The Nine Most Common Mistakes Made By Speakers.

In late February, I was invited to a large Procter & Gamble manufacturing plant to train their Leaders and Managers on
“How To Give A Great Public Speech.” In preparation for the training, I did a lot of research on the topic and discovered
many gems and best practices.

This blog is the third of a series of blogs in which I share these discoveries and best practices with you. I encourage you
to share each of the blogs with both your peers and members of your Management Team.

In the same interest/purpose of the first two related blogs, I thought it would be helpful for me to share with you The
Nine Most Common Mistakes Made By Speakers based on my thorough research, which are:

• Not making direct eye contact with their audience.

• Not making direct eye contact with ALL of their audience.
(Secret: choose six points of focus in the room.)

• Turning your back to the audience.

Thus, a key best practice is to ensure that your presentation outline/text is

front of you, ideally on a teleprompter or laptop.

• Talking to fast.
• Poorly prepared/disorganized.
• Low or no energy or passion.

• Not getting the audience involved.

• Boring the audience.

• Using distracting mannerisms.

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 Examples include:

- Putting your hands in your pockets.

- Walking/Pacing back and forth.

- Pushing up your sleeves.

- Repeatedly touching, or playing with, your hair.

- And my least favorite: Saying “You know” at the end of every sentence.

Kevin Sheridan is an internationally-recognized Keynote Speaker, a New York Times Best Selling Author, and one of the
most sought-after voices in the world on the topic of Employee Engagement. For six years running, he has been honored
on Inc. Magazine’s top 100 Leadership Speakers in the world, as well as Inc.’s top 100 experts on Employee Engagement.
He was also honored to be named to The Employee Engagement Award’s Top 101 Global Influencers on Employee
Engagement for five years in a row. Kevin was also the winner of the 2022 Best In Evanston Award For The Category Of
Management Consulting.

Having spent thirty years as a high-level Human Capital Management consultant, Kevin has helped some of the world’s
largest corporations rebuild a culture that fosters productive engagement, earning him several distinctive awards and
honors. Kevin’s premier creation, PEER®, has been consistently recognized as a long-overdue, industry-changing
innovation in the field of Employee Engagement. His first book, Building A Magnetic Culture, made six of the best seller
lists including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Virtual Manager,
which explores how to manage remote workers most effectively.

Kevin received a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School in 1988, concentrating his degree
in Strategy, Human Resources Management, and Organizational Behavior. He is also a serial entrepreneur, having
founded and sold three different companies.

Links:
www.kevinsheridanllc.com
Twitter
LinkedIn
https://www.instagram.com/kevinsheridanllc/

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