From the common mistakes enumerated in the article, pick the top 3 errors which you think you commonly committed in your past presentation experiences. For each mistake, be sure to elaborate on how you could address it to improve them.

28 COMMON PRESENTATION MISTAKES. WHICH ARE YOU MAKING?

1. Starting poorly

Make sure to start your presentations with impact. Saying, Welcome, my name is ___. Today we will be talking about is boring. Do something different be bold, creative, inspiring! And arrive early so you wont feel flustered, which will carry over into your presentation. Most importantly, be interesting!

2. Failing to address the audiences concerns

Before you even think about creating a presentation, know what your audience is struggling with so that you can solve their problem or address their concerns.

3. Boring your audience

If you cant be interesting, dont bother speaking in front of people.

4. Failing to engage emotionally

We like to think that humans make rational decisions, but studies show that people make decisions based on emotion, and then rationalize their decisions afterwards.

5. Using too much jargon

Your language needs to be appropriate for your audience. They cant listen to you while theyre trying to figure out what you said. If you speak in circles around them, they may never fully catch up. If you cant avoid the use of jargon or a technical term, be sure to explain what it means when you introduce it, and dont introduce too many at once.

6. Being too wordy or rambling

Dont use up an hour of time when 20 minutes will do. Respect peoples time and get to the point. Be concise and dont ramble. But dont rush, either. Yes, its a fine line.

7. Going over your allotted time

This is a simple matter of respect. If your presentation goes over your allotted time, theres a good chance your audience will lose interest and leave anyway or at the very least, stop listening because theyll be focused on other commitments and trying to figure out how they will adjust.

8. Lack of focus

Your slide deck should help you stay on track. Use it as a guide to make sure you move logically from one point to another.

9. Reading slides verbatim

In all likelihood, your audience can read perfectly well without your assistance. If youre just going to read to them, you might as well save everyone some time and just send them a copy of your slide deck. This isnt the place for a bedtime story.

Challenge yourself to put as few words on the slides as possible, so that you cant read from them. Could you do your entire presentation with only one word on each slide? If not, this is an indication that you may not know your materials well enough.

10. Poor slide design

PowerPoint gets a bad rap because 99% of slides are very poorly designed, but its not Bill Gates fault that the world lacks design skills! Just because a feature is available in PowerPoint, doesnt mean you need to use it.

In fact, when you start designing a presentation, its best if you dont even open PowerPoint. Use Microsoft Word to create an outline first. Focus on the content and structure, and only when that is outstanding, move to PowerPoint and start designing your slides.

If you dont know how to design good slides, find someone who does or learn. While poor slide design probably wont make or break your presentation, it can undermine your credibility and distract your audience or worse help put them to sleep.

Depending on the type of presentation, you may want to consider the 10/20/30 rule from Guy Kawasaki. Ten slides for a 20-minute presentation with fonts no smaller than 30 points. Its not appropriate for all types of presentations, but its a nice guideline and slide-to-duration ratio.

Be careful when buying PowerPoint templates while they may look pretty, more often than not, the design is not conducive to great presentations. The fonts are almost always too light and/or small to be read at the back of a room and the designers often cram too much on one slide. Buying presentation templates only works if you understand good design. Dont trust that just because a professional designed it, that its any good. It can take longer to fix a poorly designed slide than to just build one from scratch.

11. Cramming in too much information

If the audience cant make sense of the data, or if they have to stop listening to you so they can read, youre doing it wrong. Simplicity and white space are your friends. Think, How would Apple design a slide deck?

12. Incorporating too much data

Ask yourself, Why am I including this data?, What action do I want to inspire?, and If I removed this, could I still make my point? to help determine if the data relevant enough to include.

13. Relying on PowerPoint as your only presentation tool

Even when used correctly, PowerPoint should not be your only tool. Use flip charts, white boards, post-it notes, and other tools to engage your audience. Try to break up the amount of time the audience spends staring at a screen.

14. Making it about you

As the presenter, you are the least important person in the room. When you understand that and focus on the goal of helping your audience, you can eliminate a lot of the nervousness that comes with presenting.

15. Being a Diva

To be a great presenter, one could argue that you have to have a slightly inflated sense of ego and tough skin. Its not easy standing in front of a room full of people (often complete strangers) who will critique your performance without knowing anything about you or the kind of day youve had. That inflated ego can be useful in protecting you when things dont go well.

