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Oh for God’s sake STOP!

As a background, I taught presentation skills at three universities for years and trained hundreds of clients. And it always confuses me why folks don’t take the time to learn the basic skills of presenting? They are not that hard to develop over a very short period of time.

With all the “online” presenting during this COVID nonsense boy have I witnessed some absolutely appalling and pitiful examples. I put it down to

“Hey, how hard can this be?”

Skippy, it is a lot harder than you think and we – the audience – are suffering through your horrible presentation!

Talk about a “lasting” brand impression? An anecdote …

I saw an ad from a major music retailer about to do an online presentation on studio monitors.

I watched two of their previous presentations online for about 5 minutes each and could not bear to watch any more. It was evil!

I cannot think about this company without the experience I had at an alleged live presentation years ago.

They set up – again a studio monitor thing – I believe I waited for about 35 min? Then I went for a beer.

It was a huge “failure to launch” moment! No sound. Full stop.

Proving as I taught for years … doing a presentation test everything, have redundant systems, and some delicate spare parts.

Again, “Hey, how hard can this be?” Well, it was obviously way too hard for those folks at the time.

I chuckle every damn time I see an ad or post from this retailer.

That my friend is a BRAND EXPERIENCE! And not a good one!

So, here are a few basics.

  1. rehearse
  2. have a script
  3. rehearse again and again and again
  4.  learn to slow down and “annunciate” your words
  5. remove any and all placeholder words (Um, like, you know, actually and others) that show just how nervous you are BECAUSE you have NOT rehearsed enough! Or you are “speaking to the slides” which a professional presenter NEVER does!
  6. look into the damn camera. Stop looking at yourself!
  7. plan your presentation … it needs a beginning, middle, and end.
  8. slides are probably NOT necessary if there is interesting reading material … we can all read, we can all download it and we DO NOT need reading off a screen as you read the slide to us. We are NOT that stupid!
  9. Please do not start your presentation with “Hi guys!’ boy that is getting old. Same goes with “Good morning, Hello all I want to thank etc etc yada yada… YOU have about 30 seconds to win an audience Start with a compelling statement to draw the folks in!

I have about 100 more tips at least …

And there is my book.

 

 

 

 

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