Heres why someone fell asleep during your big presentation

Heres why someone fell asleep during your big presentationHeres why someone fell asleep during your big presentationBig presentations can be daunting. Even after weeks of preparation, its common to find yourself fighting off nerves, stumbling through slides, and clawing for the right words.Here are potential reasons why your words werent resonating with everyone while at the podium.You sounded too much like a salesperson - they stopped paying attentionTalk to your audience, not at them.Author, strategic advisor, and speaker Ian Altman writes in Inc. about selling too much during a presentation.You might be given the stage to address the audience at a conference. This can be a disaster. You might consider pitching the audience on your product/service. Dont do it he writes.Instead, share stories of challenges youve helped others overcome. Make the customer the hero, not your company. You want the audience to think, I have a similar challenge, and I would love to have the same outcome as that person in the story. Stories engage. Selling from the stage is a direct path to the vortex of evil, he continues.You gave them too much time to twiddle their thumbsGet prepared beforehand so you dont have to waste time - in an working world with too many meetings, youll need to make every minute count.Bernard Marr, an author, keynote speaker, business, technology and data expert, writes on LinkedIn that technical difficulties can be an issue during a presentation.Theres nothing worse than sitting around and waiting for a presenter to figure out how to make the projector work - or worse, listening to a presentation without slides because he couldnt make it work, he writes. Be prepared to connect to anything a few dollars spent up front to buy all the right connectors will save you tons of embarrassment and headache. Know beforehand the kind of projector, the size of the screen, and the layout of the room so you can be prepared for anything.Your slides were too denseLoad up on these, and your audience will be out like a light.Debbie Fay, founder of public speaking coaching, presentation development company bespeak presentation solutions, llc, writes in Forbes about how creating visuals that arent aids is a problem.You should never show slides, or overheads, or flip charts that are text intensive. Period, she writes. Your visual aids should always be something that says what you (with words) cannot. Get it? Were talking charts, graphs, pictures, cartoons, music. Any visual aid you create should act as a synergistic component it should illuminate in ways that are beyond you and your words.Think of it this way the less text, the better.Your words were going over their headAuthor Nancy Duarte writes in the Harvard Business Review that speaking in jargon is a common presentation error. This post was the last one in a series featuring information from her book the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations.Have you ever listened to a presenter who sounded super- smart without having any idea what she really said? If so, the presentation was probably full of jargon. Each field has its own lexicon thats familiar to experts but foreign to everyone else. Unless youre speaking to a group of people who are steeped in the material themselves, youre better off avoiding highly technical or industry-specific language. Use words that will resonate with those whose helfende hand and influence you must earn. If they cant follow your ideas, they wont adopt them. Consider whether your presentation passes the grandmother test If your grandmother wouldnt understand what on earth youre talking about, rework your message, she writes.The person was actually exhaustedGetting four hours of sleep + a long presentation = zzzzzzz.Lets not forget about this one - no matter what, dont give them a reason to rest up during your presentation.