What not to do while presenting!

One of the most important skills a corporate executive should have is Presentation, the ability to talk about their research or their product.

We all have heard, read about or been trained on how to give an effective presentation so that the audience is engaged and the session does not go off-track.

Let’s discuss what NOT to do while we present to an audience!

According to a survey by AMA (American Management Association), the most annoying habits of a presenter are listed below:

While all these are to be avoided, the top 3 habits are most annoying to the audience. So these are the ones you should never do when giving a presentation.

To make sure that you do not make these mistakes during presenting, here are some tips:

• Keep slides to the point so that you can remember what you have put in them and don’t need to read
• Keeping content crisp makes is easier for the audience to understand better
• Do NOT overload your slides and try not to have more than 6 bullet points and no more than 6 words per bullet
• Know your subject well (Be prepared)
• Prepare your presentation in advance and practice multiple times so that you know what you will be presenting and do not need fillers
• Do NOT put too many videos in your presentation, instead include activities so that you engage the audience
• Do NOT keep talking, keep asking questions in between to increase audience participation
• Do NOT colour your presentation like a rainbow or a colour palette. Keep the theme simple and clear
• Never say Sorry. If you don’t know an answer, you say the wrong thing or you click the wrong slide or document, do not say Sorry. Just correct it and move on
• Focus on less content and more examples/experience sharing

THINK. ANALYSE. PRESENT.

About Author:

Sonam Anand is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: sonam.anand@spluspl.com