What do you expect?

I recently attended a talk by a speaker who was speaking about a potentially very interesting topic. Unfortunately, the one thing that I remember most about her presentation is the way she started it (not an unusual thing for audiences to remember the most, by the way). The first thing she said after she was introduced was 'I know that there are a lot of expectations about this talk and I hope I don't disappoint you.'

Do you know what this first statement caused me to do? I was EXPECTING to be disappointed! I was also wondering why she had thought that there were so many high expectations. Had there been some kind of audience questionnaire that I didn't get? Was I somehow different from the rest of the audience because I didn't have really high expectations of this speech?

The point is that apologizing or admitting that you might not live up to expectations at the very beginning is NOT the way to start your presentation. Even if English isn't your first language and you don't have much confidence in your English speaking skills, don't apologize at the beginning for mistakes that you might make later. If you do, your audience will be expecting you to make mistakes and they might not truly be concentrating on your topic.

Start your presentation strong and confident and your audience will expect great things from you. And why shouldn't they?!

© 2009 Jeanne Trojan. All rights reserved