Episode #45: Public Speaking Is Your Personal Brand Destroyer

Seriously sad really. Our speaker had some excellent points to convey but due to silly basic errors, killed his organisation’s messages. Today there is so much information available, so many role models, so much video instruction, so much access to insight, so much training, you really have to wonder how some organisations can do such a poor job.

I approached him after it was all over. Being the eternal Aussie optimist from the land of vast horizons, blue skies and wonderful sunshine, I thought our speaker would benefit from a bit of friendly, positive feedback on how he could help his organisation to do better. He wasn’t buying that and asked me for one example.

I asked for the first slide to be brought back up. A confusing coat of many, many colours, seriously dense with data, totally impervious to easy understanding – a florid mess in other words. When I suggested the slides were perhaps attempting to put too much on the screen at the one time, he said I was looking at the cleaned up version.

The other issue was the delivery. Our speaker chose to stand in front of the monitor and read to us what was on the screen, while having his back to us for most of the presentation.

What could our hero have done? He made the slide deck the centerpiece of the presentation, instead of making his messages the key. We should present only one idea per slide, restrict the colour palette to two colours for contrast and try to keep it zen-like simple. If our audience cannot grasp the key point of any slide in two seconds, then it needs more paring back.

Graphs are great visual prompts and the temptation is to use them as unassailable evidence. This usually means trying to pack the graph with as much information as possible, showing long periods of comparison and multiple data points for edification. Trying to pack it all on one screen is a formula for persuasion suicide.

We need to learn some very basic logistics about presenting. Try to stand on the audience left of the screen. We read from left to right, so we want them to look at our face first and then read the screen. We want to face our audience and if anyone drops the lights so your screen is easier to see, stop everything and ask for the lights to be brought back up. We need the lights on in order that we can see our audience’s faces. We can then gauge if they are with us or resisting our messages.

Changing the slides and the delivery would have made the speaker’s messages clearer and more attractive. None of the things I have suggested to him are complex or difficult. He remained resistant, so I saw him riding off into the sunset on his quixotic quest to convert others to his organisation’s point of view. Good luck with that one buddy!

Action Steps

Make yourself not the slides the centerpiece of your presentation
Don’t bombard your audience with a visual multi-coloured extravaganza – go for zen when designing your slide deck
Don’t put too many graphs on one slide – two at most is a good rule
Try to position yourself facing your audience to the audience left of the screen
Keep the light up, so you can see and be seen