What NOT to do: don’t freak out when the technology fails! A blog by Michelle Bowden, best selling author of How to Present: the ultimate guide to presenting live and online (Wiley).
What NOT to do: Don’t freak out if the technology fails in your presentation
We’ve all seen the presenter do the metaphorical tap dance when their technology fails. They embarrass themselves, the audio team (if there is one) and the audience cringes.
Don’t freak out if the technology fails in your presentation!
What should you do instead?
Don’t make a fuss about the equipment and draw even more negative attention to yourself. Remember that the audience is not expecting perfection, they’re not expecting the rapid pace and professionalism of a TV show, but they DO want you to keep going and show you are in control.
Remain calm – and proceed, as BEST you can. There are no marks at stake, and nobody will sack you! Take your time, tell the audience something they will find interesting, show enthusiasm for your topic, and just keep going.
I have a planned recovery technique if this happen to me. I have a funny little story that I tell that distracts the audience from the staging person who is frantically trying to get it all back up and running. Maybe you should do the same? Prepare it in advance.
And for an extra tip, try where possible to have a back-up just in case you have to ditch the slides all together. After all, you’re not there to show a slide show. You’re there to talk to the humans! And, if you’re passionate about your content, and flexible with your visuals (which means you can whip out a whiteboard marker, or grab some flip chart pens and draw it instead) you’ll wow the crowd without the slides.
Happy presenting!
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©2024 MICHELLE BOWDEN is an authority on persuasive presenting in business. She’s run her Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass over 1000 times for more than 13,000 people over the past 25 years and her name is a synonym for ‘presentation skills’ in Australia.
Michelle Bowden is a multi-million-dollar pitch coach to her client list that reads like a who’s who of international business: banking and finance, IT, pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications plus many more.
Michelle is the creator of the Persuasion Smart Profile®, a world-first psychological assessment tool that reports on your persuasive strengths and weaknesses at work, the best-selling internationally published author of How to Present: the ultimate guide to presenting live and online (Wiley) and her new book is called How to Persuade: the skills you need to get what you want (Wiley).