#boring presentations

I always start my training sessions by telling about the time I managed to put an audience member to sleep. Seriously. I saw it coming. Just as he started to drift off, I cried out in my thoughts, "Noooo!" But it happened. His head tipped back and he snored for the rest of my presentation - about 45 minutes. There were only a dozen people in the room so needless to say he stole the show. Not that it was much of a show. I had a deck of 80 slides and most of these were covered with hard to read text in an endless series of bullet points. Boring! I decided at that point to use my storytelling skills in presentations (and to talk louder). It's a good story to open the training sessions. It breaks the ice and makes everyone feel comfortable because they know I've screwed up. In fact, I've screwed up plenty so I have an arsenal of "Colleen's presentations gone bad" stories. I think stories like these are what makes for a great training session and a great business presentation. Become a collector of stories, particularly the ones that humble you and get your audience laughing at you. It sure beats watching them fall asleep.