Why Researchers Believe Your PowerPoint Won’t Help People… Here’s Why
If you are planning to win your audience and inspire them with your presentation, then chances are you might commit certain mistakes that you need to avoid. Haven’t we ever seen poor presentations?
In the ones where the PowerPoint slides were mixed up, the presenter stood confronting the screen and read each slide as it was shown and there was no reasonable message. In other words, it was just a complete waste of all the time spent. These presentations are baffling to watch.
A Responsibility to Spark With Your Idea & Message
As a presenter, we stand in a special situation of having the ability to share our insight, experience, and energy with a crowd of people eager for something that is new and easy to swallow. Perhaps, we might be persuading and motivating our team at a meeting, sharing a new idea with the senior administration, promoting and advancing our business at an event of networking, or sharing our proficiency or our supposition at a meeting or any other occasion.
With this benefit in mind; an obligation to you is to make sure that we do not fail to get the credibility, however more critically; a responsibility to guarantee that your message is fascinating to pay attention to and listen to.
No Reason for Audience to Stay With You
It is utterly difficult to win over a group of people; meaning an audience, with a terrible presentation. You may have one of the best ideas ever, yet chances are your presentation crashes and fail, at that point- your ideas might also completely fail to produce the intended effect. Even though each and every audience is different in many ways, there is a couple of general cringe-worthy presentation mistakes that are way too common and happen oftentimes. Researchers have found out that poor presentations are a kill to inspire your audience, and hence it’s impossible to win them over.
Why would you even expect the audience to care enough to sit throughout your presentation? You are not giving them any reason or a motive to keep up with your idea & message.
Not Utilizing the Make or Break Moment
An initial couple of minutes of a presentation is the most significant since your crowd will be choosing whether your presentation is worthy of focusing on or not.
Bad Example #1 – Presentation Learn Clifford Stoll
One of the examples of a badly failed PowerPoint presentation is the Call to Learn by Clifford Stoll. It was one of the most unsuccessful presentations ever. The way he talked about his professional life was too frantic and distracting. For the audience, it was hard to follow and concentrate. Instead of persuading the audience over a single goal, he engaged with props scattered around the stage. He even performed a live science experiment. He could have instead used slides to give a better idea to his audience.
Without having a clear sense of direction and a clear structure, all his energy was just a waste. Stroll talked more about himself rather than the content of the presentation which is the worst one could do. There was a lack of focus and a lot of self-indulgent talk about his thoughts and ideas, without passing on anything useful. It is the oddest presentation that left the audience completely baffled.
Here are a few mistakes that one is highly likely to make, while giving presentations:
1. Controversial Material and Bad Jokes
Humor in presentations is an astounding tool to loosen your audience and improve your presentation. But remember that, terrible jokes will always be terrible jokes. Also, if you are giggling at your own bad jokes, it is even more awkward to watch. Know your audience and always avoid jokes about governmental issues or religion or anything misogynist or bigot. You do not need to be a comedian to win over your audience by making them laugh. All you need is a good sense of humor that cheers up the audience.
2. Too Much Information
Too much information in your presentation can leave your crowd completely confounded about your genuine message. Obviously, when you are enthusiastic about a subject and have lots of information about it, you will be expecting to give your audience an incredible worth message as much as you can in the allotted time.
However, you are bound to talk too rapidly making it much increasingly hard for the crowd to process and review anything you have said. Hence your presentation will not have any impact.
3. Poor Slide Design
As much as the message in the presentation is important, so is the design of the presentation. You might be taking it very lightly by assuming that it is just lines, fonts, and backgrounds. But no, it is more than just that. It is the best and most successful tool to get your message across and captivate your audience. Not only does it gives you an edge over your competitors, but also creates a long-lasting impression on your audience, and perhaps potential customers. On the other hand, a presentation with poor slide design will appear to be boring to the audience. Since there will be no visual aids, they will quickly lose interest.
4. Unstructured Content
Jumping from one idea then onto the next with no reasonable direction or context is way too frustrating and disappointing for an audience. It also makes it really hard to follow your presentation and the ideas being presented. Additionally, what is even more disappointing is the point at which you backtrack and repeatedly rehash the points that have just been already covered. Lack of structure and disorganized content makes the audience lose attention quickly and let them walk away from the hall without listening to all your presentation.
Conclusion:
Finally, just make sure to not make these typical mistakes and we will guarantee that your audience will love your ideas and get truly impressed by your presentation.