Episode #212: Should You Distribute Materials Before Your Speech

Sometimes the organisers of the presentation event ask us if they can distribute our slides before the speech. They are thinking that this will help the audience to follow what we are saying. Especially in Japan, audience members are probably better at reading than hearing the content. So having the slides at hand to refer to during the talk makes a lot of sense. Never do this! Ignore the supposed sage advice of event organisers, who themselves rarely if ever give public presentations. There are very few occasions when you need to be handing out bits of paper to support your talk.

The only exception to this rule of mine would be if there are numbers involved and they are locked into tiny cells in a spreadsheet. I am sure you have suffered the ignominy of sitting in an audience and struggling to make sense of the numbers being shown on the screen. The speaker gracefully moves through the spreadsheet, pointing out various gripping correlations and conclusions. Of course, they have added an important caveat before their pontifications about what we are all looking at, by saying “you probably can’t see this but….”. Naturally we can’t see it. The tiny number squiggles are unable to be claimed from the cells on screen, because the presenter has not considered the needs of the audience.

I could arrange for just those spreadsheet numbers to be distributed before the talk, so that people can read along with my explanation. This is giving verity to what we are claiming because the audience can check the numbers themselves. I am still reluctant to do that though. As soon as I refer people to the sheets of paper in their hand, I have lost my connection with them. They are now looking at bits of paper and not at me. I can’t see how they are reacting, because their faces are looking down.

I would prefer to treat the spreadsheet numbers like wall paper on screen. They form a backdrop, but I don’t expect anyone to plumb the depths of numbers they cannot see, let alone read. Instead I would use some animation and blast out key numbers in huge font in a call out emerging from the background. Now everyone is looking at one huge number and I would explain the importance of that statistic or number. The wall paper in the background is a type of proof that we have the numbers, we are not hiding them. We don’t need to show every number in the collection though, because there will be some numbers more important than others.

We just keep repeating this animation process for every key number. We can make the sheets of paper available at the end, for anyone who would like to go more granular. In this way, all eyes are kept on me as the presenter. I can also read the faces of the audience as I present these key data points. I am scanning their faces for resistance. Am I going to get any pushback during the Q&A? Are they buying my argument?

If we distribute the entire slide deck before the talk, then what is the point of the talk in the first place? We may as well all stay at home and just send everyone an email with the attachment and they can read through it all at their leisure. Once the audience has that document, they are reading page eighteen while you are explaining page one. You have lost control of the narrative. They are now processing what they are seeing in the document and somewhere in the background, they can hear some white noise. That white noise is you, by the way, droning on about your presentation. They are not fully listening any more and as the speaker you have effectively lost your audience.

As the presenter, we must never become second fiddle to the slide deck or the spreadsheet. We must control the flow of the argument. The story is meant to unfold in a certain logical order, a build that pushes ever onward, toward a powerful conclusion. We are here to sell our argument and that means we have to get right behind it all the way. Don’t delegate the point of the talk to the slide deck. Get out in front where you can dominate proceedings and where you can read ever nuance of your audience’s reaction to what you are saying. We must be the star of the show, not the cells in a spreadsheet or masses of text on screen.

So, when the organisers, those never presenters, insist we need to distribute the talk beforehand, cast them a steely glance. In an icy voice of shivering indignation refuse their idiotic offer. Others are allowed to be unprofessional, but we must be the island of insight, knowledge, intelligence and experience. That is the path of the real presenter.