TJWalker.com

In every presentation there are three possible outcomes for the presenter:

1.    A good impression was made.
2.    A bad impression was made.
3.    No impression was made.

The biggest blunder most presenters face is not that they humiliated themselves or embarrassed themselves or that they froze and had to be carted away. The huge disaster most presenters face is that they show up, give their presentation, and come across completely professional, polished and smooth. They give their presentation exactly as planned. No problems. Then they sit down.

So what’s the problem? It is that the audience members don’t remember anything the presenter said. It all went in one ear and out the other. The presenter had an opportunity to really communicate a message, but he blew it. The presenter was guilty of sameness. Everything just started to look, sound and feel the same as all the other speakers.

Think of how many presentations you hear year at the office, civic clubs, sales meetings, trade conventions, church, or school. And yet how many do you remember 6 months later, 6 days later, or even 6 minutes later?

The sad reality is that most speakers are instantly forgotten because they all sound the same after awhile. If you don’t believe me, test yourself.
Get out a piece of paper and write down everything you remember form each speaker you saw at the last conference you attended. You still have a lot of white space left on your sheet of paper, don’t you?

If I went around to audience members at the average trade show conference and said “Here’s a thousand dollars if you can name for me three things the last 2 speakers just said,” chances are, I’d never have to pay out any money.

Foolproof speakers realize this problem, so they spend most of the time not in trying to avoid bombing. Instead, they spend their prep time figuring out how to get their audience members to remember something they said in order to leave a lasting positive impression.

The solution is to give real thought to becoming more memorable, not simply conveying more facts and data, which is the preoccupation of most average speakers. Giving thought to making your ideas doesn’t necessarily mean more time, expense, or fancy propos, it can just mean being a little more creative.

When Steve Jobs wants to demonstrate how thin his new laptop is, he doesn’t just flash up a slide with text displaying “Laptop thickness: .25 inches.” Because that would be boring. Instead, he demonstrates how thin the laptop is by pulling it out of an envelope. Total cost: 79 cents. But the image was so powerful that it can’t be forgotten days, weeks or even months later.

What are you doing to make sure you leave any impression on your audience? This is the question that should be focusing on.
This is why it’s not really a gable to try to that new story, or a PowerPoint slide with edgy humor. Or to ask questions form an audience member even though you don’t know how they will respond. All of these attempts to mix it up will increase the odds that you don’t end up instantly forgotten.

I’m not suggesting you wear a fake arrow throughout head just to get attention, but you must remember that “playing it safe” is often the most dangerous thing for a presenter to do, because it so often means you will make no impression on your audience at all.

You must do something, anything, in order to get people to leave with a positive impression of you and your ideas.