When you are giving your presentation, you might think that you need to include color, or maybe animation in your PowerPoint, or making sure you are making eye contact.

Now all of these aspects of presenting are important, but there is one key component to presenting that is the most important. And this is…

Knowing what you want as the result of your presentation

If you’re presenting technical research, do you want your audience to agree with your conclusions? Or do you just want to have them agree that you’re making progress?

In front of a potential customer, do you want them to hand you money on the spot? Or do you want to schedule another meeting to discuss terms?

If you’re demonstrating a new technology, do you want your audience to like your technology, or do you want them to buy your technology (these aren’t necessarily the same thing)?

In front of a government agency, do you want them to grant your project approval? Or do you want them to deny a project you oppose?

Knowing your desired outcome is, by far, the most important part of your presentation. Knowing your outcome lays out exactly what your presentation should be about, how it should be constructed, what it should focus on, and how it should be delivered.

When you try to put together your presentation without clearing knowing what your desired outcome should be is like getting into your car and driving without knowing the place to where you are driving.

You could focus on good driving skills, such as keeping your hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, or not tailgating, or using your turn signal appropriately, but you may have driven someplace you didn’t want to end up (although you will have driven there quite well…).

Similarly, if you focus on the tactics and techniques of presenting, but pay little attention to what you’re presenting and why, then you’ll finish your presentation with the audience enjoying your style and commending you as a presenter, but they won’t respond the way you had hoped. (Unless, of course, your goal is to be considered a good presenter, but that’s certainly putting you ahead of your message…)

Again, what do you want to accomplish with your presentation, and what is your desired outcome? Knowing the answer to this question means you clearly understand the goal of the presentation, and then you can craft the presentation itself toward achieving that goal. However, without this answer, you may go into the presentation with a description of what you did or what your company is about or… and never guide your audience toward your desired outcome.

When you are presenting, you are delivering a message and you want your audience to hear the message you are trying to convey, not some other message that comes out instead. Clearly understanding your desired outcome helps to align your chosen message with the message that is actually heard by your audience.

When you are giving a presentation, there are many things that are in your control that can make your presentation go well or go terribly wrong. Without knowing it, presenters many times fall into traps of their own making, which can be easily avoided with the right tools and outlook. Here are ten of the biggest deadly mistakes that presenters should avoid.

Taking too much time

Your audience’s time is valuable, and if you care about them liking your presentation, then you will value their time. If you have an allotted slot of time in which to present, stick to that time. Don’t try to pack in more material – if your presentation is good, then you’ll be leaving the audience wanting more – that’s great! However, no matter how good your presentation is, if you go on longer than you said you would, then it’s like breaking an implicit promise.

Overusing color, flash, graphics, and animation

Color, Flash, graphics, and PowerPoint animation have their place, and they can be VERY useful in making your presentation even more effective. However, too much of a good thing can be, well, too much of a good thing. You want these devices to assist you in your presentation, but using them too much can actually distract your audience from the main purpose of your presentation – your message.

Use color and animation in the right doses to make your presentation sing, but don’t overdo it.

Reading your presentation or reading notes

If you are reading from notes during your presentation or, worse, just reading the text on your presentation slides, then you’re in the middle of a presentation train wreck. The audience will be thinking in their heads: “Well, even I could READ the slides…” Reading the slides conveys an impression that you as the presenter don’t know the material you’re presenting, since you have to read it aloud. The slides are there for the audience to guide their attention, but YOU are giving the presentation, not your slides. Don’t read – know your material and let your slides assist you.

Putting too many words on your slides

This is an especially deadly mistake. When the audience sees a slide that is just jam packed with words, their brains go to sleep. They don’t try and read the slide (it’s too difficult), and they stop listening to the speaker (deadly!). Text needs to be broken up into short bulleted items, with fonts that are easy to read, and with plenty of white space. Color can even be used to highlight certain words, conveying the message you’re intending.

Talking AT your audience instead of WITH your audience

When you’re presenting, you can’t go in with the attitude that you know more than your audience. Maybe you DO know more than the audience, but you can’t go into your presentation exuding that attitude. Your audience may know a lot about your subject, or they may only know a little, which is why they’re listening to you. But you need to connect with your audience and make sure they know that you are here to help THEM.

