What are some common storytelling mistakes to avoid in your presentation?

I once made a classic mistake that involved lack of relevance. I was invited to speak at a prestigious university in the south. Rather than asking questions about the audience and getting a deep understanding of their wants and needs, I chose instead to give one of my standard "crowd pleasing" speeches. It was a mistake. Yes, my jokes and stories landed, but the feedback after the speech was "what did that speech have to do with the topic of the conference?" Lesson learned -- you should know your audience even better than you know your slides. That's the only way to ensure your speech lands where you want it to.

Storytelling is the best way to try and resonate with your audience, but you must use any personal references as an analogy and bring it back to the topic People will then resonate better with it because of the personal reference

I disagree with this. You should tell whatever story you want at the beginning of your presentation, as long as it's interesting/exciting/emotional - whatever. In the first minute of your presentation you want to get your audience on board, so be creative with your story and people will find empathy for you.

I identity as a lifelong storyteller. If you're like me, my advice is to keep the ego in check and avoid getting in your own way when presenting. This can be counterintuitive because we feel like our excitement to be telling should translate to their excitement to be listening, but in reality the audience is listening for key takeaways, "anchor points" in the presentation that validate their reason for listening. I try to find those anchor concepts early on and use them as anchors within my presentation, ensuring that any fun digression from the topic at hand gets quickly corrected.

To make a presentation impactful, effective storytelling is of paramount significance. You need to connect with the audience by stirring their emotions and feelings. A story devoid of emotions is like a flower without fragrance, which fails to attract attention. Telling a well woven story with emotions helps capture and sustain interest throughout the session. A story infused with emotions makes the presentation memorable and leaves an indelible imprint, as people relate to the content on personal level. Use evocative language, and sensory details, so that the audience feels immersed in it. Your voice, expressions and gestures, can help you evoke a stronger response. With passion and zeal you can make the audience flow with you.

If you don't believe it, neither will your audience. Win over hearts and minds by sharing not only the action, but how that action will make the reader feel once they've completed it.

Storytelling without emotion is like a samosa without masala. You bite into it, and all you get is disappointment! Flavors, dear, it needs flavors. 3 why? --> more details --> more connectable ---> more triggering and make them feel it . more feeling >>>more real

Stories that are out of balance between I/You make it way too easy for audiences to tune out. Self-centered stories that are driven by "I" and "me" language are boring and risk losing attention immediately. However, turning a story to make it all about the audience and using "you you you" doesn't inspire them. Rather it creates pressure on the audience to connect, which results in the opposite response.

Practice practice practice, and then when you think you’ve got it practice a little bit more…. The BIG difference though is down to what you are practicing, it has to flow and be from the spoken word and not the written word! So many people write presentations and then read them. It’s so much more natural when presentations are written with the spoken word, dictated into your smart phone and then scripted if needs be Is actually better once written just to have bullet points and speak around them as it allows you to adapt better to any feedback from the audience I certainly don’t recommend this if you haven’t made many presentations before, but it’s something to work towards