5 Ways to Ruin Your Next Presentation

Carmine Gallo, presentation coach and author of the upcoming book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill, October 2009), has counseled many executives on how to give a great presentation. He's also witnessed many common -- yet avoidable -- presentation errors that people always seem to commit.

Here are Gallo's top five ways that people ruin their presentations and his strategies on how to avoid making them. Above all, Gallo says, remember that the most engaging speakers have a simple secret weapon: "They practice much more than the average presenter."

1. Talk Too Long

"Nobody is as interested in you as you think they are," Gallo says. Most people listening to presentations tend to tune out after about 10 minutes, Gallo says, based on expert opinion and research in cognitive functions. So keep the presentation to less than 20 minutes.

"Look at some of the great speeches over our history, John F. Kennedy's or Barack Obama's speeches, and they're able to galvanize the nation in speeches that last under 20 minutes," Gallo says. "So do you really need to two hours to get your point across?"

Gallo's Tip: If your presentation has to be long, break it into 10-minute chunks. "At every 10 minutes or so, try to reengage the audience with something different-don't just keep showing slides," he says. Try inserting a short video clip, introduce a quick demonstration, or have another speaker get up and briefly present. "Try to find some way to break up the presentation into manageable chunks of time," he says, "so people don't get too bored."

[ See: 8 PowerPoint Train Wrecks ]

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