Overcome Three Common Presentation Mistakes

You’re moving up the corporate ladder! Promotions, more money, more responsibility!

Most of the time, with all of that, comes more presentations.  Now, what are you going to do?

As a freelance videographer who has seen many, many hours of corporate presentations, I have seen the good, the bad, and the “wake me up when it is over!”

Here are the top three mistakes I’ve seen in my years behind the camera.

3 Common Presentation Mistakes

1. Opening with a whimper

If you start out in a lackluster way, our attention will drop very quickly. We will see that this is starting out like every other presentation and we are already bored. Boring opens include:

• “What I want to talk to you today about is…”
• “I’m excited to be here”
• “I have a 50 slide deck we will run through today”
• “Let’s jump right into the data”

2. Staying in the presenter’s box

Your physical presence helps people tune in. Avoid bad posture (hanging on one hip, swaying from side to side, crossing one foot over the other).

I see people do these all the time. They are afraid to move so they stay in their “presenter’s box” and as they get tired, they start swaying or leaning from side to side, losing command of their presence.

3. Speaking in monotone

When speakers talk about how important an initiative is or how excited they are about a project, but there is no passion in their voice they lose credibility.  Avoid speaking monotone.

These are just a few very subtle things I see, but doing them can land you in what we call at the Interact Studio,  “The Valley of Irrelevance.” When you hit the V.O.I., you’ve lost your audience and your chance to make an impact. So the next time you present, please, please, please step it up and make it memorable for the audience!