Imagine you’re listening to a presentation that instantly captures your interest and attention. It’s a topic you enjoy and want to learn more about.
But, after several minutes, you feel your brain shutting down — there’s too much information, too many graphs, and too many visuals.
So, you do what any overwhelmed human being does, you stop listening. Most likely, you grab your phone to relieve the tension.
The presenter has missed a golden opportunity to leave a positive impression on you.
Ensnared By A Common Presentation Trap
Many speakers and leaders fall into the trap of believing that more is better. They pack their talks and stories with information, anecdotes, and slides. No white space here! I’ve got to impress them with all my wisdom and everything I know!
However, the opposite occurs. Today’s over-stimulated listener doesn’t need all of our knowledge. They only need the essentials.
When we overwhelm people with ideas and information, they can’t discern our main takeaway. In our quest to impress them, we create confusion and disengagement. We fail to achieve our communication objectives.
A Better Way To Influence
So, let’s use a new approach. It begins with removing just one element from your presentations or stories. It’s the old adage: addition through subtraction.
In his book Subtract, Leidy Klotz offers insights and research into the concept of subtraction to revolutionize to increase our leadership effectiveness, impact lives and efficiently solve problems.
This approach can also be applies to improve our presentations and stories.
One Key Question
When you prepare your next talk ask yourself:
If I remove this sentence, or paragraph, how will it impact my message?
You’ll be surprised at how much excess material your presentation doesn’t need in order for you to make a lasting impression.
Use this method. Don’t overwhelm yourself at first; focus on one extraneous idea. With practice, you’ll get better.
Eventually, you’ll become addicted to the idea of whittling your material down to its essence.
Want To Become A More Effective Communicator?
Embrace simplicity.
Remove non-essential elements.
Increase your impact.
Help! I Don’t Know What To Take Out!
If you’ve ever felt this way, when preparing a presentation, you are not alone it is nearly impossible for everyone, including coaches like me to effectively edit our own presentations. We’re too close to our material.
If you would like help reviewing your stories or speech material, schedule a time with me to chat. Will discuss your objectives and potential strategies you can use to create a more lean and impactful presentation.
To schedule a free, no obligation call, CLICK HERE.
Michael’s mission is to help leaders, managers and sales professionals communicate with more confidence, impact, and influence. This passion is born from his own communication difficulties early in his career.
Fortunately, he discovered that public speaking is like riding a bike, swimming or driving a car - it’s a learnable skill. Once he discovered this ‘secret’ he became a voracious student of the craft. He took courses, studied some of the world’s best speakers and storytellers and continues to study presentation and business storytelling skills.
He is hired by companies and organizations, leaders, managers and sales professionals, and TEDx speakers to help them become more confident, impactful and influential communicators.
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