The 10 biggest mistakes presenters make!

1) Glazing over the heads of the audience.
Your job is to connect with your audience. But, how exactly are you supposed to do that? Break the audience (no matter how large) into sections. Right, center and left, as well as front to back, front, middle and back. This should give you 9 sections to work with. Now, make a game out of finding someone in each section of the grid to talk to during the sections of your speech. For example, if there are 9 sections to your speech, every quadrant should get one segment spoken right to them.
But, what if the group is so large that you can't SEE the actual people in the quadrants or the lighting won't allow you to see past the third row?!! (I have clients who routinely speak to thousands of people at a time)
Easy, you now have what actors call a monologue or soliloquy to share with your audience, so do what good actors do. Pretend. In your imagination put some of your very favorite actual real people into your grid. The people in each grid will swear you were speaking personally to them.


2) Not breaking your speech, presentation, seminar or pitch into bite sized segments.
Work on individual segments of your speech. I would never go into a rehearsal for a play and let the actors run all the way through the play on the first day! Break it into chunks that are manageable to work on in a short sitting, say 20 or 30 minutes. Then work on one section a day. You can work in the car, mention a particular story on the phone or at a party. If the group of three of your pals won't laugh, neither will your audience. One nice thing about this technique is it doesn't require a huge time commitment all at once and, no one even knows you are rehearsing!
 

3) Not having a Superobjetive: (this is really important!)

My mentor Stella Adler (she taught Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Kate Mulgrew, Robert DeNiro, Gene Hackman, Benito Del Toro, among many others.) said that there is great power in the fact that the human mind can not focus on two things at once.
Here is how you use that to your advantage. Make a decision as to what you WILL focus on and make it compelling. Make sure it keeps you 100% connected to your audience. And as Stella would say "be anything but BORING!"
Now, what to focus on. That is where the "superobjetive" comes in. What is the most powerful thing you can be trying to accomplish in your speech. (If you say, I want to "give them some information" you are not there yet.)
Superobjectives answer the WHY is this speech important to you, they are highly personal. (not what you will get out of it but what your audience will get out of it) Two people could give identical speeches with very different Superobjectives. It must attach to your values. It must answer, what is the very best thing that could happen as a result of this speech? It is a grandest goal for your speech. You can have a powerful goal even if you are talking about widgets. The great presenters always do, even if they are not conscious of it. Some examples might be: "To get the audience fired up to take control of their lives!" (and buying widget #4 would help them do that) If you don't believe that your product service or speech helps people, why do it?
Other examples might be to "get them to become masters of change" (Remember you have to feel passionately about this, it doesn't matter if I love it, I am not doing your speech!) "To give them the inspiration and the tools to master technology". "To show them every way possible to protect their families" (from one of my insurance professional clients) You need to feel a jolt of energy every time you think about it. (Hint: if you can't remember it, you are not excited about it!) It must be something that you could help your audience achieve in many different ways. It also gives you something to measure against, and a way to choose what goes into a new speech. If a point or cute story doesn't somehow further that goal, let it go.
It can change and grow as you do. But, you must have one and it must be larger than just you, exciting for you and bigger than your fears. If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything. What do you stand for?

 

4) Not getting there early: Arrive early, (at least an hour) survey the room, check the equipment, meet people as they come in. It helps to have friendly faces in that front row, so make some friends and ask them to sit up front. Also, how are you going to customize your program and make sure you live up to that super objective if you don't know whom you are talking too. Orvel Ray Wilson of Guerilla Selling fame arrives two and a half hours early and sometimes more to check every part of his technology, and take control of the space and figure out what he can use in the room to help make his points

5) Not owning the space:
Own the space. Walk every part of the room. Where does the audience have "blind spots" you should be aware of. What is it like to be a participant in this room? What is the lighting like? What parts of the stage or room put you in the dark?! (Avoid those spots when you speak!) Are there places that you could go out into the audience? Bring someone up with you?

6) Letting everyone sit in the back of the room like in 7th grade!:
This is more of that own the room stuff. Take responsibility for absolutely everything in the room Your job is to make it as easy as possible for people to get your message, so look at what you have to work with. Are you unsure of how many people will arrive? (Hint: there are rarely as many as they tell you) Try what we used to do in the theatre to get people to sit down front when the seats were unassigned.

