Yesterday was my day to work with experts who speak. There were a few at various venues who had test speeches or actual presentations that they were in various stages of preparing.
And I saw it again. And again. And again.
(Full disclosure – I have done it myself again and again)
Too much information.
This is one of my recurring rants. So here we go again.
Today I want to say why this TMI dragon is so bad and must be slain. But only if…
- You want to be effective at not boring or confusing the heck out of your audience.
- You want to not be that out-of-breath, 60-minutes-of-droning-on-and-on type of speaker who wonders if you have given anything of value to your audience.
- You ever want to sell or influence anyone.
Too much information poisons your entire speech.
The first reason is the simple fact that a one-to-many presentation is the most inefficient way of delivering details and facts.
It is, however, the most powerful way of delivering emotions and deep feelings. We all should know by now that feelings are what drives actions (and sales, if you are interested in that sort of thing). Facts don’t.
So, we relentlessly load up our PowerPoint canon with a hundred facts and features and pummel our hapless listeners. They might have gotten one or two – but twenty?
So that right there ruins the whole deal. We may have delivered a dozen facts and figures but have failed to connect with their feelings or needs.
But wait…there is more (and it’s all bad).
When a presenter knows that he or she has a lot of information to spray on their audience they rush. Big time.
A thousand words a minute. No breaths. No pauses. There is a switch that goes off in the speaker’s mind that kicks them into high gear and turns them into a speed talker. There is a nagging voice that says to them: time is short, you have a lot to cover, so let’s get moving here.
You audience, if they are even trying to follow along, can’t catch up. They are still processing point 23 and you are on 32. All that information is lost. And they are lost. Most people will just check out or superficially listen for anything that will sound slightly interesting.
And finally, the worst thing about too much information and rushing — it makes you look amateurish and worse — not confident.
Great speakers turn the flood of information about their topics into crisp little bite-sized take-aways. Things that this particular audience can actually use – maybe even today.
That simple act of slowing down and using pauses exudes confidence and expertise. Those great speakers are now seen as the true gurus of their material.
So, as the polite officer in Taliaferro County asked when I rolled down my window, “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
Slow down. Enjoy the ride. Your audience will think you are pretty smart.
You want smart. We all want smart. Try this… https://ready2speak.com/coaching
Tom
