or you have a legal obligation, you should never read your slides word for word. It is insulting to the intelligence of your audience. My advice if you’ve followed the step one and two, is to sprinkle in extra tidbits of information that you did not put on the slide to help create context around the subject and make you appear more knowledgeable to the audience. I like when people have to take notes in addition the slide :)

Mistake 4: Using a soft or monotone voice

You don’t have to yell but your inside voice is not appropriate either. There is nothing worse than trying to lean in while the presenter whispers through their presentation.

Mistake 5: Not anticipating questions

You should anticipate the questions and challenges of your audience. Too many “I don’t know”s in the Q&A portion reduces your credibility.