How to Rescue Bad Presentations and emerge as a "Star"

As someone who has been involved in the Marketing field for more than a couple of years I have seen a lot of good presentations and I have seen a lot of bad ones too. Often times, I came to a meeting or presentation with a mindset that it will be a snore-fest and I was pleasantly surprised, other times I thought this thing will be great and I feel asleep in the first few seconds. This doesn’t mean, though, that I have not given bad presentations myself, but most of the time, I found some way to rescue them and believe me you can rescue bad presentations.

So what are the telltale signs that a presentation needs to be rescued? Well, as soon as you see the participants looking at their cell phone too much, leaving for unscheduled breaks, talking to each other instead of listening to you, going off topic or worse …Yawning, you should understand that things are going south in a hurry. It is very important to catch these signs as you will not be able to react until you know that something is wrong.

Professional Speakers often are very good in catching these signs and knowing the pulse of the audience, determining when they need a boost. This is one of the major reasons they get paid so much…they will never bore you by keeping things lively, even when you have to sit for hours on end. But, just because you are not a Professional Speaker (yet) does not mean you can’t rescue your presentations, and be a star.

So here are a few tips which will help you rescue your next presentation:

1. Go the Humor Route: It is not everyone’s cup of tea but if you can add in some humor, relevant to the topic, then you will notice gaining the participants’ focus. Be mindful the humor isn’t felt out of place; otherwise it will do more damage than good.

2. Ask Questions/Turn up the Interaction: It is always recommended to involve your participants and asking questions is a great way of doing that. Bonus points for directing a question towards someone who is being the most disruptive (for lack of better word). When you ask of someone’s opinion they feel involved and obligated to be more attentive.

I remember giving a presentation to a conference room full of around 400 sales people who would not stop talking. So I started going around the room as I presented and asking questions. Everyone had no choice but to be attentive as the next question could have be directed towards them. Surprisingly, later, most of them came to me and said that this is the most fun they’ve had in such a setting.

3. Invite someone for Role Playing: By inviting someone from the audience you effectively change the scene for the on-lookers. As a result, they pay attention. You can ask the invitee to act out a situation relevant to the topic. It is very important to make this about the topic and not just a casual scene, so that people know you are serious.

4. Use the White Board: The White board (if present) is your friend and you need to treat it like one. Jot down key words, or use it to summarize your points. You can also ask the participants a question and write down their answers, this ensures interaction as well. What does this do? Again it is a change in scenery for the participants and it works wonders.

5. Tell Stories: People love stories and they connect to it better than any lengthy definition. It also gives them something to remember long after they have left the presentation, as our capability to remember stories is better than anything else.

I remember one of my Consumer Behaviour teachers asked us what difference ‘context’ made in every day decisions. None of us could answer. He then told a great story which I remember to this day …It went something like this: A Man with his 4 kids was on board a Subway. The kids were really mischievous and the passengers were getting annoyed with them. An old lady asked the man to do something about his kids. The Man answered that he did not know what to do as their mom had just passed away 5 hours ago. All of a sudden the same passengers, who were annoyed with kids a moment ago, started playing with them and offering them treats. My professor summarized “That’s the power of context, ladies and gentlemen”. Just remember that the story has to connect back to your topic of discussion in order for you to segway smoothly into the presentation.

6. Go for a Break: If you still feel that the participants are disengaged, you should consider giving them a break. Take this time to get some feedback from those participants who did not leave or came back before the break was over (there will always be some), about the discussion and what you could do to improve. Also take this time to collect your thoughts and think up a few interesting stories/jokes you could insert in the presentation. Remember I spoke about the change of scenery? Well you could do that here too, after the participants come back ask them to change their seats. It will give them a fresh perspective. Be cautious however, if you are presenting to your seniors, they might not appreciate this gesture.

7. Last Resort -> Reschedule the Meeting: When all else fails, ask the participants politely if they think that the meeting can be adjourned. Whether it was because you were ill-prepared or the topic was dry or the presentation ran too long, you need to own up to the fact that ship is sinking and you need to salvage whatever you can instead of going down with it. Next time, be more prepared as you will have to work doubly hard to impress your audience. On the flip side, they will also re-join your presentation the next time with a fresh state of mind.

There you have it 7 ways to save a bad presentation. I have personally used many of these methods and they have worked wonders. So go ahead and try them, remember you’ve got nothing to lose… your presentation is already going sour.

Depending on the amount of feedback I get, the next time I will be writing about how to kill a perfectly good presentation.