5 Delivery Habits Killing Your Presentations

Re-imagining Your Presentation

Angie Kellen, Director, Client Services, Open Sky Communications

As a speaker trainer and executive media coach, I am sometimes asked about slide presentations; in particular, content and delivery. The surprising thing for me is that I am not constantly asked about this! The reality is that most of us can recognize a terrible presentation, but we don’t have the tools or understanding to make our own presentations more effective. I believe this is due to habits that have developed through the many years of watching terrible presentations. We have adopted bad habits and keep perpetuating them. Changing a habit takes time and commitment to do so. Thankfully, knowledge is power!

In this blog, I will go over five delivery habits that are killing the effectiveness of your slide presentations and ways to overcome them. These tips apply to all presenters whether you are a conference speaker, teacher, business executive or anyone who has to make a presentation to an audience.

Let’s start with a very helpful way to view the entire presentation process. It is the three-legged stool metaphor used by Jim Endicott, the author of The Presentation Survival Skills Guide. He believes presentations are a three-legged stool with each leg of the stool representing: 1) speech content-message; 2) delivery; 3) visual presentation. For a speech to resonate with audiences, all three legs of the stool must work together. If a speaker relies too heavily on one of the legs, the speech fails to connect with the audience. For example:

• Focusing too much on content alone and ignoring the delivery and visual presentation
• Spending so much time on the visual presentation that content and delivery are weak
• Making delivery the primary focus and not developing content or a slideshow, relying on wittiness instead of a message

You may be a star at delivery, but relying only on your amazing personality to get you through a presentation can make your audience believe you are an unprepared, disorganized jumble. Equally, you may be the smartest person in the world on a particular subject, but if you write out your entire script on your slides in bullet points, the audience will sleep through your presentation. To improve your presentation, focus on learning the importance of all three legs of the presentation stool, and work on developing a strong presentation that stands equally on all three legs.

OK, now we can re-imagine our presentations with the understanding of the three elements that need to be equally considered to make them more effective. Let’s take this a bit further and look at one of the stool legs – delivery.  Here are five delivery habits that kill your presentations.

1 – Turning the lights off during your presentation

Many speakers get nervous and – if they have the chance – may ask to turn off the lights during their presentation. One reason for this might be, “The information on my slides is very important, and I want my audience to be able to see them.” We learn this bad habit as students by watching our teachers and professors lecture with the lights off. Why wouldn’t we want to do this? Speakers may feel much more comfortable with the lights off because the audience is looking at the slideshow instead of looking at them. Why is this so bad? If your audience cannot see you, you won’t be able to connect with them! Your presentation goals should be to connect with and effectively engage your audience. Audiences who can’t see you are more likely to sit back and disengage just as they would in a dark movie theater. Keep in mind, slides are important, but the job of the slideshow is to support your message as a presenter, not to take center stage.

2 – Starting with an apology

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to rehearse my speech.” “I’m sorry, I’m really nervous.” Start with a positive! If the first thing you say is negative, your audience will immediately get a negative impression and you’ll lose credibility. Even this can be considered negative, “I’m sorry, everyone. I’m really shaky and just drank a 5-Hour energy drink.” By calling attention to his shaking, the audience won’t focus on the content because they were looking at the speaker’s trembling hands. You have six seconds to make a positive first impression on your audience, so don’t waste that valuable time apologizing. Use your first six seconds to make your audience want to hear more.

3 – Faking or acting when delivering your presentation

Your delivery needs to be authentic and natural. Many of us have learned, incorrectly, that audiences respond to funny and loud presenters and may try to employ foolish antics or act like someone we are not. When presenting, don’t invent a new persona or rely on gimmicks to win over your audience. Remember, audiences respond to real people that are real presenters, people who act in front of the room the same way they do in real life. To avoid faking or acting when delivering your next presentation, focus on developing your authentic speaking persona. What are you like in real life? You might find this difficult. To help, write down a dozen words your family and friends use to describe your personality. You’ll want to work to embody those characteristics when you are in front of an audience.

4 – Reading a script

Delivery should be as natural as possible, and reading a script from start to finish during your presentation makes an audience feel cheated. Keep in mind that overly slick, forced, or artificial speakers always fall short in front of audiences. The best way to plan for a speech is to use an outline.  Your outline should include the main points to keep you on track, but in an outline format, it will allow you to speak naturally from the heart. Nervous that you might forget something? Practice! I can never say this enough. The only way to remember your information is to practice your speech until you know it well.

5 – Winging it

The two words that send every speaker trainer into a frenzy! 99 percent of the time, this commonly used phrase results in a chaotic, ineffective presentation. As we learned earlier, research and preparation are critical for all three legs of the presentation stool. If you’ve ever experienced a presentation fail, it’s most likely the result of the speaker “winging it.” A fun fact, it takes 36 to 90 hours of preparation to succeed at a one-hour presentation. Please never believe you can “wing” any speech. Your audience expects and deserves preparation from you as a presenter. Surely you don’t want them to wonder why you’re leading them in the first place. Aristotle explains that ethos is all about the character and credibility of a presenter; an unprepared presenter has zero credibility. Prepare, practice and practice some more!

Are any of these delivery habits in your presenting repertoire? If so, now you have a bit more understanding as to why they are bad habits and what you can do to begin to change them. Keep in mind, the most important thing when presenting is to be yourself and act naturally; don’t try to be someone else. As you step up your game and prepare properly (practice, practice, practice), you will increase your credibility and audience engagement with each new presentation. Good luck and happy practicing!