Your Audience Will Thank You

Eight dos and don'ts to keep in mind when preparing your next presentation

by Carmine Gallo

Ever wonder what your audience is thinking during a presentation? In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to tell you how to earn the gratitude of your listeners.

1. Thank you for not starting with a joke

The worst piece of advice to be handed down to speakers is to start with a joke. I'm not sure where it started, but it could sabotage your next presentation. That's because only a few people can get away with telling jokes with the kind of delivery, timing, and consistency necessary to elicit laughs.

A very prominent female executive once told me a story about the single most embarrassing moment of her professional career: She had been invited to speak at a conference and decided to kick it off with a joke. Halfway through the joke, she forgot the punch line, shuffled through her notes, couldn't find it, and literally sunk into her chair. She was mortified. It took years of smaller presentations and talks to build up her confidence.

Look, it's perfectly okay for your audience not to buckle over in laughter at the beginning of your presentation. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to inject humor into your presentations. By all means, feel free to do so. If you have a humorous observation to make, one intended to make your audience smile, then go for it. But unless you're Robin Williams, once you start with "Did you hear about the two guys who walked into a bar…," you're asking for trouble.

2. Thank you for not reading your notes

Tell me something. Do you feel connected to a speaker when she reads from prepared text or notes? Probably not. Then why do it yourself? It's one of the most glaring weaknesses I notice when I first start working with clients, but it's the easiest problem to correct. Well, easy if you take steps to prepare your presentation.

Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs rarely takes his eyes off his audience when he speaks. He never reads from slides, notes, or the text of a speech. Some of my clients have said he's great "off the cuff." I've got news for you. Jobs will rehearse a presentation for four hours at a stretch, literally. He will rehearse every slide, every demo, every message point out loud. Very few speakers who are considered "charismatic" break eye contact by reading from prepared text. Take a cue from the best and rehearse your presentations to avoid reading (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/6/06, "How to Wow 'Em Like Steve Jobs").

3. Thank you for keeping your PowerPoint slides to a minimum

Why do speakers insist on large slide shows? I've seen speakers click through 77 to 100 slides in presentations slated to last one to two hours. That's an enormous number of slides and sure to leave anyone dazed and confused. I once worked with a business executive who planned to show 88 slides for a 40-minute presentation. Thank goodness, he decided to cut down the number of slides before his audience had to endure it!

Try this. Next time you have to give a PowerPoint presentation, decide how long you're going to speak, then cut that number in half to determine how many slides to use. Let's say you are going to speak for 30 minutes. That means you should make sure you have no more than 15 slides during your talk. Less would be even better, but I repeat, no more than 15. That's two minutes of talking per slide. Remember, it's not about the PowerPoint show; it's about your message. Keep your listener's attention where it should be—on you.

4. Thank you for using larger font size

Most of us cannot read the text on slides in presentations because it's simply too small. Twelve-point font may look fine to you sitting less than a foot away from a 19-in. computer monitor, but it's impossible to read when projected 50 feet away. Try using 32-point font or larger for your text. Can't fit as many words, you say? That's the point. Your audience will appreciate fewer words and larger fonts.