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8 perils conference speakers can avoid

1. Seeing a sea of faces

Meet and greet as many people in the audience as they enter, or over coffee at a break. That way no matter where you look in the room you will see a familiar and friendly face.

As you are being introduced, scan the whole room. Get used to the lighting and the location of friendly faces

2. Trying to tell them everything you know

Keep in mind that you objective is to tell them some things that they don’t already know.

Use the questions and answer period at the end to clarify points which need it.

3. Getting tangled in a long sentence.

One sentence per thought.

Avoid using AND or similar conjunctions to join several thoughts in one sentence.

Very few sentences should exceed 15 words. Most should be under ten. A few should be five

words or less, particularly those which introduce or hammer home an important point.

Full stops are free.

4. Ad libbing

The brilliant additional thought that you have at the lectern should not be necessary to make the meaning clear.

Read through the speech out loud at least ten times before delivery. Make a note of the adlibs that you come up with during these rehearsals, and decide whether you want to include them.

5. Losing your place in the script

Number the pages.

Have your name and presentation title on the top of each page.

Type the text of your speech in at least 14 point Times Roman font, with at least 3 line spaces between each paragraph.

For each new sentence, start a new paragraph.

Only write on the top two thirds of the page.

For each new line of thought start a new page. Have the theme in bold at the top.

Have two pages visible at all times — slide the pages over.

6. Competing with your visuals

As each new slide appears, allow the audience time to read it.

If using a bulleted list introduced one point at a time, reduce the visibility of the earlier points.

Don’t include any visual that doesn’t add to your message. Ask yourself — how does this visual make the point clearer?

7. Question time

Have a friend primed to ask a question if no one else does.

Announce a time limit at the start of question time, and present your summary after the Q&A time has expired

8. Running out of time

Measure the time it will take you to deliver your presentation. Count the words. Each 100 words in your script will take one minute to deliver. You may speak at 140 words per minute, but pauses, unexpected interruptions, inevitable ad-libs, despite my well intentioned advice to the contrary, will blow this out.

Add at least 30 seconds for each visual.

Run short, and have a bit on the end that you can pull in to fill extra time, if you must.

Memorise your ending. Go to it as soon as your time expires.

John Sleigh has been applying adult learning principles to training design and workplace communication projects since 1988.

These resources are provided for your personal use. For permission to include them in your published materials, contact John. Permission is usually given for fair use, but please ask first. I like to receive feedback on how you think the materials can be used to stimulate ideas for further development.