Be the Best Bad Presenter Ever: Break the Rules, Make Mistakes, and Win Them Over

If you’re like most people, the phrase “You’ll be giving a presentation” is on a par with “It looks like that molar will have to come out.” Well, let’s be honest: you’d prefer the surgery, wouldn’t you? One reason most people regard public speaking as a nightmare is that they have to be “perfect.” They drive themselves crazy trying to conform to all sorts of handed-down rules that tie them up in knots and put their audiences to sleep. But Karen Hough knows that by throwing out those rules, relaxing, being yourself, and even making “mistakes,” you’ll connect with your audience much more effectively than the guy with the impeccable PowerPoint presentation. Hough has used her unique approach to take the anxiety out of one of the greatest fears in business. It’s authenticity and passion that win people over, she says, not polish. It’s why people trust vlogs more than commercials and user reviews more than ads. But you can’t be authentic if you’re following constraining rules that drain the life and personality out of your presentation. Hough debunks over a dozen myths about presenting to make it more fun and natural for everybody. She explains why mirrors are evil, why you should never end with questions, what the real purpose of any presentation should be, and much more. You’ll discover how to embrace and develop your own style and communicate your message in a way that’s all “wrong” according to the experts and that your audiences will find compellingly right. If presentations really didn’t matter, we’d all just send memos. There are a million ways to share information out there, but the more we digitize, the more we long for human connection. By following Karen Hough’s wise and witty advice, you’ll avoid being forced to become one more robot behind a podium and be freed to be a living, breathing, occasionally clumsy real person whose passion is powerful and infectious.

About the Author

Karen Hough is the founder and CEO of ImprovEdge, a company that creates training and consulting using improvisation to teach business skills. She won the silver Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year 2012, she received the Athena PowerLink Award for outstanding woman-owned business, and she is a national keynote speaker for conferences such as the ESPN Engaged Speaker Series, the Key Bank national tour, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers Metro Women’s Initiative conference.