Ten Things the Best Speakers NEVER Say

While it’s really hard to immediately win over a crowd, as a speaker it’s really easy to lose the room within the first minutes of your presentation.

To make sure you don’t lose your audience I asked Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, accomplished speaker and founder of TwitterCounter and The Next Web, for some of the things you should never say during your presentations.

Here’s what Boris feels you should never say:

1. “I’m jet-lagged/tired/hungover.”

Not sure where this comes from, but one in five presentations at any conference starts with an excuse: “They only invited me yesterday,” or, “I’m really tired from my trip,” or some other lame excuse the audience really doesn’t want to hear.

We, the audience, just want to see you give it your best. If you feel like crap and can’t give it your best, maybe you should have cancelled. Take a pill, drink an espresso and kill it!

via Ten Things the Best Speakers NEVER Say.