Your audience is asking the question to themselves: “What’s in it for me?” If you can answer that question in their minds, which means you are successfully connecting with them, then your presentation will be a hit. Talking AT your audience means that you’re not trying to connect with them; talking WITH them means that you are.

Having multiple messages on a single slide

Your presentation is like a story and you have several messages that you are trying to convey. Some messages may be steps along a path toward a larger message, so each step is most likely important. Don’t muddle these steps together if they are that important. Each slide in your presentation should have a singular message that you want the audience to come away with.

If you have a larger message that has a couple of key components, break it up into two slides. You are guiding the audience, so have them focus on one thing at a time.

Presenting the wrong image

If you’re presenting to a group of business executives, then you’ll probably want to dress in a business suit. This conveys that you understand your audience and you respect them as a group. However, if you’re presenting to a group in a more casual environment, you may not want the business suit, since it makes you seem stuffy. Overdressing and underdressing can be deadly mistakes in presenting, since it conveys the impression that you don’t understand your audience – you didn’t dress the appropriate part.

Going in cold

Regardless of how well you think you know your presentation, you need to prepare. You need to go over (even if it’s just in your head) what you’re going to say on each slide, what your messages are, and how your want to present yourself. Having a “dry run” – practicing your presentation in front of real people that will give you constructive feedback – is an important step in proper presentation preparation. Also, if you can, check out the room in which you’ll be presenting beforehand. Check out your animation and videos to see if they’ll work properly. This way, you won’t be caught off guard.

Apologizing when it’s not your fault

Apologizing may be polite, but it also sends signs of weakness and uncertainty to your audience, so be careful about how or when you apologize to your audience. Obviously, if someone is asking a question and you can’t hear them, you might say, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Could you ask your question again?” This isn’t really apologizing – you’re just being polite for someone not speaking up.

However, if someone gives you grief for not including something that they think you should have included, say something like: “That’s an interesting comment. I’ll look into that for next time.” But, don’t apologize – there’s no need. If you’re prepared, and understand the material that you ARE presenting (not what somebody thinks you SHOULD BE presenting), then there is no reason to apologize.

Presenting without a Purpose

This is the number one mistake that presenters make, and what I consider to be the most important part of one’s presentation – knowing what you want to achieve as the result of your presentation, or knowing the purpose for your presentation. Maybe scientists might give a presentation of their research, or a salesperson might give a presentation on their product. Some executives might give a presentation on the state of their business, or a manager gives a presentation on the status of their program.

In each case, the presenter is giving a presentation on something and could easily just tell people what the facts are. Well, the audience may just end up asking: “So what? Why should I care?” This is the question that would get asked if the presenter didn’t know what they wanted at the end of their presentation. As a presenter, you want to ask yourself what your desired outcome is. How do you want the people hearing your presentation to respond?

You want to send a message, and you need your facts to support your message. Understanding your message defines everything else that follows in your presentation – your structure, your slides, your words. So, presenting without a purpose is the most deadly mistake of all in presenting. Avoid it at all costs!

Your job interview presentation can make the difference between you and all of the other candidates that are walking in the door.

I remember hiring people when I led an advanced technology department, and many people looked great on paper. They all had the qualifications we were looking for, but we always conducted interviews and watched how the candidate presented themselves.

In fact, that’s the main part of the presentation that hiring managers are looking for — how the candidate present themselves as opposed to the material.

And those who do that the best are the ones that companies love to hire!

So, let’s say that you’re applying for a position, and you have to give a presentation during your job interview. What do I do?

Well, first of all, don’t sweat it! You are telling these people about you, and you’re the expert on you.

OK, onto the next part — the first and most important part of your job interview presentation is to know what you want to achieve as a result.

Now, before you start screaming, “I know what I want. I want the job!…” — that’s not what I’m talking about (but I completely understand…)

What I mean is that you know what you want your audience to get out of your presentation. Do you want them to think you’re a nice person? Do you want them to think that you’re smart? Do you want them to think you’re comfortable in your own skin (we’ll return to this one later…)?

Once you know what your desired outcome is, it sets the roadmap for putting your presentation together. Everything in your presentation – your title, your slides, your outline, etc. – is geared directly toward this desired response.

Second, if you have 10 minutes for your presentation, then you should have no more than 5-7 charts, including the title slide. You don’t have a lot of time, so focus on the important point of your presentation.

