5 ways to dodge a presentation disaster

PR pros often make public speaking mistakes that would make them cringe if they saw their clients committing them. Don’t let that happen to you.

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Scan any list of must-have skills for PR pros, and you’ll find one thing that is almost always absent is the ability to deliver a presentation.

Writing skills are high on almost every list, but shouldn’t the ability to express our thoughts out loud be as important as putting them on paper? Public speaking is integral to pitching new business, winning approval for programs and budgets, and contributing to meetings.

When you get to that point in your career where you’re invited to speak at industry events, your reputation as an expert rests in part on capturing and holding an audience’s attention. Expertise alone is not enough if you can’t make yourself understood.

Yet when I attend industry events, I see PR people committing the kinds of presentation errors that they would never let their clients make.

Their slides are dull and wordy, their stories meander, their content is unfocused, and their delivery is sloppy.

To find out if you’re part of the problem, ask yourself these questions:

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