5 Ways to Suck as a Conference Breakout Speaker

Pop quiz hotshot: You are asked to present a conference breakout session, or are invited to do a program for a an association chapter, user group, etc. You have good ideas and are excited about doing it. But you want to make sure you don’t royally screw it up. What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?

I was recently chatting with a friend who has been in charge of bringing speakers into meetings for her association. I have had this role as well, so being human, we decided to swap “worst presentations we’ve seen” stories. Interestingly, some common themes seemed to emerge.

I have been on all sides of the conference breakout/chapter meeting presentation situation. I have presented, I have arranged to have people present, and I have attended as a simple audience member. Between my conversation with my friend and my experience with various pieces of the presentation spectrum, I now present to you 5 Ways to Suck as a Conference Speaker:

(Note #1: This is similar to my 5 conference speakers who can kill a conference post. The difference is that that post focused on general session, big stage, keynote type speakers. This focuses on the smaller breakout session speeches that the average person is much more likely to be called upon to do

Note #2: The points in this point apply to both professional and non-professional speakers alike. Good is good and bad is bad, regardless of your career or aspirations)

The Misleader

This is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to sucky sessions. You read the write up of the program, it sounds great, and then when you get in the room the presenter does not deliver at all on what was promised! The content they go into is different than the write up, or perhaps in the description it says, “you will learn hundreds of techniques,” and by the time the three hour program is over you have gotten one technique, a bunch of average stories, a lot of fluff, and one bad case of bored-out-of-my-mind-itis (this has in fact happened to me).

This usually happens for one of four reasons:

1. The presenter wrote the description months ago, and has now forgotten what they promised
2. The presenter has changed their area of focus since they wrote the description, and now would rather do something else
3. The organizer edited the description without letting the presenter know
4. The presenter is an idiot.

You know what? I am going to go ahead and say 99% of the time this happens, it’s for reason #4: The presenter is an idiot.

Why do I say that? Simple. #1 and #2 are no excuse at all, and if that’s the reason, then you are by default an idiot. #3 can happen, but this can be remedied by simply double checking the write up in advance (even if it’s the night before). Most events will post descriptions weeks in advance, so remember to take a look to see what people are expecting.

This is a bit of advice that is pretty good regardless of venue: “Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it, in the way you say you are going to do it.” Pretty simple…

Lesson: Before you present, review what exactly you promised you would deliver. Make sure you deliver everything you said you would.

The Shill

Ah, the Shill. This is the person who is presenting for only one reason: they have something to sell the audience. It could be a product, it could be some service they offer, or it could be an invite to a much bigger event.

There is nothing wrong with speaking promotionally. Hell, I do it from time to time. When it becomes a problem is when the presenter offers zero value in their program. Instead of giving you any usable information, they talk a lot about what you can do and why you should do it, but they never tell you how. In their slimy little pea brained minds, they figure that they will get the audience so excited about the what and why, that people will surely go on to hire them.

Sadly, this tactic will work. A few less experienced or more desperate people will fall for it. Everyone else will hate you. The meeting planner will hate you. I will hide in the bushes and throw eggs at you once the event is over. Eventually, God will smite you. And you’ll deserve it.

If you are invited to do a sales pitch, then by all means, be The Shill. Otherwise, show up with some valuable content, let people know that you know what the heck you are talking about, give the 80% of the audience that will never buy from you some value, and the other 20% will still buy – in fact, they will be more likely to buy.

My friend Fred Gleeck is extremely good at putting on seminars and getting people to buy stuff. At the beginning of his events, he always says, “never buy from someone who doesn’t first deliver value.”

Lesson: Don’t bilk your audience. If you want people to hire you after your talk, give them lots of value during the talk.

The Back Story Babbler

It seems that some speakers think that it’s important that the audience understands how they go to where they are, so they start their presentations with their long, fairly uninteresting, way too long story.

Let me let you in on a little secret: no one cares!

A little back story, say 2-3 minutes or so, is good. It gives you some credibility and gives the audience some context for the content you are about to share. Longer than that and you are boring the audience and doing them a disservice. I once sat through a two and a half hour program where the presenter spent the first 45 minutes telling their back story. Blech!

Your back story is neither that important nor that interesting. Get to the content, and get to it quickly.

Lesson: No one cares about you, they care about the information you are going to share with them. Cut your back story down to the absolute minimum the audience needs to know to make your credible and to understand where you are coming from.

The Self Lover

Some people are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too impressed with themselves. They get in front of the room and regale the audience with stories of their great successes. Every time they make a point, they preface it with lines like, “this is so cool, you guys are going to love this.” Usually, they then go on to share some kind of ridiculously basic and non-impressive technique.

Confidence is good, but speakers who overtly express how awesome they are are usually the ones who are in fact the least awesome.

There’s an easy way to avoid this trap: let your content speak for itself! Don’t tell me how awesome your information is, give me the information and let me judge it’s awesomeitude. If it’s good, I’ll let you know, and that is much more powerful than you telling me.

Lesson: Stop being so impressed with yourself. Switch your focus from how good you are to how much you can serve your audience.

The “What the Hell is this Guy Doing Speaking?” Speaker

This one seems obvious, right? If you have great content but terrible presentation skills, you will never connect with an audience. On the rare occasion that your content is so unique and so valuable, you might be able to get away with bad speaking skills (chances are, your content is neither that unique or valuable)

You don’t need to be an expert speaker, but you should take a little time to plan out your talk, go over what you’re going to say, and work on your skills. A little delivery goes a long way…

Lesson: How are your presentation skills? If they are not good, take a little time to practice and develop them to make sure your content is well received.

There you have it: 5 ways to be an awful conference breakout speaker. Obviously, avoid these and you will be fine. Of course, the best way to avoid this is to book a qualified, humorous, speaking professional to present at your next event (yes, that was a giant self-promotional plug. Check out my Motivational Humorist Page here.)

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If you have a really important presentation coming up, you could always get a little help. Check out Avish’s Smart A.S.S. Ideas page to see how he can help you put on a home run presentation.