One of the biggest problems most speakers have is the tendency to dump too much data in their presentations, i.e., 12 bullet points per slide, 89 slides for a 15-minute presentation. When you try to dump this much data in a speech, all you do is put your audience to sleep. You really aren’t communicating; all you are doing is putting people to sleep.
But if you streamline your speech and focus on just 3-5 key points the way most experts (including me) recommend, you may have some of your colleagues or clients disappointed. They want all the data and now you aren’t giving it to them.
The answer is to give people data in advance. Email or snail mail your audience all the data in advance. Tell them to study it. Ask them to prepare their questions. That way the people who really care will have the data they need.
For example, if someone comes to a half-day or full day presentation or media-training seminar at my studio, I inundate him or her in advance with data. I send them a couple of books, a dozen videos, several CDs, a software program, newsletters and several other learning tools. If they looked at everything they would spend 24 hours examining the data and info I sent them. Most trainees don’t do this, but for the ones who want to do so, it is available.
So when the day of the training comes, I don’t stand up to do a data dump for eight hours. Instead, I focus on just a handful of concepts and speak for less than an hour. That way, my trainees get to spend the majority of their time speaking and being critiqued.
Whether you are conducting an eight-hour training or just delivering a 15-minute quarterly sales summary, you have the power to control how you disseminate the data. Always use the option of data dumping in advance (or after the meeting), so that you can use your actual speaking time focusing exclusively on your key messages.
