Presentation Tips

The Resason That Your Presentation Fails

To most of people, ‘presentation’ is recognized as ‘something that is vague and difficult’.

Concerns about where and what to start from and what kind of stories will draw attention from audiences and persuade them is one of the never ending dilemma in presentations. In order to make your presentation successful, it’s most important to understand and fix the ’cause of failure’ of your own.

Let’s talk about how you can analyze the types of failure in your presentations and how you can effectively deal with them.

1. ‘Lecture’ Type

>>What if your audiences feel released when your presentation is over? You need to practice analyzing the audiences and managing time given for presentation!

Problem: If you fall under this type, you are presenting like giving a lecture or kibitzing. This is one of the common problems people face and it happens if you deliver the information only you know to audiences or if you try to show off your knowledge rather than trying to persuade people or if you prepare too many materials. Audiences listening to these kind of presentation will feel like ‘listening to a lecture or sermon’ regardless of time, and even feel released when the presentation is over – this is a real case.

How to cope with this: Analyzing audiences and controlling the time give for presentation are important. What is it that your audiences want to hear, and what can you tell them to fulfill their needs? – First of all, you have to have them clearly settled into shape and be prepared in advance. Then, you need to practice timing your presentation just in case your presentation gets dragged on.

2. ‘Fancy outside but Poor inside’ Type

>> It looks fancy and great outside, but hollow inside – there is no key messages. If so, you need to practice summarizing the collected base data in a simple way!

Problem : If you fall under this type, it means that your presentation looks great outside with animation effects or designs but are lack of the core and key information. If you make your presentation too fancy by using variety of figures, diagrams, forms, animations and etc. built in PowerPoint program, your audiences may naturally be biased towards the effects and not the contents. With these kind of presentation, delivering key messages to audiences will not only become very difficult but also carries high risk of leaving out key contents and messages while preparing for the presentation.

How to cope with this: You need to practice clearly organizing the stories that you want to tell and summarizing the relevant base data simply. It’s very important that every pages of presentation are made up of meaningful figures, images and texts. So, organizing the core information you want to deliver on each slide and connecting them into one story could be one of the ways to make your presentation successful.

3. ‘CPA’ Type

>> What about math book-like presentation filled with numbers only? Make it into a storytelling by imparting meanings to numbers!

Problem : CPA type people usually give presentations relying on numerical value data. In this case the overall flow of story can be seen somewhat loose due to the way of giving presentation- just showing the results reflected on numerical values rather than the entire story. Presentation requires connectivity of stories as if telling a story during the given time. Notwithstanding that, you can turn your presentation into a math book-like presentation with no stories if you only show direct data with numbers like 1+1=2.

How to cope with this: If you are in a situation where numerical values are required, seasoning them with a little bit of data, which can supplement or prove the numerical value data, will be helpful. Above this, deciding a subject and theme on number arrangement (for example, connecting to the flow numbers ; from the biggest number to the smallest number) and writing a series of stories could be another good way to this matter. Numerical value data is an effective element that can increase the credibility of presentation, so if you practice and get used to forming a story, in which these values are naturally connected to, you should be able to lead more clear and explicit presentation.

4. ‘Self-praise’ Type

>> Got too much to boast? Pick out only the biggest or the most important ones!

Problem : Presentation is delivering your knowledge or persuading audiences with your knowledge. However, if you are a self-praise type, you may display materials exaggerating the knowledge you have, and this may cause a rapid decrease of credibility in audiences. In addition, self-praising data can give unpleasant feelings to some audiences and this may lead to a situation where the presentation itself is neglected.

How to cope with this : You can add credibility to all data when objective and detailed data which can prove them are provided together. However, using exaggerated data can rather make you reach deepening phase of self-praising, so using items with considerate nuance toward audiences rather than structures to highlight yourself would be more effective in increasing the intimacy with audiences.

5. ‘Novelist’ Type

>> Can’t give objective presentation falling into his/her own thought? Prepare data from credible organizations or institutions!

Problem : Novelist type means giving presentations that contain the presenter’s subjective views and thoughts based contrived interpretation or logic despite the fact that they are objective and generalized data or information, and end up remarkably lowering the sympathy of audiences. One of the basis of presentation is ‘credibility’, and subjective interpretation or data strongly reflecting an individual’s thoughts can become a major element that lowers overall credibility of the presentation.
How to cope with this: You must present clear base data for the topic or item that you are going to talk about. Avoid rashly generalizing any proposition or inference which results are not clearly stated. In addition, when you present data, it would be more effective if you can use official data that credible organizations have distributed or announced rather than using data based on your personal thoughts, views or opinion.

6. ‘Anticlimax’ Type

>> Bright beginning, but dull finish- started grandiose but things get dull and tame as you move toward the end? Move the most important conclusion to the very end!

Problem : Anticlimax type refers to presentations with grandiose start but dull and unclear ending. Let me give you an example of ‘anticlimax type’: Suppose that you threw out a topic saying ‘Our company has a solution that can completely solve the earth warming issue’, and at the end you say ‘There isn’t such a thing as ‘complete solution’ but we may be able to do it’. This is what we call ‘anticlimax type’. Excessive selection of topic at the beginning of presentation can lower the credibility of the presenter or company itself, and create chances for audiences to think that there is nothing succeeded or gained after the presentation due to unclear conclusion.

How to cope with this: The first concern to be solved is where in your presentation you are going to place the key messages- at the beginning, in the middle or at the end? Where the key messages are placed may vary depending on the topic or purpose, but there are chances that your presentation can be recognized as ‘hollow’ if you only get to talk about the topic and don’t have clear ending. Therefore, it’d be better to first well organize the messages that you want to deliver during your presentation and then select the most appropriate place for the message and present.

7. ‘Bouncer’ Type

>> Messages are all over- can’t figure out the overall flow of the presentation? Arrange time, place, people and etc. according to the topic!

Problem: Bouncer type simply refers to presentations in which the way of developing logic or connecting point is not natural enough and awkward that the audiences are confused about the presentation contents. Presentation is like one storytelling, so you need to be well-organized in order to develop stories and persuade audiences. However, if your presentation is organized to talk from A to F and back to B and so on without any flow and context, audiences will have a hard time figuring out and understanding the overall flow of the presentation – resulting the presentation to be bogged down.

How to cope with this: Select the topic that you want to talk about during your presentation, then arrange all data and sources necessary and required to deliver the topic and persuade audiences in certain flow (time, place, people and etc.). Suppose you are going to talk about ‘traveling’, then you can either develop your stories based on the moving routes per continent, flow of time, or people whom you have traveled with. if you start talking about one topic, then you must make sure that the ending is clear before you move on to next topic.