I spend a lot of time watching videos of presentations. I try to watch everything I can get my hands on because I want to professionally speak myself. This often means that I watch the same speaker give different versions of the same speech over and over again.

What surprised me was how much they repeat themselves from presentation to presentation. Obviously they’ve got a message so they will hardly give a speech only once, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

It’s the little things. The jokes. The way they put things.

For example, I’ve been watching Patrick Dixon.

There is a moment that I’ve seen in about 5 different presentations now. He talks about doing customer research and he always starts the same way:

“By the way: don’t believe market research”

He say it as if it’s just come off the top of his head.

Sometimes this comes off quite well; other times it seems forced. Whatever, I don’t like it. If you’re doing that, you’re not being natural. If you’re not being natural you probably haven’t got a great connection with the audience.

Is it that difficult to present off-the-cuff?

A basic outline and a deep knowledge of your subject should be all you need.