Sometimes even the most creative self-sabotagers run out of new ideas for ruining their earnest efforts. If that’s you, today’s post may help you out.
Before we get to our central message, here’s a list of things you can do on stage to [bore, offend, shock, lose, terrify] your audience:
1. Assume: Anything, really. Assume they care. Assume they see the relevance of your message. Assume they understand the underlying principles.
2. Lie: Most of your audience has a smartphone that can deliver myth-busting and lie-detection at 4G speeds. If you want to mislead on stage, we have just one question: Do you feel lucky?
3. Take the Credit: You’re standing, they’re sitting. You’re speaking, they’re silent. You have perceived authority, they have a perceived need to learn. Taking that extra superiority step to make sure they know how awesome you are will surely put off even the most forgiving attendee.
4. Ramble: We talk a lot about storytelling. But talking a lot while storytelling is a surefire way to bore them to tears. Stories are meant to be direct and illustrate a complicated point; if you want to lose their attention, ramble on.
5. Criticize: Nothing hardens heads quite as quickly as criticizing the way they think or do something. If you handle this poorly enough, you’ll successfully transition your role from primary educator to primary villain.
6. Phone it in: Nothing says, “I don’t care about this,” more than failing to prepare. If you worry about people giving you too much praise and approval, just stop preparing for your presentations.
7. Never, ever close: Giving the audience a clue as to what comes next, what they need to do, or where the conversation should go is comforting and professional. If you’re sick of people always inking deals with you and doing what you say, just start abandoning your presentation logic 3/4ths of the way through.
The moral of the story: even the greatest design and content can’t overcome terrible presentation etiquette. If you can’t manage all the success you’re getting from presentations and need to roll it back a little, the above simple steps should get you well on the way to presentation failure and whittle your opportunities down to a manageable few.
For the rest of you out there who want more opportunity and more responsibility, we recommend doing the opposite of the above.
Question: What are some of the worst presentation tactics you’ve seen in your career?
