tellingpeople ~ the presentation skills blog

I’ve mentioned the need to practise your presentation out loud more times than I care to remember and I’ve always cited the same few reasons – and this week I had an great example of what can happen if you don’t. For me, it was the highlight of a very long day (but sadly for all the wrong reasons!).

Essentially, the issue is two-fold. Firstly, you’ll get no sense of timing if you rehearse things in your head and secondly, you’ll not get any idea of which combinations of words or phrases are going to be tricky when you stand up and do it for real. Can I give you an example?

The phrase “public sector spends” was part of a presentation I was at recently – and the next bit of the sentence was pretty useful as it gave an idea of how many millions of pounds per years the pubic sector spends of X, Y and Z. Sadly, I wasn’t listening to that bit because I was too busy trying not to laugh at how the phrase “public sector spends” actually came out…. Like me, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to know that the “public spectre sends about 15 million pounds”! Where it sends it, I’m not quite sure….

A simple run-though in advance, out loud, would have avoided that problem and meant that everyone in the audience staying rapt instead of gently laughing. To make matters worse, the presenter had no idea what he’d done to generate such mirth!