Audience Distractors: The killers of otherwise successful presentations.
It’s tragic. An otherwise perfect presentation gets sideswiped by an audience distractor. All of the time, energy and effort that went into gathering the audience or getting time on the prospect’s calendar, building the presentation and even actually practicing OUT LOUD, out the window because of a cursed distractor.
What do I mean by an Audience Distractor? Something that takes the audience’s focus away from your presentation. Once you lose an audience’s attention it’s hard to get it back, and if you do, they’ve missed something – and possibly something important – while they were away. Worse still, some distractors take audiences so far away they can’t get back. Don’t want this to happen to you? Make note of these distractors and do not allow them to be a part of your next presentation.
Ums, ahs, you knows, I means, actuallys and likes: These are the most obvious verbal distractors. Fortunately, you must be peppering your sentences pretty heavily with any of these for them to be distracting. In other words, if you say “um” half a dozen times in a 20 minute presentation, no one is going to be distracted by it.
If you are guilty of way overusing one of these verbal distractors (or any others) it’s easy to kick the habit. How? Simply begin paying attention to what is coming out of your mouth; something most of us rarely do. Be aware; when you first start paying attention to what you’re saying you’ll not be able to catch yourself before the distractor escapes your lips. This will be incredibly frustrating. Don’t despair! Stick with it, and in a matter of hours you’ll be able to eliminate the distracting word or non-word from your patter. In the beginning you’ll replace the distractor with a pause – silence that will feel super awkward to you. Breathe through it. Audience’s love silence! It gives them a chance to digest what you’ve just said and prepare themselves for what you’ll say next. A complete gift to them – the antithesis of a distractor.
Jokes: Yeah, I know. All kinds of “experts” recommend that you begin your presentation with something funny. I’m not against funny – we all love to laugh. The problem with humor is that it can easily be poorly received, misunderstood, or (most lethal to the success of your presentation), offensive. Any of these outcomes are distracting. If your joke doesn’t land, and land perfectly, your audience is either disappointed, confused, or downright angry. Not a great way to begin a presentation.
Apologizing: Unless you’ve arrived late, or the temperature control in the room is not working you have NO reason to apologize. If your slides are out of order, out of date (!?!), not animating correctly, etc, do not apologize. Apologizing will only draw attention to something otherwise invisible and will only distract the audience from your message.
Confessing: If you didn’t get any sleep the night before, or you weren’t the intended presenter, or you’re nervous KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. The audience has no need to know these things, and if you tell them these “fun facts” they’ll be thinking, “Wonder what she’d be like if she’d had a good night’s sleep?” or “Wonder who the real presenter was supposed to be?” or “Wonder why she’s nervous?” all things that are (say it with me now) distracting them from hearing your message.
Make a commitment to yourself to avoid these audience distractors, aka presentation-success-killers. You’ll be heard, and be giving presentations that NAIL IT.
There’s No “I” in Pitch
Well, not in a successful one anyway.
No kidding. To give a successful pitch presentation, one that gets heard and gets results, there should be as little as possible about you, your company, and even, believe it or not, your product or service – unless it’s tied directly to your prospect’s problem or goal.
How many times have you, as a prospect, been subjected to 45 minutes of jaw-dropping boredom hearing the presenter drone on and on about himself, his company, its history, their org chart, the dots on the map….As they talk endlessly, and enthusiastically,about themselves, the thought bubble over your head? “Who cares? What in the world does this have to do with solving my problem?” Uh, absolutely nothing.
Research shows that audience interest ramps up for the first few minutes a presenter is speaking, peaks at about minute four, stays elevated until about minute 25 and then steeply declines. Spend the first three, but no more than four minutes of your presentation briefly introducing yourself and your company. At the four minute mark you should be launching into the meat or your presentation – which must be all about them.
Begin by drawing a picture of what your prospect’s world currently looks like. Are they rolling out a new product? Is their competition eating their lunch? Have they grown too fast? Too slow? Is their industry dramatically changing? Does it need to change dramatically? Or maybe it’s just your prospect who is behind and needs to change. Whatever their current pressing situation is – that’s where you want to focus. Show them right from the start that you ‘get’ them, you understand their problems and/or goals. Better yet, not only do you understand their problem, you have the solution.
When you do talk about your solution, keep it focused around them, their particulars, their position, their problem. Prove to them that your solution has worked for others like them who had the same problem. Prove to them that your solution will produce their desired result. The more you use the words ‘you’ and ‘yours’ the more attentive they’ll be.
Save the org chart and dots on the map for, your mom, maybe. Your prospect really doesn’t care. Fill the pitch with what they do care about; their world, their desired state, their problems and goals. Fill the pitch with ‘you’s and ‘your’s’ – leave out the ‘I’. You’ll be heard – and win the pitch to boot.
