- “I’m sorry but I have a cold today so my voice may sound a little funny.”

- “I just found out about this presentation yesterday, so I didn’t have as much time to prepare as I would have liked.”

- “I wanted to get copies of our reports, but couldn’t…”

- “I meant to bring…”

- “Oh, I should have told you about it earlier…”

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

I call these APOLOGIES, EXCUSES, and CONFESSIONS. It is always surprising how often and how easily presenters use these kinds of NEGATIVE phrases in their presentations.

Up until now, that is.

If you want to WOW your audience, you have to adopt and live by motto: NO APOLOGIES, NO EXCUSES, NO CONFESSIONS.

I can tell you from experience, it isn’t easy to do--but it will serve you well in your business career.

Here’s why you should avoid these kinds of negative comments. When you APOLOGIZE, MAKE AN EXCUSE, or CONFESS at any time during your presentation, you are in essence saying to audience, “Don’t expect a lot from me today because I’ll probably disappoint you.” It never fails to amaze me how many presenters do this before, and often many times throughout, their presentations.

DOING YOUR BEST MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY “I’M SORRY”

The kinds of APOLOGIES I often hear in presentations go something like this: “I apologize if you can’t hear me too well, but I have a cold today.” OR “I’m sorry I didn’t bring in a sample, but I couldn’t arrange it on such short notice.” OR EVEN “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you that earlier in my presentation.”

The truth is, if you have a cold or don’t feel well, sooner or later audience will figure it out and because you didn’t use it as an EXCUSE for why you might not perform well, they will respect you for your effort. I have given some of my best presentations when I wasn’t feeling 100%. I attribute it to fact that I overcompensated by really being “on.” It is possible to perform well despite feeling poorly. And, at minimum, you owe it to your audience to try!

Instead of statement “I’m sorry I didn’t bring in a sample, but I couldn’t arrange it on such short notice,” try framing it in positive, “I am working on getting you a sample and I can deliver it next week.” Isn’t it just as easy to PROMISE, rather than APOLOGIZE?

"The staff don't need to be told anything. When we've sorted out all details and have adverts ready to run, then we'll tell them. They don't need to know beforehand, it'll only stop them working" he went on to loudly proclaim.

It's hard to ignore wishes of your client, especially when he's paying you so well and has browbeaten every other consultant, as well as his management team, into submission.

Yet my experience, again and again, is this:

If you don't tell them what's going on, they'll make it up anyway!

Employees not present at strategic planning offsite meetings aren't dumb; they're just not present. They know you're away (they think probably planning future of company, their jobs and their salary cuts), so they will gossip and rumour-monger to their heart's discontent while you are not 'minding store'.

So planning your internal communication is an essential prerequisite to effective and committed implementation of any business strategy. It also goes a long way towards problem minimisation.

In order to minimise internal and external risks of gossip and rumours, therefore, you should have it very firmly set in your mind that a communication outlining outcome of planning should arrive with all due speed, consistency and completeness.

The following guidelines have been tested by experience and found useful: