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How To Stop Judging Your Presentation

Guest post by: Milly Sonneman

Article Overview: Hate the way you give presentations? If you’re kicking yourself over lousy performance, now you can escape feeling like the worst presenter in the world. Find out here…

How To Stop Judging Your Presentation

Hate the way you give presentations? If you’re kicking yourself over lousy performance, now you can escape feeling like the worst presenter in the world. Find out here…

Many experienced presenters and new presenters berate their performance after the fact. If you had a hidden camera in the parking garage this is what you’d discover:

“I never should have said that bit about our lack of experience.”

“I could kick myself for forgetting to show the easy process.”

“I can’t believe I forgot to explain why it mattered to them.”

The list goes on and on.

Now, funny thing is…it doesn’t really matter how the client or prospect experienced the event. This kind of self-abuse is very, very common among professional presenters.

Most professionals believe that what ever they did had huge flaws, gigantic errors, and tremendous negative implications for future business. But that’s where they are wrong.

Use these 7 tips to wean yourself from the habit of crushing enthusiasm for your presentation by focusing on all the things that went wrong. Here we go…

1. Only You Know

Only you know exactly what you prepared. Your client or prospect sees, hears and experiences what happened in the room. They don’t have a clue if you left out a bit, skipped a section, or forgot an example.

They not only don’t know…they may not have missed it at all. What are you kicking yourself about?

2. Intuition Rules

Your intuition is a powerful guide. You may have left out a bit or added an example because of your unconscious guidance. Intuitive understanding is not much appreciated if you’re relying on a script.

But in the moment of delivery, your changes, adjustments and additions are often tied to a visceral or gut sense. Trust your gut.

3. Leverage

If you still feel that you’ve missed an important point, use this to your benefit. Send your client or prospect a follow-up note. Add this to your post presentation materials as a special addition.

With this kind of proactive leverage, your mistake can easily be transformed into personalized attention. What’s not to love about that?

4. Disclose

This takes some guts but can be a terrific way to build trust. Share your ‘mistake’ with your clients. Be natural and authentic. Let them in on the perfectly human moment with a simple phrase, “I can’t believe I forgot to mention…”

This brings in a human touch to a formal situation. Your clients will remember it and more often than not respond with openness.

5. Take The Long View

Although it doesn’t feel great when you seriously blow a big presentation, take the longer view. Will this truly matter in 10 years? Or 20? Will you even remember the event?

If you have trouble getting perspective, talk to a colleague or friend. He or she may have a personal story to share that is like salve to your wounds.

6. Keep A Journal

The best presenters I know keep a personal journal. In it they record wins, loses and insights. The wonderful thing about a journal is you can reflect on what went well…and what you would like to improve. Plus, you can use this to challenge yourself to continuously build your skills.

7. Ask A Coach

How did professional speakers and sales professionals get so good? They got coaching. Ask people who you admire how they got so skilled. Nine times out of ten the answer will be the same: personal coaching.

Personal coaching is so powerful because it is entirely focused on you, your skills, and your needs. If you need attention to storytelling, you’ll get it. If you need help on visual impact, you’ll get it. If you need to work on body language, you’ll get pointers.

Whatever aspect of presentation skills you need to work on, you will address this with your presentation coach.

As you can see, with these 7 tips, you don’t have to keep kicking yourself.

Plus, here’s a extra one for good luck. Adopt a new more positive habit: Look for what went well in your presentation. Then, build on that.

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