Presenters: Are you making these 2 critical mistakes in your presentations?

Are you a presenter who is making these two critical errors when you give a talk?

I recently attended a presentation with a team of two eager speakers. They had carefully prepared for their talk, but were unaware of two major points.

The first speaker came up to the podium, stood away from the mike, and asked,"Can everyone hear me?" Most people with hearing loss will not admit to it. One brave person, however, said "no". Ironically, the speaker did not hear him.  The speaker spoke clearly, but the volume was soft because of the large size of the room and his distance from the microphone, which dissipated his speech's sound waves. To make matters worse, the microphone was a uni-directional mike, which worked only when a person spoke directly into it. The speaker, however, constantly turned his head and body to look at the PowerPoint behind him. At those times, he was almost inaudible.

The second speaker spoke more loudly, but also turned frequently to look at the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint had 14 lines of type in a small font on it. The room was large, and the words were very hard to read in the back of the room.

What could the speakers have done to prepare better?

First, they could have printed out their Power-Point slides and looked at them instead of turning to look behind them at the slides on the screen. Then, whether the mike was uni-directional or omni-directional, they would have been heard by the audience.

Second, they could have easily moved the microphone closer to their mouths.

Third, they could have used a maximum of seven lines of font in a large size per slide.

Ten thousand baby boomers per day are turning 65. Hearing loss is occurring in 33% of those age 65 and 50% of those aged 75 and older.  It is also now occurring more frequently in those in their 20's, for the first time in history. 

Presenters cannot afford to ignore possible hearing and vision impairments in their audiences.  Make sure you use a microphone, face forward so people can hear or lip-read you, repeat any questions or comments from the audience before answering them, and use large size font. These things are necessary to reach your audience!

For more practical and easy strategies to giving a professional speech, click here.