Common Presentation Mistakes & How Presentation Skills Training Helps!

Finding The Right Pace With Presentation Skills Training

Have you ever sat through a presentation where the speaker talked so fast you could barely keep up? I remember this experience many years ago. It was me who was speaking so fast and one occasion a person from the audience came and told me that I spoke too fast during my presentation and that I needed to slow down a bit so that the audience could follow me.

I remember it was quite embarrassing for me at that time but I learned from that experience to become better with my presentation skills. Of course presentation skill training is absolutely important because it's a skill that needs to be learned and developed so that you can convey your message effectively. The more you practice it, the more you will become good at it.

Finding the right pace is a game-changer in presentation skills, and getting it wrong can leave your audience lost or, worse, asleep. The good news? You can train yourself to speak at the perfect speed with some simple techniques that will be helpful for you on your next presentation!

Why Your Speaking Pace Matters?

When you talk too fast it tells the audience that you are nervous and which in turn makes the audience also feel uncomfortable! Also while talking too fast you will miss important points that you should have said but because you are nervous you would probably rush to finish your presentation as fast as possible!

You are not alone in this, I see many speakers speak very fast or sometimes speak too slow causing the audience to be impatient and bored with the presentation. If you want your presentation to be effective you need to find the right rhythm that helps you to be calm at the same time keeping the audience interested in listening to what you have to say.

So the key would be for you to remember that you are actually having a conversation with a group of people except that you are the only one talking with the slides. You need to remember that you are doing the presentation for them and it's not about you but it's about them. How are you going to help them with the information that you have?

Usually in my presentation skills training, I ask the participant to speak very fast in the beginning and then very slow after that. It helps them to become aware, how they sound when they are too fast or too slow. I help them find the right pace that works for them. Each person has a unique pace that helps them to feel confident and calm while doing the presentation and I help them to unlock that.

How to Know If You’re Speaking Too Fast or Too Slow?

So if you are not sure if you are speaking too fast or too slow, you can try to read people's facial expression or their body language! If they are looking clueless and blank probably that is a sign that you are going too fast or at other times, if you are speaking too slow, they might be watching their watch frequently or maybe look disinterested.

Another way would be for you to record your presentation and study yourself or even ask someone that you trust and know in the audience about the speed. Usually these two ways will give you a better understanding about how fast or how slow you were talking. Another sign will be that if you are going on the right speed, usually some of the audience will be nodding their head in agreement with your points!

Simple Techniques To Help With Your Pace

If you are a fast talker and you usually go through your presentation very fast then pauses will likely be able to help you. In my presentation skills training, I help participants to learn how they can have intentional pauses without having awkwardness in the atmosphere.

One of the ways you can pause is that as you deliver an important point or your main idea, you can pause a few seconds by looking at their faces to let the message sink in. Of course the pauses need to be done at the right point otherwise it may look as though you had forgotten what you wanted to say!

Secondly you can adjust your pacing by adding variation to your voice, for an example you can really amplify your voice when you are conveying an important point and reducing your voice variation to just normal tone as you have gone pass the important point. You can do this a couple of times during the presentation to keep the audience engaged.

Finally, singing also helps with your pace, as a musician myself, I know that a tempo or the speed of a song can break the song or make it very beautiful. Of course the singer is the person who determines what the tempo will be so that other musical instruments can follow the singer. This requires a lot of practice until the perfect speed has been mastered.

In your free time you can practice singing slow songs and fast songs and it will help you to get your own pacing when it comes to your presentation skills. It also helps with your tone variation as some songs require certain pitch. The more times your practice with your pacing, the more better you will be over time!

You will also find that you will able to adjust your pace accordingly with the audience's facial expressions and body language as you gain more experience. As a professional motivational speaker I need to many times assess my audience facial expressions and body language to know whether my message is really getting across or not.

So a presentation skill is something that you continuesly learn and get better at over time. So don't get bogged dow in the begining with the mistakes but turn them around as an opportunity for growth. Hope this article is helpful to you!

Do check out my website in terms of presentation skill training that I provide for employers that want to train their employees on. https://www.jobthecoach.com/presentation-skill-training