Quick-Guide to Not Giving Terrible Presentations

My 30 tips to avoid giving an awful presentation.

Most people are terrified of public speaking. Because of this, most people don’t practice public speaking as a skill. And because of this, we all have to sit through each other’s awkward, rambling, disjointed presentations.

If you are a younger professional and you want to impress your colleagues or senior staff, nail a presentation or two. Accustomed to disasters, people will take notice if you get up there and rock it.

I am, by no means, a professional public speaker. I do, however, appreciate an awesome presentation as an audience member and try and return the favor when it is my turn to take the stage.

For this post, I am assuming a presentation where PowerPoint is being used given that many disasters begin (and end) with how the speaker uses PowerPoint.

Here are 30 tips to avoid giving an awful presentation:

1. Use Minimal Text: Don’t write an essay on each slide. Use as few words as possible.
2. Make it Visual: Use a visual instead of text whenever possible. Using visuals (effectively) will help you make your point more clearly and make the information more memorable.
3. PowerPoint is a Presentation Tool: Your PowerPoint should be secondary to the presentation, not the main attraction. Use your PowerPoint to enhance the presentation; don’t use it as a crutch.
4. Use Big Font!: 16-point font is the smallest font you should use. Depending on the room, you may even want to go with 18-point font (and you should always have the physical room you are presenting to in mind when preparing). And please, for the love of Poseidon, use a font that is readable. No one wants to decypher 8-point Papyrus from the back row of the conference room.
5. Don’t Read Your Slides: I think most people do this out of nervousness, not because they don’t know the information, but presentations are not read-alongs. Talk to your audience, not the projection screen.
6. Know Your Stuff: Your audience should not be along with you for the journey as you discover the purpose of what you are saying for yourself; you should be guiding them along a path you know well. Know what you want to say and say it.
7. Start with an Attention Getter: No long, meandering introductions. You have five seconds to prove to your audience you are more interesting than Facebook or Minesweeper.
8. Earn Your Audience’s Attention: Yes, your colleagues have to listen to you because it is part of their job, but treat the conference room like a stand-up open mic night. You don’t need to be funny, but make an effort to catch and keep their attention. Otherwise, prepare to dodge the metaphorical Budweiser bottles thrown your way.
9. Use Your Hands…With Purpose: Don’t keep them dead at your sides and don’t flail them around like you are trying to handle an eel. Use them purposefully for emphasis or to illustrate a point.
10. Make Eye-Contact with Individuals: Don’t look down, at the screen behind you, or blankly at the empty back of the room. Make eye contact with individual people in the room. It will connect them to the presentation and keep them engaged.
11. Do a Run Through Beforehand: If you can, go to where you are giving the presentation before hand, get all set up, and do a quick technical check and presentation practice run. No one wants to get caught with a bad cable or misplaced slide with all eyes on you.
12. Don’t Lose Your Personality: Not every presentation needs to be a eulogy. It is okay to be excited about your work! In fact, people will respond really positively to it. Don’t get lost in “business voice.”
13. Signpost Your Points: When laying out a series of points, use “first this, second this, third this, fourth this”. This provides some scaffolding for the audience, helping them connect your thoughts or arguments. You can even use your fingers (purposeful hand movement!) to be even clearer.
14. “Raise Your Hand If….”: Please don’t start your presentation with this. This is a personal one, but I hate this awkward moment when everyone reluctantly half-raises their hand.
15. “How Are You All Doing?”: This is also a no-no for starting a presentation. How can a group answer that? How should they respond? Usually, with awkward downward looks and a murmur of “good….”
16. Name, Date, Location: Don’t put your name, location and date on your slideshow. Your audience knows the date and they know where they are. Go ahead and introduce yourself like a human.
17. Pre-Open Other Tabs: If you need to move from your presentation platform to a browser tab to show something, fine. But please have it pulled up ahead of time. No one wants to watch you load web pages.
18. Maximum of 3 Colors: Don’t go crazy with the colors!
19. Stop. Using. Fillers: However many times you say “like,” cut that number by 99%. You simply, like, don’t really, like, need to say it, like, that often, you know?
20. Give a Presentation You Think is Interesting: Don’t just “do it.” You have sat through bad presentations before, don’t be a hypocrite and lay an egg up there. Have a little energy and make it interesting
21. Why is this Important/Relevant/Critical/etc To My Audience?: You should return to this several times throughout a presentation. It will keep your audience engaged.
22. “This is Obvious But…”: Okay then don’t tell us! Say it or don’t say it but don’t tell us it is obvious and tell us anyway.
23. The Worst Ending: Don’t end with “sorry, that wasn’t very good.” We all know that, don’t make it awkward for us. Also, be confident!
24. Delay the Handout: If you have a handout, wait as long as possible to hand it out. If you hand it out at the beginning, everyone will be distracted by it because we are all just slightly bigger versions of our 14-year old selves and can’t not shuffle and flip through something placed in front of us.
25. Close Your Other Tabs and Silence Skype: Watching messages and notifications pop up (or worse audio notifications) is distracting. Exit out of everything and turn off notifications
26. Turn Your Phone Off: No, not vibrate or silent. Turn it totally off. You shouldn’t need it while you are presenting.
27. Know Your Audience: Not all jokes/references/metaphors play to the same room. Your manager might not know who Post Malone is. Know who you are speaking too and adjust your language, tone and content accordingly.
28. Dress Nicely: I know, relaxed dress codes, man. Call me old fashion, but being presentable is part of a presentation. And looking good will give you confidence anyway.
29. “I am better just winging it off the top of your head.” Unless you are Wayne Brady, you are not. You are just lazy. Give it a few practice runs before the big day, you will find mistakes and gaps in your ideas, I promise.
30. For the love of Zeus, SPIT YOUR GUM OUT: If I wanted to watch a camel give a presentation, I would go back to the 50s and watch cigarette commercials. Spit out your gum, please.

There you have it! If you do these 30 things, I would be happy to give you a legally non-binding guarantee your presentation won’t be horrible. And when it comes to presentations, not being horrible means being pretty damn good.

If you want to read more about presenting by an expert, I suggest the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It is a great book that provides even more helpful teachings on public speaking in a way that is memorable.

What presentation pet-peeves bother you? Share them below and we will all cringe together!

Got a hankering for more? You can read more of my posts on Letters to a Young Professional, you can check out my blog 12HourDifference.co for my thoughts on launching an international career and you can connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about…whatever you’d like!