Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
Source: www.bnet.com
By Geoffrey James
Most business presentations suck. They're boring. They're confusing. They're out of touch.
This gallery explains exactly why most presentations are so dreadful, and what to do make your own presentations better.
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Too Freakin' Long
1 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: It presents way more than anybody wants to know.
- Why It Happens: The speaker is “spraying and praying” in hope that something works.
- What Results: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
- How to Fix It: Always make your presentation less than half as long as you think it should be.
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Complicated Graphics
2 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: It's full of busy graphics with lots of little details.
- Why It Happens: One picture is worth a thousand words, right? (Uh, wrong.)
- What Results: The audience stared glassy-eyed, then pulled out smartphones and started checking emails.
- How to Fix It: Only include simple graphics; highlight the data point that’s important.
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Reading from Slides
3 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The speaker reads aloud what everyone can read for themselves.
- Why It Happens: The speaker is unprepared and using slides as a memory-jogger.
- What Results: By the third slide, the audience is ready to kill the presenter.
- How to Fix It: Use slides to reinforce your message rather than to outline your data points. Unreadable Fonts
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Unreadable Fonts
4 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
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Redundant Content
5 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation has slides that everyone has already seen.
- Why It Happens: Somebody is trying to “standardize” on a standard presentation.
- What Results: The audience gets bored to death.
- How to Fix It: Never present the same material to the same audience twice.
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Busy Backgrounds
6 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The slides have background templates that are distracting.
- Why It Happens: Somebody thought it would make the slides look more “professional.”
- What Results: The audience gets headaches trying to see what is actually on each slide.
- How to Fix It: Use a simple, single color background. Always.
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All Opinion, No Facts
7 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation is all opinions without any supporting data.
- Why It Happens: Laziness. It’s easy to claim “leadership”; it’s harder to actually be a leader.
- What Results: The speaker's credibility with the audience leaps down the toilet.
- How to Fix It: Only state opinions that you can back up with quantifiable data.
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Biz-Blab
8 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation is filled with tacky business buzzwords.
- Why It Happens: The speaker wrongly thinks that biz-blab sounds “business-like.”
- What Results: The audience assumes the speaker is 1) pompous, 2) crazy, or 3) talking in tongues.
- How to Fix It: Just stop it. Please. (The horror... The horror...)
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Irrelevant Information
9 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The speaker includes material that doesn’t really belong in the presentation.
- Why It Happens: The speaker isn't clear about the message that needs to be conveyed.
- What Results: The audience loses the train of thought.
- How to Fix It: Only include material that’s relevant to your overall message.
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Crappy Clip Art
10 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: It has graphics lifted directly from a low-grade clip art library.
- Why It Happens: Somebody was trying to save a few bucks and a few minutes.
- What Results: The audience figures that the speaker is too cheap to do it right.
- How to Fix It: If you've got to use clip art, buy the good stuff.
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Skipping Around
11 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The speaker flips ahead to another slide, then flipped back.
- Why It Happens The speaker is trying to edit the presentation real-time.
- What Results: The audience rightly figures the speaker isn't fully prepared.
- How to fix it: If you must improvise, do so within the structure of the presentation.
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Wrong Audience
12 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation is on a subject that isn't appropriate to the audience.
- Why It Happens: The presenter didn't bother to research the audience.
- What Results: The audience rightly concludes that the presenter doesn’t give a flying.
- How to Fix It: Always research your audience and customize a story to match.
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Technical Difficulties
13 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: Something happens that screws up the slides or the sound.
- Why It Happens: Nobody bothered to test the setup prior to the presentation.
- What Results: The audience rightly concludes that the presenter isn't prepared.
- How to Fix It: Always check, then double-check, the setup.
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Intro is Too Long
14 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The first third of the presentation introduces the speaker, his firm and the topic.
- Why It Happens: The speaker is used to giving a longer presentation and didn’t shorten the intro.
- What Results: Eye rolling all around as everyone wonders when the speaker will come to the point.
- How to Fix It: Never spend more than 1 minute on your introduction. Never.
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Weak Attempts at Humor
15 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The speaker tries to be a comedian but lacks the skills.
- Why It Happens: The speaker heard somewhere that humor will make a presentation better.
- What Results: Blank stares.
- How to Fix It: Unless you've got the skills, leave the humor to professional comedians.
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Overly Fancy Slides
16 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation is chockablock with special effects and visual jim-cracks.
- Why It Happens: The speaker was afraid that the audience would find him boring.
- What Results: Your audience watches the pretty pictures and misses the real message.
- How to Fix it: Use the minimum visuals that you need to tell the story.
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All Data, No Story
17 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: It presents scads of information without any context or meaning.
- Why It Happens: The speaker wrongly assumes the presentation was a lecture.
- What Results: The audience pulls out their smartphones by the time the fifth slide comes up.
- How to Fix It: Make your presentation tell a story, ideally with the audience as the heroes.
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Meandering
18 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The speaker wanders off on a tangent rather than following a train of thought.
- Why It Happens: The speaker didn’t really take the time to think the presentation through.
- What Results: The audience rightly assumes the speaker is disjointed and disorganized.
- How to Fix It: Review your presentation with a colleague, make changes, then rehearse.
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Discussion Ratholes
19 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
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Wrong Time of Day
20 of 20 from Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
- Diagnosis: The presentation is scheduled for when everyone's mind was elsewhere.
- Why It Happens: The speaker wrongly believe his message is too important to wait.
- What Results: The audience barely hears what is said.
- How to Fix It: Schedule presentations for a time when people will give it proper attention.
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