Effective presentation skills are almost as important as the material you are presenting. After spending weeks crafting the perfect presentation script, slide deck and handouts, it is devastating to receive feedback that the audience failed to receive your message because your body language was disengaging. Or your hair was messy. Or there was a stain on your shirt. Anyone who has received anonymous feedback from a presentation knows how fickle an audience can be.
While you’re entitled to complain about the insignificant issues the audience focuses on, the reality is we have thousands of ways to betray our message by negatively drawing attention away from the topic at hand. Presentation skills, appearance, tone, and attitude matter just as much as the content. Don’t let any of these 50 ways to betray your message ruin your next pitch:
- Slumped shoulders
- Lack of eye contact
- Lack of preparation
- Reading the slides on the screen
- Reading straight from your notes
- Dirty shoes
- Not setting the vision
- Apologizing frequently for small issues like a cough
- Being too quiet
- Being too loud
- Going off on a tangent
- Not dressing for the role
- Crossing your arms across your chest
- Standing in one spot
- Speaking too quickly
- Speaking too slowly
- Using the wrong tone
- Lacking confidence
- Being a know-it-all
- Not engaging the audience
- Not reading the audience’s nonverbals
- Being late
- Not enough gesturing
- Too much gesturing
- Pitching to the wrong crowd
- Not allowing time for reflection
- Forgetting to smile
- Checking for questions
- Not using any humor
- Joking too much
- Small text
- Fidgeting with clothes
- Not showing your passion
- Not connecting with the audience
- Saying Um or Uh frequently
- Forgetting to breathe
- Take too long to get to the point
- Sound arrogant
- Not establish your credibility
- Sounding too scripted
- Sounding unrehearsed
- Messy hair
- Food in teeth
- Going over the allotted time
- Finishing too early
- Using industry terms/jargon
- Typos on slides
- Appearing rushed/frazzled
- Letting technical glitches get the best of you
- Using quirky slide animations