What Is The Best Way to Close a Presentation

What is the best way to close a presentation? To end a speech or a talk? The best way is to just state something with finality. Let people know. You do not have to say ‘and in conclusion’ explicitly to end it. You can simply say one final point that is the most important, try to be upbeat about it, and let people know that this is what you are leaving them with.

Too many people end their presentation by stating several facts and then asking for questions as if they are in a big hurry to get out of there because they are nervous or uncomfortable. It is like a car running at 70 miles per hour on a highway and then goes clunk clunk clunk and stops because it has run out of gas.

You do not want to do that. You want to seem purposeful. Just restate your most important point or two. Smile and step back. You do not have to say thank you or ask for questions. Just pause for a minute, let people know that you are finished by your silence. In that way, you will seem confident and purposeful and they will know that you have finished too. It all comes together in a seamless way and it is the most effective way to finish a speech. It doesn’t have to end with some teary story or a joke that is so funny that people will laugh at it for years.

The key is to end with a purpose and on your own terms and not running out of gas.

How Do You Manage Time When Giving a Presentation

How do you manage time when giving a presentation? There are a lot of ways of doing that. You can have a clock or a timer and put it on a lectern or on your table on the stage, you could use your own watch, or you could have a timekeeper at the back of the room.

But the best and easiest way to really be effective at this is to just practice in advance on video in front of people. The problem with most people is that they never rehearse and so they have no idea how long their presentation is. They may make 10,000 bullet points when they have only been given 40 minutes for their presentation. They end up only being on the second slide when they only have a minute more left of the allocated time.

Another big mistake people make is that they think they know how long their presentation is because they are looking at a piece of paper or a computer screen and they are reading silently. You need to realize that you tend to read ten times faster silently than you would if you were to speak it out loud. You need to take into account how long actually speaking will take.

It also takes longer when you are speaking in front of more people because there is more pausing, more walking around, more questions, and occasional looks of confusion which you will have to clarify.

So the best solution is to practice in front of people if you want to have an honest idea about the duration of your presentation.

What Do You Do If You Mess Up In The Middle of a Presentation

What do you do if you are in the middle of a presentation and you just screw up royally? My advice for you is that before you do anything else, really ask yourself how important your mistake was. In so many cases, your audience does not even know or care about the mistake you have made.

What gets people into trouble is when they say “oops!” or “I’m sorry!”. The problem is when they look embarrassed. The problem with this is not that you cannot be a human being and show emotion. The problem is that it might be the most interesting and emotional or memorable moment of your whole presentation. That is not where you want to put the spotlight. You want to put the spotlight on the great ideas you have for the audience you are speaking to.

So if you make a mistake, do not tell anyone. If it is a very specific factual error, stop, pause, don’t look embarrassed, and then say, “Actually, the correct figure is this” and state it. People will not remember your mistakes, they will remember your reaction to them.

As long as you react in a calm manner, there will not be any problems and people will remember what is really important: your main messages and your stories.

What Do You Do If You Have a Technical Malfunction During Your Presentation

What do you do if you have a technical malfunction during your presentation? The slide deck freezes up, the bulb burns out, you forgot to put the power cord in your laptop case and so your laptop is about to run out of power and the presentation is not being displayed anymore. What do you do in such a situation.

My advice? Do not talk about it! Just keep on going. You need to have your paper outline which basically summarizes what you need to say in the presentation. If you have that outline, you do not need your presentation to deliver your speech or conduct the speaking session.

If you forgot to plug in the power cord, simply reach down and put it in. Do not make a big show of how you did not put it in before. You can think to yourself how big of an idiot you are for forgetting to put in the cord but you should not be saying it out loud.

You do not want pity from your audience. We want them to focus on the ideas we are giving to them. Do not whine or complain. Just present and you will leave the best impression on your audience.