Tape and Hold. Take out a few rows of seats and stack them in the back of the room. (If there is a stampede someone can help you put out more chairs and this has the psychological effect of making people feel that are at a standing room only event) Then, put tape on the outsides of the last rows. This usually gets the point across that they aren't supposed to sit there. Motivational speaker Bonnie Dean puts candies on the first three rows only. (So at least she gets the chocoholics up front!) If the room fills up, you remove the tape, starting from the one closest to the front and then working your way back.

7) Standing behind the podium buried in your notes:
I did once see Bertrice Berry do a lovely job from behind a podium, but, she had a ministerial quality that made it work for her. She also had a super objective that was obviously powerful.
However, for the rest of us. DON'T HIDE! Make a game out of using more of the space.
Don't face away from the audience unless you absolutely have to. (In the theatre it is called upstaging oneself, because the stage is usually raked upward away from the audience)
Yes, center stage is a very powerful place to stand, but you wear out the power of it if you get stuck there. Imagine that you have different zones on the stage, and you can go to them as if there are set pieces in each zone. One zone could be your story telling zone, one could be your heavy content zone, another, your audience interaction zone. You will also "anchor" (an NLP term) people to expect those experiences from those zones. Experiment with zones of the stage and you may find something that adds to the power of your program. Feel free to break the rules, but at least know what rules you are breaking!

8) Not getting them on the train:
From the audiences point of view you are standing up there asking them to get on a train, and travel for an hour to somewhere they have never been and are not sure they care about. It is your job to sell them on getting on the train. What is in it for us, your audience? What will we see on the trip? What will the results of the trip be to the rest of our lives? What makes you credible or what experiences do you have to help us get there? Why do you want to talk to us, aside from for you own personal glory?

9) Transitions and Trailers:
Good transitions and trailers can make you look incredibly polished, fast! They can even help you remember your own program if it is new or highly customized. First, find the most interesting way to get from section to section. Steve Pappaterra of PNC bank found that it is like promoting each section the way they do on each side of an audiotape series. "Next you will learn 6 ways to keep more of your money!" "In the next 10 minutes you will learn the very thing that has helped more of my clients than anything else" "If you get nothing else from this program remember this"
Don't get too "salesy", but remember that today people are used to being talked into paying attention. On TV, you hear it all the time. "Today, at the 4 o'clock news find out how you can lose 5 pounds in a week" I'm always a sucker for that one!
People are watching an average of 71/2 hours a day of television. You can't ignore it. This is the same reason that people start to get antsy every 7 minutes or so, they are waiting for a commercial break, without realizing it! So, as a side note, change gears every 7 minutes or so!
When you practice your transitions, this is not a time to work through all the sections of your speech. Practice the transitions only, in the transition rehearsal. Practice just how you are going to get from section to section smoothly

10) Not showing any vulnerability or humanness:
Okay, so you are already up in front of the group, usually up a foot or two, you get a glowing introduction from someone everyone knows and respects and then you start talking. Hmmmm. People are often thinking "I have nothing in common with this guy"." Sure, she can do it, but she is just special, not a regular human, like me". (This is always a shock to me, because I know how many mistakes I have made along the way to learning all this stuff!) So, what do people LOVE to hear. Personal stories. All the mistakes you made, that are just like the ones that they make everyday. They are funny, and everyone can relate.
When your audience hears all of this from you, they think "I can learn from his mistakes. I will never have time to make them all myself!" Just be careful not to go overboard and balance it with your wins too. (People often forget to tell us about the wins because they want to be "humble"). But, that too is important as it proves your ideas work! If you are really troubled by this simply say that you couldn't believe how well it worked and tell them that you will show them how to do it too. (That is after all the point, right?)

(This one is somewhat advanced, feel free to call or email with specific questions and I will get back to you)

Use these magic ten to make your next presentation the best ever! Have fun, send me your successes. I love those!

Continued Success to You, and
Break a Leg!
Sarah Victory