Get Rid of Your Notes, and Present more Confidently

Get Rid of Your Notes!

One of the first tips that we give to participants who go through our Fearless Presentations® program is to Get Rid of Your Notes and you’ll be shocked at how much more confidently that you will present. Most people believe that having notes in front of you will help you speak more confidently or help you remember all of the fantastic details that your audience really wants to hear. Both of these conclusions are false. In fact, making notes either on paper or in your PowerPoint slideshow is one of the fastest ways to make you more nervous!

Here's what happens. When you design a presentation that has too much data, all of those points can get confusing and difficult to deliver. You are also likely to sound boring and have a difficult time connecting with the audience. When all of those things happen at one time, nervousness will shoot through the roof.

So, what can you do about it? First, change the way that you design your presentations. Most people sit down with paper or PowerPoint and begin to catalogue everything that they know about the subject. Next, we alter the slides or notes by cutting out all the stuff that doesn't fit the particular time frame. The less time that we have to speak, the more of the material that we cut. What happens when we use this technique is that we end up with a Swiss cheese presentation that is difficult to remember and more difficult to deliver.

Now when you speak, you only have to remember a few key points. Everything else in your presentation is just evidence of your previous statements. If you forget a little of your evidence, no big deal, because you will have still been able to prove the point. Also, no one really knew exactly what you were going to say anyway. However, if you are delivering a long list of data points and you forget something, everyone will know.

Follow these key steps in designing your presentation and free yourself from the notes!

Step #1: Start with just a few key points to cover. Figure out what the absolute most important points that you need to cover are, and limit your presentation to just those key concepts. For most presentations, three, four, or five points is about as many as you want to cover in one sitting.

Step #2: Add stories, examples, analogies, and other proof of your key points instead of just adding more data. These types of evidence are more interesting and easier to remember when you deliver your presentation. (They will also make you feel more comfortable when you speak.)

Step #3: Practice a couple of times without notes with a friend or coworker. Once you can present to a friend without notes, your confidence will grow, and it will be easier to present in front of your real audience as well.

Design your presentations a little differently, and you'll be able to reduce your nervousness and not have to refer to notes!


Doug Staneart, doug@leaderinstitute.com, is CEO of The Leaders institute® (www.leadersinstitute.com). His Fearless Presentations® class focuses on overcoming the fear of public speaking, building confident and autonomous leaders, and improving employee morale. He can be reached toll-free at 1-800-872-7830.

Limit Your Presentation to a Few Key Points to Reduce Stage Fright

One of the big challenges that we have to overcome as speakers is that we tend to think that if we don't get the audience to understand EVERYTHING that we know about the subject that we are speaking on, then we have failed as a speaker. That is an impossible standard to live up to, but it is what most of us have in mind when we are designing our presentations.

For most people, we begin to design our presentations by thinking about everything that we know about the subject, and then trying to catalogue that information either on paper or into a PowerPoint slideshow. Once we get everything written down, the next step is to try to figure out how to get ALL of that information into the timeframe that we have for the speech.

This type of preparation makes it very difficult for your audience to come away with a concise understanding of what you covered, and makes it extremely difficult to deliver. (By the way, it makes you BOOOOORING too.)

One of the things that we know about the human mind is that we like to compartmentalize things, and the brain likes to focus on just a few key pieces of information at a time. So instead of trying to pack your presentation with a ton of data, focus on just a few key items at a time.

The brain can comprehend one item pretty easily. Two items are not so tough to remember. Three items give a balance between variety and precision. Four or five items in one sitting are okay, but make it more difficult to retain the information. Once the information that you are covering exceeds five key points, it will be extremely difficult for your audience to remember the items that you covered. Since that is the case, limit your talking points to just a few key concepts, and then back up those key points with data, stories, analogies, etc. to add some meat to your presentation.

If you have a lot of information that you HAVE to present to your audience and it is critical that the audience remembers the information, then it’s a good idea to give them the information in bite-sized pieces. A good way to do this is to take breaks from time to time to limit the data that is being delivered in one sitting. For instance, if you have ten things to cover in a morning meeting, cover three points and take a ten-minute break. Then come back and cover three or four more points, and take a ten-minute break before coming back and finishing the talk. When you design your presentations this way, you’ll get your audience to retain much more of the material that you deliver.

If you are limited on time, and you have to deliver a bunch of data, then you have to manage your expectations. Your audience is much less likely to remember the information, so you might want to prepare a handout with a summary of the data. Regardless, realize that no matter how good of a presenter that you are, if you data dump on your audience, they will be fairly distant from you and likely to be bored.

In public speaking, less is more!


Doug Staneart, doug@leaderinstitute.com, is CEO of The Leaders institute® (www.leadersinstitute.com). His Fearless Presentations® class focuses on overcoming the fear of public speaking, building confident and autonomous leaders, and improving employee morale. He can be reached toll-free at 1-800-872-7830.

High Impact Leaders: 28 Days to Influence People Day #1: Avoid Criticizing and Complaining

Step one of being a more influential person is to avoid doing things that turn people off and shut down cooperation. Most people believe that criticizing people lets the person realize the mistake so that corrective action can be made. However, when we criticize people, even constructively, they tend to resent the advice and are less likely to do what you suggest.

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Lofton, used to say, "Misery loves company." I didn't really understand her wisdom until I was a manager. A manger who complains or nitpicks employees might gain temporary compliance, but in the long run, morale will drop. Employees will complain about you behind your back. Why not? That is what you taught them to do.


Doug Staneart has been a speaker and trainer for over twelve years specializing in public speaking, sales training, and team building. Doug is CEO of The Leader's Institute and author of the books 28 Ways to Influence People and Fearless Presentations. His current book, Give me an "O," a Standing "O." will be released later this year.

He has accumulated over 1,700 hours of classroom coaching and training. His experience with these other programs makes him a well rounded instructor. Over 85% of Doug's class participants say that his training exceeded their expectations.

Doug's clients rave about his enthusiasm and his ability to "sneak up" on his audience and teach them while they're having fun.