Running Short

Running short is usually not a problem. Sure, if you have been paid $50,000 to give a keynote speech in front of 5,000 people and you are supposed to speak for an hour and are done after 10 minutes, then you have a problem on your hands. But I’m assuming—since you simply want to give a pretty good presentation—that you aren’t in the professional speaking business. Great! That takes all the pressure off.

It’s highly unlikely that, if you’ve been allotted 30 minutes and finish after 20, anyone in your audience is going to be upset with you; in fact, you are likely to be proclaimed a hero! If you have covered your main points and done so in a memorable way, then sit down. Don’t worry about running a little short.

However, sometimes people run short because they race through their speech in order to finish faster and sit down. This is a problem. Occasionally, people finish earlier than their allotted time because they strip the speech of all interesting examples, stories, case studies, and vignettes. This, too, is a problem.

Your goal should not be to give a presentation in as brief amount a time as possible or to finish in less than the time allotted. Instead, you want to communicate a few important ideas that you care about and that you want the audience to care about. If you do that, the time will often take care of itself.

If you are allotted 30 minutes to speak and you finish after 90 seconds, then that obviously suggests a problem. Either you rushed too much, or you completely forgot entire sections of your presentation. If you rehearse on video—something you’ve already pledged to do just once in order to give a pretty good presentation—then you should already know how long your speech lasts. This way, there should be no surprises about coming up short.

Finally, remember that you will never hear anyone say the following: “Wow! That speaker was interesting, memorable, relevant, and gave me a lot of good ideas I can use in my business, but I sure am disappointed that she spoke for 10 minutes less than scheduled.”

Running Long

For starters, don’t panic! Next, don’t waste time apologizing for going long because the time you spend talking about going long is actually making you go even longer.

Going long can be a function of several complex factors: Did you start late? Did you plan poorly and have way too much information? Did you get sidetracked? Was the audience so fascinated with you that they bombarded you with questions?

Here are two other factors you need to take into consideration:

1. What are the other time commitments for your audience? It’s one thing if you’re speaking to your own employees and you are running five minutes late for a meeting that is supposed to end at 9:30 AM. If you are the last speaker of a five-day conference and you were supposed to finish at 4:00 PM and everyone has 6:00 PM flights—and you are still talking at a quarter till 5:00—then you have a huge, HUGE problem.
2. Are people engaged with you? If they are fascinated, hanging on your every word, and are on the edge of their seats, then don’t worry if you are a few minutes long.

There are two main reasons for running long. The first is that you started very late through no fault of your own. What I recommend you do is ask the coordinator of the meeting how long they want you to speak. There are three choices:

1. Speak for the allotted time you originally had—say, 30 minutes—even if that means you finish at 11:20 and not 11:00 as originally scheduled.
2. Finish at the originally scheduled time, no matter what. So if you were supposed to start at 10:30 AM and finish at 11:00, and you don’t start until 10:50, you would then say everything you need to in 10 minutes, thus finishing by 11:00.
3. The final option is to compromise somewhat, say, giving you 20 minutes so that you still finish 10 minutes later than scheduled but only have to shrink your presentation by one third.

Here’s the only secret you need to know in order to appear to be a pretty good presenter: don’t act like you are bothered in the least by the time change. Most speakers look and act nervous if there is a change. They apologize for starting or finishing late; they pull on their shirt and tie like Rodney Dangerfield. Don’t do any of this. Instead, focus on delivering the most important material you had for the crowd in the amount of time you have (as defined by the person in charge, even if that is you). Don’t act stressed or rushed—even if you are.
I realize that what I am telling you to do might seem difficult, but it’s actually easier than the approach that most presenters take in these situations. When they realize that they are running late, they start to panic. Next, they start to talk faster and faster, thus destroying the audience’s ability to understand them. Then, they eliminate all of their interesting stories and examples in order to get to all of the facts, thus ensuring that nothing will be remembered. And to top it all off, they waste time talking about time, which is always a completely useless thing to do.

So don’t do any of these things. If you’ve prepared five main points that will take 25 minutes to cover and are suddenly told to finish in 15 minutes, then just cover your first three points—complete with examples and stories. Then let people know that you can send them a memo or other documentation to go over the stuff you didn’t have time for if they want more information.

Here is another simple and easy technique. Let’s say you have concluded your presentation, but there are a lot of questions. You feel torn; on the one hand, you want to finish on time and you can see that half of the room is anxious and itching to get out of there. On the other hand, half of the room is riveted by what you are saying and has a genuine interest in asking you relevant questions that you could answer in your presentation—and you don’t want to disappoint them.
A simple solution is to announce the following: “I know that some of you have to leave, so we are going to conclude as scheduled right now at 1:00 PM. For those of you who have more questions or would like to chat more about this subject, I would be happy to resume the conversation in two minutes right here—immediately after we let our colleagues get by who have to leave.” This way, you look like a class act; everybody wins and gets what they want. The people who want to leave don’t feel awkward or embarrassed about having to sneak out or step over people, and the people who wanted more content from you will get it. And you appeared to be a pretty good presenter in the process.

Another tip when it comes to avoiding the problem of running long is to time your rehearsal the right way. Most people make the mistake of reading their presentation silently, and then timing it with a stopwatch. They don’t take into account that it takes a lot longer to talk to people, pause, walk around, and take questions. What might take you only 5 minutes to read out loud might take you 10 minutes to say in front of people. And then, if you factor in a question or two, it could add another 50 percent. My recommendation is to time your rehearsal, and then add at least another 20 percent to get a sense of how long it will take in the real world.

Final tip: Always have a clock, watch, or some timepiece clearly in your view when giving a presentation. You don’t want to have to be worrying about going long in the middle of your presentation and not really knowing what time it is. I just take my watch off and put in on the table or lectern in front of me; that way, no one has to notice me making a furtive glance at my wrist.

This article was taken from my new book “How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation” You can order a copy from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million or from your local bookstore.