Power Presentations Tip 12: No, it's not okay

Power Presentations Tips 12

No - it's not okay

The speaker was delivering a product demonstration. He made a statement then added, "Okay?"

And he did it after every few sentences. In fact, he seemed to get lazy and shortened it to, "Kay?"

If you were there you might have shouted, "No, it's not okay!" I certainly was temped to express my annoyance out loud. Instead, I left the room.

Beware of repeating words that add no value to your presentation. "Um" and "ah" are the most common. These are filler words - words that speakers use while they are thinking about their next real words.

You can indentify filler words in a presentation by these two criteria. They add no value to the sentence and they are repeated throughout the presentation in a similar pattern.
The filler words damage your presentation in three ways. They create static around your real words. Some listeners adapt by tuning out the filler words which makes it more difficult for them to hear your real words. Keen listeners will hear every filler word, get annoyed and leave the room like I did. Some of these folks leave their body there but their mind is elsewhere.

Using "Okay?" at the end of your statements is particularly annoying because it sounds like a school teacher admonishing misbehaving students.

If the speaker in this example wanted to confirm understanding of important points then he would have been better to use any one of:
Is that clear?
Are you with me?
Does that make sense?

When you use those questions, look at the audience, pause for several sections, nod yes, and then move on.

That would be okay.

George Torok

PS: tell me how this tip helps you.


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Executive Speech Coach, Business presentation tips from George Torok, the Speech Coach for Executives.