Episode #234: The Ultimate Presenting Guide To Owning The Room

There are 13 common mistakes which prevent presenters from owning the room. Here they are - don't do these things!

1. Thump the microphone and ask if people can hear you down the back - get there early and check the tech

2. Have no idea who is in the audience. Find out the experience and expertise level of the audience, so you are not pitching too high or too low with your content

3. Plan the presentation properly. Don't spend all of your time assembling the slides. Design from the close - get it down to one sentence, then think about how you are going to prove it and assemble the evidence. Finally, design the opening - it has to blast through everyone's distractions, so that people can concentrate on your key points.

4. Don't rehearse at all or not enough. Spending all your time on slide production isn't the priority. Practice the speech, check the length, work on the cadence and phrasings.

5. Don't connect presenting to personal brand. Every time we present people are judging us and our firms. If we are good, they think highly of the whole organisation. If we are a dud, they doubt the whole organisation.

6. Don't convert data into relevant stories. Recalling data is hard, but we are genius at recalling stories - ergo, turn your data into a narrative.

7. Not enough power when presenting. Speaking to someone sitting next to you requires a certain level of volume and energy. Speaking to a large audience requires a much higher level of volume and power output. Don't let your sentences trail off and die. Finish with power.

8. Know how to dress for the presentation. Your face has to be the central piece of the presentation - not the slides and not your tie or scarf or pocket chief. If it is a more casual environment, then dress down appropriately. If it is more formal, then full business battle dress is the way to go.

9. Don't nail the first impression. Today, you only have two seconds to form that first impression. Pay very careful attention to how you start. Get straight into it and then thank the organisers after that introductory piece.

10. How to handle Q&A. Understand that Q&A is a street fight - that means there are no rules. If you get a tough or hostile question, then don't answer it immediately. Pause, paraphrase the question, taking the heat out of it, pause again and then respond. You will have bought yourself around 10 seconds of thinking time this way. Your first idea straight out of your head will be relatively poor, but your considered response will be much better.

11. Don't know how to use slides correctly. One colour is preferable with a maximum of two. Use one font. Whatever is presented on screen has to be understood in two seconds. If it is too complex, then strip out the data and put that on a different slide.

12. Can't control nerves. The brain senses fear, it starts pumping adrenalin into your body. Your pulse goes up, you start to feel hot, your palms start to sweat, your knees start to quiver and your stomach feels queasy. You cannot control the release of the adrenalin, but you can control the reaction. Out of sight, do some vigorous pacing to burn off the nervous energy, then sit down and do some deep, slow diaphragm breathing. This lowers your pulse rate and you start to cool down.

13. Don't know how to keep audiences engaged. This is the Age of Distraction, so we presenters have never faced such difficult challenges as we do today. Use silence as a pattern interrupt for those who have escaped us. They will think the talk is over and return their focus to us. Ask people to raise their hand to get them interacting, but don't over do it. Ask questions, which are in fact rhetorical, although the audience won't be sure, so they are mental concentration answering your question.