Presentation Fatigue

Is presentation fatigue real or not?

My opinion is that it depends.

You see, one presentation can knock it out of the park . . . and another can put someone to sleep.

So if a prospect goes to 2 sleepy events, and one exciting event, they might say they have presentation fatigue.

But in reality, the two boring events created on-show fatigue, but there was no evidence of fatigue with the exciting one.

So my own opinion is that if someone signs up for your event and shows up, if they are bored or fatigued then either the subject matter isn’t what was promised, the material is boring, or you are using outdated techniques that lead people to believe that they WILL be bored.

It’s like you create your own fatigue!

So each individual presentation has it’s own fatigue curve!

So if that’s true, then you can fix presentation fatigue for your presentations!

A few things to consider to begin trouble shooting:

1. Does your presentation look like everyone else’s, creating an expectation that it will be boring?

2. Is most of the presentation exciting BUT the first 3 minutes are slow?

3. If you count how many attendees are live at each 5 minute mark (or if your software gives you an attendance curve), at what points are you losing attendees? Mark that moment, then study the previous 5 minutes of the presentation.

4. Are you using a unique engagement technique every 5-7 minutes? If not, consider adding them, alternate with: surveys, polls, scene changes, questions, interactive elements, unique screen views, change the presenter view, and so on.

Take the time to seriously research where the boredom and fatigue are setting in, and fix it minute by minute.

Don’t be afraid to experiment!

You can always run another event!

You can run an encore 2 days later and get your best prospects back on the line.

Here are some sample engagement techniques to consider adding in:

1. Survey

2. Poll

3. Scene change

4. Audience questions

5. Interactive elements

6. Unique screen views

7. Change the presenter view

By the way, if you want to see some of these elements live and in action, my colleague Jeff Brandeis is holding an amazing live demonstration of some new cutting edge anti-fatigue presentation effects that are actually incredible (I’ve seen some of them myself)

Here is the Presentation Registration: