![]() Not only do you risk getting a wrong answer and losing your flow, but you also place immediate pressure upon one person. Asking someone to answer a question when they don't want to participate can be dangerous. The close relative to too much eye contact is singling someone out or cold calling upon someone in the audience. It will help keep their attention span going. Also, remember to compliment the person asking the question. Be careful with this, especially during Q&A sessions, as it can backfire on you and cause a lack of audience participation. They eventually may begin to feel embarrassed or worse, intimidated. After a few moments of prolonged exposure the audience member will begin to wonder if something is up, or if they have something wrong on their person. Many of us have experienced this at one time or another. ![]() This is especially true for locking eyes on only one or two people. Too little means no engagement, and too much eye contact causes discomfort. Our next issue concerns eye contact with the audience. Walk around and get moving! The human eye is trained to notice movement use this to your advantage! If you are passionate when you speak, it will show. Countering this takes willpower, but also passion. Also, none of the points you make will stick because your audience will have fallen asleep by the time you are finished. If you never change the pitch of your voice, make inflections or adjust your flow, then you become a machine completely void of emotion and all meaning. What makes this even worse is that they don't even know they're doing it! Of all the mistakes to make, this is probably the second most forbidden. Almost everyone knows this type of presenter because they manage to put us to sleep and make for a very long day. Many of the more disastrous presentation stories I hear also revolve around the drone voiced speaker. Bottom line, avoid doing this at all costs. Reviewing an agenda is one thing, but going overboard and methodically reading through the entire deck verbatim as a robot would, is something completely different. ![]() It underlines your assumption that they cannot read, and demonstrates a lack of professionalism because you appear unprepared or unwilling to put forth a tangible effort. Why is this so bad? It is an insult to the audience, plain and simple. Nothing loses an audience's attention quicker than going word for word, line by line, and page by page in monotone, through an already visible presentation. ![]() I think most people know about this one, or have sat through a speaker making this mistake, yet this problem still persists. Let us start with the most basic rule which is also often the most broken: reading from the slides. Eventually, I will make a video on this subject, and we can all laugh about it but for now, here you go. The big compilation of what not to do during your presentation. The second question I am often asked is "What should I avoid doing when speaking in public?" Well, this is it. It was played back to me after being video taped when I was just starting out in finance. I say Bonne nuit (and not Bon soir!) because I really am going to sleep right now.One of the most popular questions I get asked is: "What is the worst presentation I have ever seen?" Answer: One of my own sales pitches. I’ll post more about “what not to say” as I learn about them. Unless the person says mais on peut se tutoyer (“but we can use the familiar form with each other”) it’s best to keep away from tu and stick with vous. Always be aware not to use tu (you), ton, ta, tes (your) when speaking to other adults. And don’t call a waitress a serveuse (mademoiselle or madame is preferred).Įven though most beginners in French are taught about the informal tu and the formal vous, it’s very important (I think) to stress this again. What you should say is J’ai chaude or J’ai froide (and include the verb “avoir”).Īnother thing, don’t call or address a waiter as garçon (meaning “waiter” and “boy”). My “broken French” is no laughing matter for the people who have to converse with me (it’s difficult trying to figure exactly what I’m saying).Īnyway, in the post “Jamias de la vie” I talked about how you can not say the same things in French as you do in English (by the way, jamais de la vie roughly translates into “never the life” but it really means “no way!” in the same way that “ pas question!” does).įor example, you can’t simply say Je suis chaue or Je suis froie (I am hot or I am cold) because what it means is that you’re saying you are in “heat” or that you’re cold as in “frigid”. Really big mistakes (like sometimes forgetting to include verbs in my sentences, yikes!). My (spoken) French has been slowly improving.
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