- Jargon. Even when you are going to be presenting to people in your own industry or in your own company - it's important that you leave out the acronyms, and specialist language. Even when people KNOW the meaning of a string of initials, they still have to do a quick translation in their head, and so, for a few brief moments, you lose them. If they have to do this translation several times during your talk you may well find you've failed to have the desired impact.
- Cliche. Using hackneyed old cliches and phrases won't do you any favours. If, at the end of the day you find you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater and your audience can't see the wood for the trees, how seriously will they take you? Lose the cliche - find your own way to say the same thing!
- Fillers. Most of us use little verbal fillers when we speak. Things like 'like, sort of, y'know, kinda, emmm, I mean, kinda, that sort of thing'. In conversation these get filtered out and don't usually have too much of an impact, but in a presentation situation there are going to be some people in your audience who will spend the whole time you're speaking counting the number of times you say 'like' or whatever. Don't risk it. Iron out the fillers and if you need thinking time leave a pause.
If you don't think you can manage any or all of these, give me a call and we'll see what I can do to help.
