The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience.” Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

How Can I be More Concise?

Your PowerPoint Administrative Specialist: “Limit your presentation to no more than 10 slides!”

Your Boss: “Strip out all of your stories, examples, and anecdotes. Just stick to the facts and you can slim down your presentation.”

Your College Speech Professor: “Research shows that no speech should last longer than 18.5 minutes.”

You: “The more concise I am, the sooner I can sit down, the less likely I am to receive any criticism for having gone on too long.”

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Your Audience: “Concise? Why don’t you actually try to tell us stuff that’s interesting and useful? If you do that, the time will fly and we won’t be staring at our watches. If your speech is a concise 9 minutes long but you are so boring that we tune out after 30 seconds, then the next 8.5 minutes will seem like three hours. So what did you really accomplish? Guess what? We never complain about someone NOT being concise if they are really interesting, even if they talk for three hours.”