riendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.&rdquo

Seven years of coaching business presenters have made it clear to me: there's a body of presentation style habits that pass from one presenter to another. The biggest question is "are these presentation habits helping or hurting?"

Many presentation habits are not audience-friendly. They prevent you from connecting with the audience; they bore the audience, or they make it hard for the audience to pay attention to you. If the audience feels remote and bored, they are turned off and tuned out. No response to your call-to-action will follow, and they'll wonder why they bothered to attend.

The list below describes the poor habit and the audience-friendly habit you can use instead. These are habits my coaching clients frequently need to replace with better habits.

Poor presentation habits            Audience-friendly presentation habits  
Talking towards screen or slide               Talking about media while facing the audience  
Lack of eye contact with the audience     Connecting with individual audience members for 2-3 seconds at a time   
Reading bullets         	                  Explaining the information in your own words  
Announcing or reading slide titles	     Opening each topic with an interesting and attention-getting statement   
Boring transitions between presenters      Value-add transitions between presenters that keep the story flowing  
Audible "next slide, please" 	                  Hand gesture or nodding to indicate you're ready for the next slide  
“Uhs" and "ums" between every thought   Silent pauses while you're thinking

The best speakers analyze their presentation habits and make a plan to change their poor habits, one by one. How can you do the same?

Once you know your content fluently you can begin. Have a colleague video tape your presentation. Your helper should record your opening and 5 minutes following it, then about 5 minutes in the middle, and then the last 5 minutes. Short stretches spread out over the whole presentation will give you enough material to work with, but you won’t be overwhelmed with trying to analyze the whole thing.

Use these three techniques to add audience-friendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.”

nder why they bothered to attend.

The list below describes the poor habit and the audience-friendly habit you can use instead. These are habits my coaching clients frequently need to replace with better habits.

Poor presentation habits            Audience-friendly presentation habits  
Talking towards screen or slide               Talking about media while facing the audience  
Lack of eye contact with the audience     Connecting with individual audience members for 2-3 seconds at a time   
Reading bullets         	                  Explaining the information in your own words  
Announcing or reading slide titles	     Opening each topic with an interesting and attention-getting statement   
Boring transitions between presenters      Value-add transitions between presenters that keep the story flowing  
Audible "next slide, please" 	                  Hand gesture or nodding to indicate you're ready for the next slide  
“Uhs" and "ums" between every thought   Silent pauses while you're thinking

The best speakers analyze their presentation habits and make a plan to change their poor habits, one by one. How can you do the same?

Once you know your content fluently you can begin. Have a colleague video tape your presentation. Your helper should record your opening and 5 minutes following it, then about 5 minutes in the middle, and then the last 5 minutes. Short stretches spread out over the whole presentation will give you enough material to work with, but you won’t be overwhelmed with trying to analyze the whole thing.

Use these three techniques to add audience-friendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.&rdquo

Explaining the information in your own words

Announcing or reading slide titles Opening each topic with an interesting and attention-getting statement

Boring transitions between presenters Value-add transitions between presenters that keep the story flowing

Audible "next slide, please" Hand gesture or nodding to indicate you're ready for the next slide

“Uhs" and "ums" between every thought Silent pauses while you're thinking

The best speakers analyze their presentation habits and make a plan to change their poor habits, one by one. How can you do the same?

Once you know your content fluently you can begin. Have a colleague video tape your presentation. Your helper should record your opening and 5 minutes following it, then about 5 minutes in the middle, and then the last 5 minutes. Short stretches spread out over the whole presentation will give you enough material to work with, but you won’t be overwhelmed with trying to analyze the whole thing.

Use these three techniques to add audience-friendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.&rdquo

nalyze their presentation habits and make a plan to change their poor habits, one by one. How can you do the same?

Once you know your content fluently you can begin. Have a colleague video tape your presentation. Your helper should record your opening and 5 minutes following it, then about 5 minutes in the middle, and then the last 5 minutes. Short stretches spread out over the whole presentation will give you enough material to work with, but you won’t be overwhelmed with trying to analyze the whole thing.

Use these three techniques to add audience-friendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.&rdquo

riendly habits to your presentations:

1. Identify which of these poor habits you have. Be specific. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to make a general evaluation such as “I look terrible.”

2. Create an affirmative plan for change. Select one habit to improve. In order of importance, 1) start with habits that ignore the audience; 2) improve your oral content, so you say things in your own words; 3) work on substituting silent pauses for "uhs" and "ums" and using gestures/nods instead of "next slide, please.”

3. Once you have added one audience-friendly habit to your presentation style, move on to another one. Taking your habits one at a time and creating a strategy for change for each one is more effective than trying to change many things at the same time.

When you Put the Audience first, and focus on how to increase the Return on Investment of every audience member, every time, you will find it easy to replace your poor speaking habits with audience-friendly ones.