But your ego doesnt give you permission to act like youre more important than everyone else. Youre the least important person in the room, remember?

The best presenters are those who are authentic and who truly want to help people. Try to accommodate the organizers and see things from their perspective when they need you to adapt. Make it easy for people to work with you and they will ask you to come back.

Ive learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou

16. Not practicing enough (or at all!)

Winging it works well for very few people. The people who successfully speak without much practice are those who are fantastic natural speakers and who know their material inside out and upside down. Even if youre one of the lucky few, you need to get the timing right so practice anyway!

17. Apologizing or drawing attention to your fears or shortcomings

When youre having an off day its natural to want to say something like, I didnt sleep well last night so forgive me if I seem tired. But when you do that, youre undermining your own credibility because your audience might not have even noticed you were tired. But now that youve drawn attention to it, they will focus on it, look for clues, and may even include a comment on your feedback form. Dont give them reasons to complain!

18. Technical difficulties

There are no excuses for not preparing technology ahead of time. Make sure youve tested everything before your presentation. Always carry extra batteries for your presenter remote (if you use one).

If you arrive late, youre setting yourself up for failure and run the risk of starting off stressed, which can have a domino effect on the rest of your presentation.

19. Overusing animations and transitions

Many people struggle with vertigo, motion sickness, and nausea. Out of respect for those people, never move text; if you must animate it, the text should remain static on the screen as it fades or wipes in. This allows people to fix their eyes on a focal point and start reading before the animation finishes. Dont make your audience follow bouncing, flying, zooming, spinning, growing, or floating text or anything else for that matter!

Transitions are quite unnecessary, but if you must use them, only use a quick fade. If your transitions are too slow, theyll interfere with your normal speech pattern.

Remember no one will leave your presentation and think, Wow, those animations were great!. They will comment on the content and your ability to present it. And the food or lack thereof.

20. Not using enough relevant stories

Connect with people on a personal level to build rapport and trust. People will remember your stories much more easily than they will remember any facts you present. Just make sure the stories are relevant to your presentation or youll risk annoying people for wasting their time.

21. Making your stories too long

Dont drag out your stories with useless details. The worst stories begin something like this:

So last Tuesday I was walking the dog and or wait, was it Wednesday? No, it must have been Tuesday. Hmm, now Im not sure. Oh, wait. I was wrong. Actually, it was Monday and I know that because I had just come back from the gym. Right. So, last Monday, I was walking the dog and.

By now your audience is ready to pull their hair out. To make your stories more interesting, keep them succinct and only include relevant information. If you mess up unimportant details that dont affect the outcome of the story, dont correct it just keep going.

End strong with a punch line, a twist, a lesson, or a call to action.

22. Lack of eye contact

Obviously, you want to be sensitive to different cultures, but In North America, lack of eye-contact can make people distrust you. If making eye contact adds to your nerves, pick three main focal points around the room (one on the left, one in the centre, and one on the right). Move from one focal point to the other as you speak, making eye contact with a few people from each area.

23. Failing to pause

A pause is like the mount on a diamond ring. The diamond is the message, but the mount is what presents it to the world and helps it shine! Help your message shine with a well-placed pause.

24. Poor use of humour

Humour can enrich any presentation, as long as its appropriate. Self-deprecating humour is almost always safe. Poking fun at yourself also helps put people at ease, and when you hear laughter, it can help you relax.

25. Ending with Q&A

This is a mistake that almost everyone makes. If you end with a Question and Answer session, what happens if you cant answer the last question? What if the answer isnt one the audience likes or wants to hear? Ending with Q&A risks ending on a negative note. Instead, do your Q&A a few slides before finishing up so that you can end strong.

26. Summarizing the entire presentation

If you can recap your entire presentation in 5-10 minutes, why did you waste an hour of the audiences time? Emphasize only the main ideas very briefly.

27. Not including a call to action

What was the purpose of your presentation? Were you trying to teach something? Did you wan to persuade the audience to take an action? Whatever the goal, make sure to tell people what you want them to do next.

28. Not asking for (anonymous) feedback from the audience

Feedback is useless unless its anonymous. If you just want people to tell you how great you are, ask them in person. Youll rarely find anyone who wont be willing to tell a little white lie to save face.

But if you actually want to improve your presentation skills, ask for honest, anonymous feedback in writing. This is where that tough skin comes in handy, but its the best way to learn.

And over time, as your presentation skills improve, so will your feedback.