Bad habits!!! You know them. You know it’s not good for your health, but you keep eating it. You are sure it slows down your progress, but you can’t stop doing it. You know it’s affecting your career, but it feels so natural to you. Bad habits can also be observed in a presentation.

Dictionary.com defines a habit as an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. Also, as defined by the Meriam Webster dictionary, habit is a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance.

Bad habits are what they are: bad. They do not always add value to your life. For example, your habit could be that you love eating junk and unhealthy foods, or maybe you are known as someone who micromanages or perhaps your bad habit is procrastination. Whatever the case, bad habits have the potential of limiting your progress, both personally and professionally.  Bad habit doesn’t end with the above examples; they also find their way into our presentations.

With presentations, a lot of people find themselves with terrible bad habits, even those people with some public speaking experience. The bad habits exhibited during presentations take away from the overall strength of the message. You don’t want that to happen.

Sadly, just like some other bad habit, most people don’t always know they have them, and so they can’t do anything to change them unless someone else points them out. Thankfully, in this article, I will highlight five bad habits and mistakes that speakers exhibit during presentations.

1. Dressing poorly or too casually

Please note, when you are introduced as a speaker by a moderator, and you make your way to the stage to give your presentation, even before you say a word, the audience members are already evaluating you based on your outfit. Your outfit is your first line of communication with the audience.  According to research, clothing communicates information about the wearer, and it also determines how you are perceived. The truth is that you don’t even need research to know this.  As audience members ourselves, we do it all the time. We judge a speaker, even before they start speaking.

When you dress poorly or unprofessionally, you give the audience reason to question your credibility. The internal dialogue that goes on in the mind of an audience member, critiquing your outfit, may linger even when you start speaking, ultimately reducing the impact of your message.

But mind you, the definition of what it means to be professionally dressed is changing. Denim, Ts, and other casual clothing are now a trend in the corporate world. The dress-down styles are predominant in the tech space. So, my advice is that you dress appropriately for the audience.  For example, if it is your habit to dress casually at all times, or maybe your line of work does not implement strict demands for dressing formally, you need to be conscious about the way you dress for a presentation before a formal gathering. Here is an example with Mike Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. Maybe your dressing may not matter to an audience of employees in your company, but if your audience is the board of directors, then you should consider dressing a little bit more formal attire.

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2. Talking too fast

Nothing says, “I’m tense and unsettled” louder than talking too fast. Perhaps you’re trying to run through the remaining parts of your presentation in the little time you have left, or maybe you naturally speak fast, or it could be that you are indeed tense and unsettled, this habit impacts the persuasiveness of your message.

There are several ways this habit can impact your presentation. It is easier to follow along with someone who speaks slowly than the person who speaks fast. According to Professor Raymond H. Hull of Wichita State University, fast talkers can speak at speeds that exceed the central nervous system’s ability to understand what’s being said fully. So, the slower you speak, the more likely your message will be retained.  

Another point to mention is that a higher speaking rate can impact on your enunciation and articulation and sometimes vocal variety, all of which determines the clarity of your speech.  

Also, when you speak too fast, chances are higher that you lose the attention of your listeners. Your audience will tune out on you when you talk too fast. So, learn how to make your words count by putting a break on your pace.  Think of every word as important and treat them as such. If you have a lot of slides left to cover in a short time, consider summarizing your presentation instead of resorting to breathlessly rambling through your slides.

3. Um, you’re not listening

Do you know anybody who hardly completes a sentence without saying, Um or ah? I know a few. I cringe when a speech is completely riddled by um(s) and ah(s). These are filler words or verbal crushes/slips. Other filler words are, like. These words are needless and do not add value to your presentation. But before I go any further, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I use um(s) sometimes when I speak, but very minimal, almost nonexistent. Having um(s)  here and there might not seriously weaken your speech, but when you used them ceaselessly, it becomes a problem. It affects your integrity as a speaker.

While it is not a guarantee that you will never use um why presenting or speaking, it is important to keep in mind that it hurts your speech. If you have this consciousness, it becomes easier to work towards eliminating the filler words when you speak. Note, whenever you feel the need to use a filler word, pause. This method is a very effective way to reduce filler words.

4. Starting with an apology

It is not always a good idea to apologize before or during a presentation. That might sound rude, but the moment you apologize for something that you probably could not change, you make it seem like you have made a terrible mistake, and this makes you a victim of some sort. If the sound system is faulty, or the display is not coming on, or you don’t have your materials with you, find a way to work around those, and continue your presentation. Apologizing makes the problem more obvious and less likely to be looked over. It is especially important if your presentation is in front of professionals who care more about functionality than courtesy.

In the same way, do not offer excuses at the beginning of your presentation. It is often a negative indication of performance to start with a statement like, “I’ve not had sufficient rest in the past two weeks.” What that statement does is it serves as an excuse for a future error you would make. If your presentation goes wrong afterward, your audience will wonder why you did not simply cancel instead of waste their time.

5. Turning your back on your audience

When a speaker has not mastered the slides, she is bound to turn around often  to look at the slide. It is not the most professional thing to do because it sends a signal that you do not have a good grasp of what you are presenting and perhaps are not qualified to be presenting it in the first place. The permissible time to look back at your slide is when you need to make a clarification or give a description of an image or a not-very-easy -to-understand slide.  

To avoid this, practice your slides and get conversant with the presentation. However, if you need to follow along with the slide as you present, then have your laptop in front of you in a position where you can glance at your slide and quickly return eye contact with the audience.

A well-prepared content can lose its power when it’s not presented effectively. The above presentation habits and mistakes can ruin a presentation. A perfectly delivered presentation takes a careful and detailed collection of necessary data, learning of essential material, and practicing the presentation. When you do this, you avoid the above pitfalls and ultimately wow your audience with a professional presentation.