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Every day, so many tens of thousands of innocent clients and employees are bored to tears by presentations that it ought to be considered a crime against humanity.

Are your presentations guilty of the following sins?

1. Illegibility. Know the size of the room, screen and audience before you create a presentation. The person at the back of the crowd should easily be able to read your slides. If he or she can’t, they’re going to tune out. Pick a clearly readable font that’s large enough for the potential decision maker at the back of the room to read. And make sure to keep your slide backgrounds simple and clean.
2. Information Overload. Presentations are supposed to support what you’re saying, not tell the whole story. Otherwise, why should people listen to you? Use the outline of your presentation to pick and choose the main points on the screen. If you are going over a complex document, give your audience a handout to which they can refer.
3. Bullet Point Abuse. Slide after slide of bulleted text will have your audience sliding into REM. Break up the text with an image, video, chart or other illustration that is relevant and that will crystallize your main point.
4. Lost in the Wilderness. In longer presentations, take the time to put information into context. As you complete each section, flash back to the bigger picture for a moment so the audience knows how all the information fits together. This will also keep your presentation on track because if you can’t fit a section into the bigger picture, it doesn’t belong there.

If you find it difficult to bring your presentations over from the dark side, consider enlisting the services of a professional. K Lorette Communications has years of experience in copywriting, graphic design and in working with PowerPoint.

Here, David Letterman style, are what I consider to be the Top 10 most common mistakes presenters make when organizing and preparing their content:

10) Not setting the stage.

An introduction should be more than just “Hello. Today we’ll be discussing _____.” If you just jump into the content without setting up the presentation, it can get you off to a jumpy, disjointed start. An introduction should give the audience a sense of who you are, what you’re there to do, and what’s in it for them to listen.

9) Using ineffective notes.

It’s almost always wise to have some notes handy to make sure you don’t forget anything important, but if your notes are hard to follow or are distracting for the audience, they defeat the purpose. Trying to read from a crowded page of word-for-word narrative is a killer because you look down and have trouble looking up for fear that you’ll never find your place again. Disorganized papers or cards can be cumbersome and messy. Keep clear, concise, key-word-or-key-phrase-only notes handy to simply jog your memory, not serve as an unnecessary crutch.

Using jargon or acronyms that leave the audience bewildered.

When a listener hears a word or phrase he/she is not familiar with it causes what I call a “cerebral derailment”. The listener’s mind is chugging along happily with you until he/she hears an unfamiliar term and suddenly the mind jumps the tracks to wonder, “What does that mean?” Always define acronyms (even if you’re sure they know what the letters stand for) and, when in doubt, define any terms that could possibly be unfamiliar.

7) Planning backwards.

Many people begin to prepare a presentation by thinking, “What do I have that’s cool?” (meaning visual aids, support points, stories, examples, etc.) Then they ask themselves, “How can I work it in?” This is backwards. Decide on what you want to accomplish and then ask “What do I have in the way of support that would help me meet that objective?” If you plan backwards you may very well end up with a bunch of interesting information that is of no value to the listeners.

6) Not knowing your objective and/or not sharing it.

Delivering humorous speeches involves a lot more than simply having good material. Take some time to incorporate these tips into your presentations and watch the fun and laughter factors rise.

In Fun

Sigmund Freud wrote: “The most favorable condition for comic pleasure is a generally happy disposition in which one is in the mood for laughter.”

This concept is called “in fun.” If you want your audience to laugh, they must be in fun. You, the speaker, must be in fun. The emcee or program coordinator must be in fun. The whole program should be designed in fun. Do anything you can to be sure your audience knows that it’s OK to laugh.

Time Of Day

The first speaker of the day for an early morning program should not expect hearty laughter. People are not conditioned to laugh a great deal in the early morning. Many won’t even be awake yet. Use more information and less humor. It’s important for you to know when not to expect hearty laughter. It would be a waste of time to use your best material at a time when laughter normally wouldn’t be expected. The poor response also brings your energy level down. Many consider brunch and lunch to be the best times of day to expect a responsive audience. In the afternoon people are starting to get tired so don’t expect laughter to be as intense.

Male/Female Makeup of Audience

All-female audiences tend to laugh more easily and louder than all-male audiences. Audiences that consist of more than 50 percent women are good too. The presence of the females provides a good buffer and makes it OK for the “big-ego” men to laugh.

Size

No, I’m not talking about how much you weigh today. I’m saying that the size of your audience has a direct effect on the types of humor which are most appropriate. Members of small business groups tend to be too self-conscious to laugh much. Use short one-liners. Don’t use any long stories or jokes. In larger groups it’s OK to stretch to jokes and short stories.

Pre-Program Research

The more you know about your audience, the better able you will be to pick the humor that will get the greatest response. Your research before the program will also allow you to uncover the group’s inside humor.

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