Are you making these 4 common presentation mistakes?

Do you want to spend a lot of time and energy on building a presentation? And then find out it bored the audience, or had them remember next-to-nothing afterwards? No thanks!

So here we highlight some of the most common presentation mistakes people make. Please avoid them…

1. Not knowing enough about your subject

You might be able to recite your content word for word but if you don’t understand it, or can’t answer a question from the audience you will lose all credibility. Research your subject fully, make notes and think about the possible questions you may be asked.

2. Reading straight from the slides

Slides are there as visual aids to reinforce what you are talking about. Reading directly from the slides is boring for the audience, means you can’t make eye contact with them and is a waste of time since you could print the slides and deliver as a report, or indeed handouts!

If your slides are full of text you need to:

a) simplify them by packing more meaning into the main headings. Or focusing more on proof points of facts and figures; and

b) use relevant visuals that back up your words.

3. Not being prepared

First impressions are important. Being late, flustered and not being able to use the equipment is not a good start. In the virtual presenting world – have a back up in place. If your reliable wifi starts being unreliable: have your mobile phone set up as a hotspot, ready to leap into action if you need. Make sure you are set up, logged in, with your files open and ready before your audience arrives.

And rehearse: test out your material beforehand to be confident you can cover everything in the allocated time.

4. Badly designed slides

Just because PowerPoint provides different animations, transition options and clip art doesn’t mean that you should use them! Use your corporate template and stick to your branding. Or get something newly designed by the professionals (like Presented).

If you use a good colour palette, fonts, visuals and well designed graphs you won’t need flashy animations that might make you look amateur. Consider the value of who or what you are representing. And whether it’s done in-house or outsourced – get help with the design so that you impress your viewers.