Good time management of your presentation is a reflection of your ability to manage your time in other, job-related matters. Your audience’s time is valuable, so honor that value by making sure your presentation stays within your time allotment.

Lastly, be confident. Now, what do I mean by being confident? Well, you want your audience to think that you are confident in your own skin — that you know who you are, know what you know, and also what you don’t know.

There are people who try to act confident, and when they get asked a question, they are so afraid that the audience will think that they aren’t up for the job that they try to make up an answer. For lack of a better word, they try to BS their way through the interview.

Whatever you do, don’t try to make things up on the fly and try to fool your audience into giving you a job this way. First of all, your audience isn’t dumb, and they can smell baloney when it’s put in front of them. Secondly, even if you get the job, you’ll get found out soon enough.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Don’t try to get your job this way…

If you get asked a question that you don’t understand, just say, “I don’t understand your question. Could you repeat it?” If you aren’t sure what the answer is, just say, “I don’t know the answer at this point.” Be honest, and confident about your honesty. People will respect this more than you know.

Once you know that you are giving a presentation for your job interview, take some deep breaths, take some time, and follow some simple steps. When you do this, you’ll be in a good state and ready to present yourself to your new employers.

Good luck!

When you get to the end of your presentation, you generally will have a question-and-answer or Q&A session. Here are 7 helpful tips for making your Q&A successful.

- Encourage questions

When you finish your presentation, you should ask your audience if they have any questions. Make this open and warm by saying something like, “Feel free to ask me any questions” as opposed to cooler response such as, “I was told to give you 15 minutes for questions, so fire away.”

One of the ways to ensure that your audience receives your presentation well is when they feel that you’re comfortable in your own skin. When you ask for questions, it sends a message that you want to hear from your audience (that’s good!), and that you feel comfortable being put on the spot. So, encourage questions during your Q&A.

- Don’t let one person ask all the questions

You want to be open in answering questions from your audience, but that doesn’t give one audience member a license to ask all the questions. The audience will recognize if somebody is trying to dominate the conversation, so feel free to take charge – you are the one in control of your presentation.

If someone dominates the Q&A, say something like, “I’m happy to answer more of your questions after the session is over, but I’d like to give other members of the audience a chance to ask a question. Are there any other questions?”

Don’t blow the person off, but don’t let them take control of your presentation by dominating the conversation.

- Be honest and don’t try to make things up

Many times you might find yourself unable to answer a question that’s posed to you. It may be that you’ve never thought of that question before or that you just don’t have the information in front of you.

Regardless, if you don’t know the answer, just say that you don’t know the answer. Experts don’t always have all of the answers at the tip of their tongue. But whatever you do, don’t try to make up an answer just to make it look like you have one. It’s bad form.

- Have an example question ready

Sometimes when you start the Q&A, you hear silence. The audience may not be ready or know what to ask. In preparing for your presentation, you may want to have an example question ready that you can ask it to yourself, and then answer it.

You might say, “Well, here’s a question that I’ve been asked before.” Go ahead and ask the question, and then give your answer. This warms the audience up for the Q&A and presents them with an example of the types of questions that are worth asking. This should get things going on the right foot.

- Keep your answers short

It can sometimes be easy to answer a question in a lengthly and detailed way. Key tip — Don’t do it!

If someone asks a question, your audience may want to hear your answer. However, they don’t want every chapter and verse detailing that answer. If you need to get into a lengthly explanation, give a short answer and then ask the questioner if you can talk with them offline.

Your audience wants to hear short, concise answers, so value their time by staying away for answers that are too long.

- Manage the questions effectively

The Q&A part of your presentation is limited, so you need to have a handle on how to manage the questions. When someone asks a question, it’s usually good to repeat the question itself, maybe in your own words. This lets others in the audience hear the question (the questioner might be too soft-spoken), and it also allows you to rephrase a difficult question into something that can be answered more easily.

Of course, you may get repeat questions or people who aren’t even asking you questions – they’re making speeches. When this happens, it’s usually good to steer clear of engaging with these folks, so here are some tips for handling this.

If you get a repeat question, just say, “Well, that question is similar to one I answered before. I’m happy to speak with you after the presentation if you’d like a more detailed answer.” If you get a speechmaker, politely ask if they have a concise question, and if they persist, just say, “I’m happy to talk with you later about that point. Let me see if there’s anyone else who has a question.”

