Top 3 presentation mistakes
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Created for the SlideChef pitch class @Stanford/MIT vLabs
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Top 3 presentation mistakes
- 1. Top 3 Presentation Mistakes by Andrea Barrica and Xiang Li
- 3. #1 Preparation Don’t: create slides first. Do: think about your main message and audience impact.
- 5. #2 Content Don’t: overtell or overpresent data. Do: focus talk and visuals on main takeaway.
- 7. #3 Delivery Don’t: make the slides the star. Do: make yourself the star.
- 8. Remember: What is the goal of my presentation? What is important to my audience? What are the main takeaways?
Editor's Notes
- To recap Andrea and I are co-founders of SlideChef and SF PitchMasters. We want to share the top three presentation mistakes we see people making. So Andrea and I really like the top three format for several reasons. For starters its quick, we only have 8 mins with you guys. On top of that I like it because it is easier to follow along and know when we are done. So Andrea do you want to get us started?
- People are going to forget most of what you say and probably all the content that is on your slides. Maya Angelou understood that presentations are all about how you make people feel - the key takeaways of your presentation. Your main message - the reason you are presenting - should be clear throughout your entire presentation. Many presentations lack this clear goal. The first mistake people make is how they prepare.
- When most people prepare for a presentation, the first thing they do is open up Powerpoint or Keynote. This is a mistake. Instead, we’ve learned that the best way to start is to journal about your main message, your audience, and the key takeaways that you want your audience to leave with. Good questions to ask are: What is important to my audience? What is not important to my audience? Are there any controversial ideas that I want to address? If someone walked up to a random person in your audience after your presentation and asked them what the single main message of your presentation was, what would you want them to say? If you don’t have good, clear answers to these questions, you’re not ready to create slides or add visuals. This preparation will make it easy to build the best, most effective content.
- This is one of my favorite quotes but it is often misrepresented in my opinion. It is not a reminder for us to shy away from complexity rather it is a call for us to focus on clarity. And when it comes to content clarity is king.
- So point two, every presentation has content. When it comes to choosing what content to present remember less is more. The truth is no one is as interested in you as you think they are. Its true. When you are the expert on or passionate about a topic it is easy to want to share everything, you get excited, its understandable. But keep in mind the audience is only going to retain a couple points from your presentation. What do you want those points to be? Figure those out and plan your content, the verbal and visual components, around them. The best presentations always have a sense of continuity because they they only contain content that enhances the message. A couple other helpful questions to ask when deciding what content to pick is. One will this help the audience make sense of my main take away? Two is this the clearest way of presenting this? And finally three can I convey my messages without this?
- Here is an example. This a NASA slide detailing the failure of the insulating foam system aboard the space shuttle columbia. It is a widely cited example of terrible powerpoint practices that lead to critical information being missed despite the slide being filled with content. The ideas we present can be complex but without clarity meaning can actually be lost. Preparation helps you figure out the goal of your presentation and careful content choice helps you add only what is important - but proper delivery makes it all stick.
- When you are on stage, people are mostly looking at you, not your slides. Delivery is arguably the most important aspect of a presentation, but it’s the part that people spend the least amount of time preparing. Keep in mind delivery is not just what you say - 70% of communication is nonverbal. The best presenters look relaxed, confident, and effortless - they internalize the content, and it seems fluid and smooth. We can all recognize the signs of bad presenter - ums, rambling, lack of energy, sloppy transitions. Remember, a bad presenter with awesome slides is never as effective as a great presenter with basic slides Carmine Gallo, a thought leader on presentations, wrote the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs often notes that great presenters habitually practice the verbal and non-verbal performance of their presentations dozens of times before going on stage. How many of you presenting today practiced your presentation out loud? How many of you practiced out loud more than 5 times? He recommends putting in 10 minutes of practice out loud for every 1 minute of presentation. You’ve worked super hard on researching your topic and putting together clear content, don’t forget to spend just as much time on the delivery.
- All presentations have a goal. Asking yourself a few questions before you begin will help convey your ideas effectively and clearly.