5 reasons unprepared speakers look bad for your business

A quick bit on my background so you understand what I do. I’m an executive speaker coach for national and international conferences and investment pitch coach.

I coach speakers to become more engaging, more entertaining, more interesting, and more emotionally connected with themselves and their audiences.

I generally coach people in 4 areas, inspirational/educational, tech, sales,?and pitching for investment.

After 20 years as a facilitator/trainer and 4 years as the TEDxChristchurch speaker coach, I've seen great speakers, average speakers, and outright bad speakers. The great ones leave a positive memory and the rest are remembered for all the wrong reasons, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Lets dive into it,

Having people who represent your company get up on stage in front of a live audience means you are trusting that they will do an outstanding job. Do you value this opportunity enough to invest in them?

These are the 5 reasons unprepared speakers look bad for your business.

1, When they don't prepare, it looks like they don't care.

It takes a special kind of heartlessness towards your audience to not be prepared. So why are there so many unprepared speakers getting on stage and making it so painful for everyone? I don't believe anyone is consciously wanting to be heartless, I think they underestimate how much preparation is required to construct and deliver a high-quality presentation. The average time needed to be fully prepared is at least an hour of development for every minute of content creation.

So a 15-minute presentation will need at least 15 hours of preparation.

Here is a little secret, a lot of employees resent having to present information for their business, that's why they put it off. Nothing more devastating than the words "I have to deliver this stupid talk next week". We know that when employees are not supported they will not put in the effort that you would. Think about that for a moment as you sip your latte and they destroy your business brand.

It takes a lot of time, energy, and effort to design a talk with the audience in mind, removing technical internal language that's confusing, and crafting a logical flow of ideas and thoughts that are easy to follow for anyone who is a non-subject matter expert.

This type of preparation is consuming and it might seem like wasted energy, but if you don't do it your audience will think you don't care if they understand you or not, you lead them to believe that their ability to understand doesn't matter and in fact, they don't matter.

If you care about how your audience will receive your message then you will be prepared

2, They look like they don't know what they are doing.

The night before your big presentation is not the ideal time to realise you should have given yourself more time. Umm ahh sorry about this, I didn't have much time to prepare. Nothing screams unprofessional like a public declaration of procrastination and poor time management. And, Nothing says unprepared and like a handful of tattered notes and a dazed, confused, and disorientated speaker.

When you hit the stage unprepared, you know you messed up. It feels like being covered in honey and having bees set upon you. There is a sting that you cannot avoid.

We've all seen it, the last-minute throw together of a sloppy slide deck, cut and paste from the website or 1980s clipart with stick figures to boot.

This type of mistake looks bad, really bad. Imagine the impact on the viewer, what does this say about prioritization of time and procrastination. What does this say about the up-to-date technically savvy business leaders of 2021, what does this say about the business behind the person giving the presentation? Nothing good that's for sure!!

A disorganized poorly planned-out presentation will leave your audience wondering if you know what you're doing.

3, They look like they don't know what they are talking about.

You don't have to be an authority in your field to read word for word off of a PowerPoint, you don't even need to be there, just send them the handout notes, the audience can read it themselves, at home, with a hot cup of tea, in their loafers, that are comfortable.

If they set up their visuals as a crutch to use as a giant post-it note that they read off, then they have pretty much just given the biggest presentation of their life that shows a whole room full of potential customers that they don't know what they're talking about.

4, The company doesn't invest in its people.

You don't get professional presentation coaching or training in high school, college, or even on an MBA. At no time in your life have you been professionally prepared to speak. And yet in business, it is expected that you will be good at it. It's all a little strange when you think about it, isn't it?

I've spoken with all sorts, from students doing MBAs to law students undertaking a five-year degree and they have all said the same thing. "I wish presentation and speaker coaching was part of the curriculum because when we go out into the real world our success in communicating everything we know is dependant on whether or not the company invests in training and coaching".

Employees have two choices, freak out about it and pretend it's not happening or freak out about it and stress endlessly over it and have the stress affect all areas of their work and mental health.

The organizations I've worked with have recognized this and taken action, they know that without professional assistance their employee's productivity will drop if they are not given help. They know that just because the person on stage isn't the CEO it doesn't mean they are not representing the whole company and they want that person to do an outstanding job.

Every person who gets on stage and speaks has an opportunity to build liking, trust, and respect for the business they work for.

5, There is a culture that doesn't support employee sucess and sets them up to fail.

Whom do you ask for help? Who will give you their time? Who within the organization will give you honest and accurate developmental feedback, who is qualified to do so? What does it say about an organizational culture when employees are set up to fail?

The success of an individual is a reflection of the success of an organization's culture.

To finish off

If you would like to find out more about what I do, you can access my website www.michaelphilpott.co.nz or follow me on social media.