- Keep your cool

Sometimes the questions can be tough and the questioners can be even tougher. But don’t lose your cool or get angry when responding.

Remember, you’re in control of your presentation, not your audience. Being defensive with your responses indicates that you’re not in control, so work hard on maintaining your emotions. If the questioner has made a good point about your presentation which becomes difficult to answer, acknowledge it. Just say, “That’s a very good point — one worth looking into more.”

What you don’t want to do is get into an argument with a questioner, since regardless of who is right in the argument, the presenter comes out the loser. Stay in control of your emotions and you’ll come out of a tough Q&A session well.

PowerPoint is a great software package for creating presentations. And one of the most powerful features in PowerPoint is the ability to animate text, pictures, and graphics.

However, with any technology, people can abuse it, so there are some things you’ll want to keep in mind when using PowerPoint animation.

Here are 4 must-have nuggets on how to use PowerPoint animation effectively.

1) Use animation to control the flow of your presentation, not to entertain

You are the one that must control your presentation. You are trying to convey a message and you want to bring your audience step-by-step with you.

That means splitting up your presentation into different slides or mini-messages and you show them one at a time.

The great part about animation is that you can further “bite size” your message into smaller parts without having to make more slides.

Animation lets you show one or more bullets at a time, so that you can talk about them, and then move on.

By not showing future bullets on your slide, you prevent your audience from jumping ahead or trying to read your slide before you get to a certain point (believe me, they do…). It controls your audience’s attention and forces them to pay attention to your particular point on your terms.

However (and we’ll talk about this a bit later), some people overuse animation. These presenters think that you need to dazzle the audience with flying bullets or whizzing intros to keep their attention.

No way!! Animation is a tool to help you convey your message and control the flow of your presentation. It is not an entertainment device — using it in this way distracts the audience from your message.

So, if you want to use animation effectively, use it to enhance your message. If your audience wanted to be entertained, they would have bought tickets to the circus.

2) Use animation to illustrate a point that words or pictures alone can’t do

Again, the point of your presentation is to convey your message to your audience. You may do this with words, which is most common. You may also use pictures — because a picture’s worth a thousand words, right?

However, sometimes statics things like words or pictures might not be enough. Adding dynamic features can bring the message to life and be more effective in its presentation.

For example, let’s say you are trying to convey a message that sometimes you have to look harder to notice something important. So you may show a picture of a beautiful scene, say mountains or the ocean, but off to the side, there is something disturbing that you want to point out — something not noticeable unless you’re attention is brought there.

You can show the picture on the slide, and then use animation to bring up an arrow pointing to the place of interest. Or maybe the animation feature is a zoom feature, where you show the full picture, but then you trigger a zoomed-in part of the picture to appear, focusing on the area you want to highlight.

Now, you could do this by adding charts or by pointing out the area yourself when you’re presenting. However, this is where the animation features of PowerPoint work best — in conveying a part of your message that words or pictures alone cannot.

If you focus on using animation this way, you’ll definitely see great results.

3) Slower is better

Animation has a number of speeds for entrances and exits. Sometimes your point might be made better if a bullet point or picture is displayed quickly.

However, in most cases, using a speed that’s a little slower presents a sense of being in control of presenting the point. And that’s what you’re really looking for.

Of course, be careful, you don’t want it too slow — your audience will get aggravated if it takes forever for the next animation feature to come up.

So set the speed to Medium — avoid the Fast or Very Fast (unless of course these speeds are what you really want to make your point). In fact, I like Dissolve, since it slows up even more the transition of the animation.

4) Don’t overdo it

PowerPoint animation works best when it’s used to focus your audience’s attention. It works worst when it acts to distract their attention.

So when you’re adding your dancing bullets, or superimposing audio “whoosh” sounds to your PowerPoint slides, ask yourself whether this will focus or distract your audience.

If it focuses, great. If it distracts, get rid of it.

When we give presentations, many of us get all tied up in knots worrying about what to do if an audience gets angry.

You get worried. Being up there, completely exposed. And you’re afraid that the audience will turn on you…

You have the “deer in the headlights” look, because you don’t know what to say.

