Five Typical Errors of Experienced Speakers

For many businesspeople, speaking in front of a large crowd has become something trivial. Even when they started off very shy and reluctant, they soon become used to speaking publically, becoming more and more confident with every speech they give.

However, there are some common habits among experienced speakers that they assume to make a professional impression, but, on the contrary, are very predictable and sometimes even disturb the presentation.

1. The Fake Smile

Of course, it is important to make a friendly impression to the audience. Many speakers tend to appear bored or even intimidating in order to hide their nervousness – and in order to avoid this, they create a trained sort of smile that they immediately put on as soon as they stand in front of the audience.

The problem is that it can be very hard for trained speakers to get rid of this exercised smile while dealing with serious or problematic topics. This will take away some degree of their reliability – they will rather make the impression of not taking their topic seriously. In order to avoid this, it is important for speakers to exercise such parts beforehand.

2. Relying on Memory

While inexperienced speakers most often tend to rely on their notes, they will notice that they will use them less and less during the course of their career. Of course, first this is a great improvement since it results in a better communication with the audience instead of presenting the topic in a dull monolog. However, at some point they will notice that they won't be able to improvise if they haven't scripted their presentation to a certain degree – this may sound paradox at first, but it will help them organize their thoughts and keep their best lines in mind (which can be repeated during several presentations). Otherwise, the presentation runs the danger of making an unstructured professional impression and of losing listeners at some point because they are unable to follow the speaker's train of thoughts.

3. Going over the Top

Every speaker tends to do this when they really want to grab the audience's attention. The problem is that they still need to stick to their facts, especially when portraying a certain kind of problem. Nevertheless, the solution to this is simple: the presenter needs to decide whether they want to make their audience laugh or whether they want to make them think. In the first case, it is no problem over the top – but when dealing with serious topics, it is always more advisable to present them in a rather humble fashion.

4. Exaggerated Self-Esteem

A speaker's self-esteem rises with every successful presentation they have held. This is comparable to the third issue – at first sight, this is a positive side-effect of presenting on a regular basis. The problem, however, is that a speaker with an overly exaggerated self-esteem might run the danger of getting hyped up in the presentation. This gives them some sort of feeling of power, it can even cause a rush of adrenaline – but the speaker must not forget the actual point of their speech. Even if they create a great atmosphere among the audience and really build up direct contact with them, they must at any costs avoid losing the point of the actual presentation.

5. Proposing Pointless Questions

Questions are a popular means of gathering feedback from the audience. Especially at the beginning and end of a presentation, they are crucial to make sure the listeners understood the main points of the argumentation. Even in the middle of the presentation, a speaker can pose questions in order to confirm that the members of the audience are still able to follow their speech. Nevertheless, the use of questions should be dealt with carefully. If a speaker notices that the audience can't really follow their speech and stop paying attention, they are very likely to throw in random questions in order to get some sort of feedback. This makes a very unprofessional impression and should be avoided. Better solutions were presented in this post (HYPERLINK → regain the audience's interest)

As it can be seen, even professional speakers can still improve their presentations. As soon as we start paying attention to matters such as these, we will notice how much they still affect our speeches even in professional domains. Getting aware of them is one step to becoming a better presenter. After all, we never really stop learning.

Source: http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/presentation-skills/bad-habits-experienced-speakers/

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