Business Presentations are a bore says Survey (Copyright PTP Training & Marketing Ltd)
A nationwide survey among more than 300 managers has revealed that a massive 97% of them find it difficult to stay attentive during business presentations. In addition two thirds say that any presentation, which goes on for more than 30 minutes is too long with the majority opting for an ideal duration of between 10 and 20 minutes!
These are among the results of a survey undertaken by one of the UK’s leading training companies – PTP Training & Marketing Ltd, which has a Leicester head office and 50+ training centres across the country.
The key reasons for business presentations being seen as a bore are more to do with the lack of skill of the presenter than the content of the presentation. The main reasons for poor performance include ‘lack of confidence in presenting material’, ‘reading word for word what is written on visuals’, ‘using too much information on the slides’ and ‘addressing the slide rather than the audience’.
It also appears that many on the receiving end of an uninspiring presentation don’t have a huge amount of sympathy towards the presenter. Just over half say the presenter should prove they are worth listening to and that it is not their job to make them feel at ease. However 40% acknowledge that it’s a tough job being the presenter and will always try to give them support and encouragement.
And despite the claimed importance attached to appearance and body language, this isn’t reflected among the results where only 8% of people believe the way people look and act is as important as what they say. While just over a fifth claim to be persuaded by facts alone, 70% are after the all-round performance of appearance and body language combined with good presentation content.
Commenting on the results, Marc Holland, managing director of PTP says:
“’Death by PowerPoint’ is a common phenomenon where many presenters see their role as simply reading the slide contents. This is a sure fire way to lose your audience within the first few minutes and it is easy to see why 30 minutes of this is the maximum people can stand.
“Presentations should be about using visuals to support and add pace and variety to getting across your key messages. Until people learn not to hide behind visuals and rely more on other aspects which make up a good presentation such as preparation and understanding the needs of the audience the majority of business people will be switching off very early on in the presentation.”
