BORING SPEECH? Fix These 7 Mistakes On Your Presentations

A Boring Speech is when the Speaker technically fails to address a Clear and objective message during his presentation, making the audience lose interest in what is being said or presented, specifically when the main message does not captivate them.

A Speech can be boring for many reasons, and today we will talk about seven mistakes that people make when they make their presentations.

These seven mistakes can take away your credibility as a speaker and make your presentation a boring one;

Not Being Prepared
Not knowing your Audience
Not Having Clear Points
Overdependence on Visuals
Don’t Push Your Presentation
Monotonous Tone and Poor Speech Reading Skills
Don’t Turn your back to the Audience

Highly Recommended Article:

15 Ideas to Make a Speech Unique, Memorable, and Inspiring

BORING SPEECH? Fix These 7 Mistakes on Your Presentations

Not Being Prepared

We are talking about something as naive as not preparing your presentation. Some speakers prepare themselves some minutes before the presentation; they arrive 20 or 30 minutes before, take a notepad and prepare what they are going to say to the audience.

Yes, some people are good at this, like going to the stage and do a Decent Presentation. But what if they get prepared a little bit more?

Not knowing your Audience

Inexperienced speakers do not give themselves time for quick research to determine who will attend their Presentation. Why does it matter? Knowing your audience allows you to know how to address them and what kind of language to use, and it gives you more confidence in what you are going to tell them.

If you know nothing about the audience, you are on a fast lane to get them to fall asleep or tune in to their phones for the rest of your presentation.

Before you prepare yourself for a presentation, always make sure to take some time to conduct audience research and tailor your speech accordingly.

In short: You may have the BEST speech or presentation in the World, but if it’s not relevant or if it doesn’t mean anything to the audience, it’s not going to affect them. So, Know your audience.

Not Having Clear Points

We live in a time where people are always in a rush, and being honest here, if you speak for more than 15 minutes without being clear, concise, and straightforward, the audience WILL get bored.

At the very beginning of your presentation, please clarify what you’re going to tell them, then explain point by point but do not lose your focus, and try to repeat or summarise all that you have to say.

Overdependence on Visuals

You probably already heard of or witnessed this one. Some speakers turn their backs to the audience and read entire slides without even making a brief.

A Good presentation is when you evoke the thirst within the audience that is watching or listening to learn more.

Although some speeches or presentations last for 2 or 3 hours (yes, some presentations take that long) due to the nature of the message, complexity, or mode of delivery, being able to do so without READING the whole time is priceless for your audience.

A possible solution to achieve this is by having a good speech outline and plan, conducting extensive research and rehearsing your materials, and avoiding to pack all the information into the main slides.

You can also make summaries, add compelling examples, and relatable stories in every section of the speech to avoid having the audience getting bored. Do your very best to avoid making them experience Death by PowerPoint.

Don’t Push Your Presentation

Audiences are looking for authenticity, and it’s not something that you improvise; it comes from the preparation, and if you are not prepared, you will end up dragging things to appeal to your audience in some aspect.

What I mean by this is that the lack of preparation and compelling, relatable, and engaging content to share will force you to make the following mistakes:

Adding nonexistent facts or experiences to build credibility or interest
Overdramatizing parts of your presentation forcibly.
Trying to come up with Jokes on the fly, without having the talent to do so
Making simple concepts harder to understand

Proper preparation, speech outline, rehearsing, and getting someone to keep time for your presentation will help you avoid these mistakes.

Monotonous Tone and Poor Speech Reading Skills

Some people can get nervous when it comes to reading some words on their slide or even to speak to the audience, some start to stutter, or their voices completely change, leading to using a monotonous voice reading the slides, or a trembling and low tone voice trying to speak up.

Most often, the audience can read your slides just fine. They came to listen or watch your speech or presentation because you will bring that TEXT to life with your memorable speech.

The First step to making your reading or speech more interesting is to own that stage, to speak loud enough, and manage your tone depending on the timing and message being delivered.

When you’re speaking with a proper and audible tone in front of other people, you show confidence and build credibility with the audience.

If you are delivering a manuscript speech, you should also know how to read the message in a way that doesn’t sound like a lullaby. Avoid looking 100% down or up (to where the text is); rehearse before so you can read while looking at the audience.

Here is where people go wrong when reading aloud: they don’t manage their breath. They find themselves reading something and then being like, ” Oh, I need to push some air,” so they interrupt the flow of the Speech or Text just by taking a random breath.

Train yourself to know where the commas, question marks, etc., are and when to stop so that you know where you can take your breath. As long as you’ve got enough breath to get to the end of the sentence, that will help everybody who is listening to understand you.

Don’t Turn your back to the Audience

Turning your back to the audience is one of the worst body language mistakes you can make, and the reason is simple: you are disconnecting yourself from the audience.

Often we find speakers or presenters that make poor space usage planning before the speech or fail to make one altogether. One example is one of those presentations where the presenter has to turn his/her back to the audience EVERY time they click to switch pages on the slides.

If you are going to use slides, be familiar with them first so that you can quickly click through them. Know which one comes after which one and exactly what words to click on when you tell a story.

Additionally, use the little remotes/pointers and a wireless mouse to change slides without needing to go near the notebook keypad.

Please do not turn your back on the Audience unless it’s a choice, and you are trying to make a specific sensibility or feeling in the room; otherwise, face the audience.

To Sum Up

For an excellent speech to take place, a mix of an invested speaker, preparation, audience analysis, good posture and mannerisms, engaging tone, relatable, clear and straightforward message, and connecting with the audience is required.

There are many more interesting tips and advice on this blog for those who want to deliver memorable and engaging presentations. Please take some time and go through the related articles to learn more tips.

Further Reading

What makes a great Presenter? 9 key qualities to look for

https://www.acethepresentation.com/what-makes-a-great-presenter-9-key-qualities-to-look-for/

When Boring Speeches Strike. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218069