For awhile I told myself that I “must” have more variety in my body language when I speak. But I noticed that the harder I tried, the worse I did. So for my last presentation, I didn’t worry about my body language at all — and surprise, I was more natural and varied than ever before.

Two experienced Toastmasters suggested I try speaking without PowerPoint — but the feedback I consistently get from people is that my slides look great and that they make it easy to follow my main points. And I never read from the slides, either.

So if PowerPoint helps, then why not use it?

I’ve made the mistake of speaking slowly so that my audience could absorb my message. But I just came across as having low energy — and maybe sounding like an automaton.

Now I talk with high energy and at a reasonably fast pace. I pause when I need to. It seems to be working.

Nothing is worse than a speech that is all delivery and no content. It’s like getting a burger with a huge bun — only to discover that there’s hardly any meat on the inside. “WHERE’S THE BEEF?!”

When I started speaking, I unconsciously started performing instead of connecting. But then I met this guy who seemed like more of a talk-show host than a speaker. Whenever he spoke to anybody, he was only interested in making sure that you knew how funny and clever he was.

I acknowledged his wit — but I couldn’t stand him. He only saw you as a means to further swell his ego.

I had a professor who only used keywords on her slides. She would take 5 minutes to verbally explain a complex concept. But the only visual aid we had was some text like “Cognitive Dissonance.”

That slide really elucidated your point, professor. Thanks.

Admittedly it has only 15 participants, but it showed that intelligibility was determined by the style of articulation, NOT the rate (at least up to 200 words per minute).
I think this supports your theory!

It does seem like you’re doing the best you can with the material that you have to transfer. But it would be interesting to test different methods. For example, what happens if you just let your audience read the point on the slide while you stay quiet, and then discuss the point once they’ve finished reading it.

All the best with your presentations
Olivia

Yes, I agree that taking questions throughout your presentation can be a two-edged sword and does need careful management. And there are no absolute rules…

For example, with a pitch presentation I could argue that the best strategy is in fact to take questions throughout your presentation. If the prospective client asks lots of questions and you get into discussing the specifics of your solution and how it will meet the client’s needs that can often be the best result. Yes, there’s a risk that the questions could take the presentation in the wrong direction and derail the message that you wanted to get across. But what if those questions are just the outward manifestation of the client’s concerns. If you didn’t allow questions till the end then you wouldn’t know till then that the client had those concerns, and by then it might be too late to resolve the concern.

Of course, as you’ve pointed out there are arguments against taking questions throughout in this situation. The issue is something to consider before each pitch, taking into account what you know about the prospective client.

Olivia

I love the way that you’ve expressed that. You’ve put it better than I have in the post. Olivia