Avoid Bewildering Your Audience With A Cluttered Presentation

Presentations can be a tricky task even for those possessing a high intellect or those we consider to be good speakers. The reason lies in the fact that often one such knowledgeable person can drift away in explaining all that he knows that may actually be too much to absorb at one time for a listener. This short coming is also reflected in their presentations that often end up looking too cluttered to the audience to leave them utterly baffled!

A presenter must necessarily be focused on keeping the presentation precise and non-cluttered in order to keep the audience engaged. So here are the three ground rules to avoid bewildering your audience with a cluttered presentation.

First, trim off the excess. Keep in mind it is a presentation and not a consultation session! Hence the audience need not be fed with the unnecessary details. Just stick to the point so that it is clearly visible and comprehensible to the audience. This will require you to be smart with your choice of words so that the meaning is clearly conveyed with the use of minimal words. But watch out! Do not make it sound like a check list that is simply technical and completely lacking any expression. The precise statement should have a catch such that they can stir the audience’s emotions. Remember, it is always a connection at an emotional level that holds the audience’s interest.

Second, break down the complex information to a more simple form. Thorough examining over the years shows that a complex information broken down to the basic level helps create a better understanding. It is then that you can gradually proceed to the complex build up that eventually will be easier to understand and retain in memory.

Lastly, eliminate the unnecessary filler words. Well, these aren’t actually all words but also include expressions that we use in speech in our day to day communications. For instance ‘ah’, ‘um’, ‘etc’, are the usual expressions apart from words like ‘okay’ that we often use to fill up for a definite statement when we are actually trying to thing and are not confident of what we will be saying next. Even in vocal communication the excessive use of these fillers reflects upon your lack of confidence. Therefore using these words in perfectly pitched, to the point speech is a strict no no!

Follow these ground rules and your presentation will surely be rid of a lot of that overload that would have only lead to a confused audience that eventually loses interest.