You feel insecure because you’re thinking that the audience has exposed you as a fraud. All these people staring at you wondering why you don’t know the answer to the question. I mean, you’re the expert — you’re supposed to know these things, right?

Well, hold on…

Half of the anxiety you may feel comes from having this internal discussion going on in your head. In most cases, it’s never as bad as we imagine in our head.

Honestly. Most people do not think like this, and won’t be hostile to you. They are real people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

And know that you’re human. You may not have all the answers to everyone’s questions at exactly the right moment and describe those answers in exactly the right way for every member of the audience.

So, take heart. It is NOT as bad as you think…

However, some people do ask tough questions, and can make it uncomfortable for you when you’re giving your presentation.

For taming this handful of people, there are some helpful tips that you can keep in mind. Here are five simple tips that can help you through these tough times.

– Be honest – Saying “I Don’t Know” is OK

People like honesty. And they will understand if you don’t have all the answers right at your fingertips. So don’t stress about it.

Now, that doesn’t give you an excuse to be unprepared in your presentation, but you can’t anticipate everything.

If someone asks a question to which you don’t know the answer, just say “I don’t know”, and agree to look into it for them. It might even be good to ask that they give you their contact information and say that you’d be happy to get in touch with them later with what you find.

This will defuse the questioner, since you’re agreeing to try and answer the question. You’re just admitting that you don’t have the information right now.

While the questioner might not be happy with that answer (I suppose you can’t make everyone happy…), the rest of the audience will understand and agree that this is reasonable.

– Keep Your Cool

Some people can be really rude when they ask a question. They might call you a name or say that what you said was a load of bull. They might make sweeping characterizations of what you said just to make a point.

While you might be afraid of what the audience thinks of these questions, your reaction will be how the rest of the audience actually judges you. If you’re cool under tough questioning, then the audience will perceive you as being under control.

If you get angry or sarcastic in response to a tough question, then the audience will judge you as being an angry person or someone who doesn’t respect the person asking the question (since you responded with sarcasm).

So it’s not the question, it’s your response, and this is where you are in complete control.

Whatever you do, never make it personal. While the questioner might make it personal, you should never reply in kind.

Focus on the question itself, not on the person. Try hard to find something of value in the question, and answer that part of it. The rest of the audience will recognize you’re trying hard to provide quality information and will value you for that.

– Stay In Control of Your Q&A

When someone asks a question, you need to make sure that they don’t hijack your presentation. A good, tough question deserves a straightforward answer. That’s fair.

However, if not reigned in, a tough questioner can become a speechmaker. They go from asking you a question about what you’re presenting to making statements about what they think. They may even go so far as to start giving the presentation for you — on their terms.

Or, the questioner can keep asking questions in a combative manner or start asking other questions that are off topic.

In either of these cases, it’s completely acceptable to stop the questioner (of course, politely) and move the presentation along. Just say, “I’m happy to continue this dialogue offline, but I’d like to give others the opportunity to ask questions.”

The audience will thank you for this (because it’s their time that the questioner was imposing on…), and it keeps the presentation moving.

So, remember, answer tough questions directly, but don’t let a questioner take over your presentation.

– Repeat the question

If you listen carefully to the question and repeat it back, it sends a couple of important messages.

One is that you are listening, which communicates that you value the question enough to be able to ask the question yourself. It means that you understand it.

This alone can defuse a hostile questioner since you’ve conveyed a subtle message that you actually care about answering their question.

A second message is that you care about the audience since you value making sure that they know the question that you are going to answer.

Sometimes presenters get a tough question and they answer it with something that makes the audience wonder whether that was really the question or not. The answer itself may seem to them like the presenter is ducking the question.

Repeating the question and answering it conveys a message that you are answering the question, even a tough one, directly — a good quality for a strong presenter.

– Remember, it’s not the entire audience – it’s probably just one person

Don’t judge the entire audience by the fact that one person may be asking a tough question. If you keep this in mind, then you can serve the needs of the entire audience in how you handle this one question.

Keeping this mindset will get you through a tough Q&A period, since it segments the problem area (one person with one tough question) away from what you might be most afraid of (the entire audience throwing tomatoes at you…)

Again, most anxiety of public speaking comes from the irrational fear of having the entire audience being against them. Just because one person may ask a tough question doesn’t mean the entire audience agrees with them.