8

Complete Your Point

When you finish delivering a presentation, the best thing you can end with is your point. It doesn’t need to be your very last line (though there’s nothing wrong with that), but it should be conveyed in your final moments, because it’s what you most want your audience to be thinking about as they leave.

I call this “sticking the landing” because ending on a strong restatement of your point is like an aerial gymnast hitting the mat cleanly, with no extra steps.

When my students don’t stick the landing, they’re often making one of the following four mistakes:

1. Ending with some variation of “and that’s all I got,” including my personal favorite “well, that’s the last slide” (as if the presentation was a grueling endurance test)

2. Ending without conveying or reiterating a final point

3. Mumbling the last line

4. Never ending decisively at all

The last one merits extra emphasis. Why do some people just go on and on and on, as if cursed to do so? Imagine a pizza delivery person ringing your doorbell. You let him in, get your money, and pay him, including his tip. He hands you the delicious pizza . . . then just stands there, not leaving, not moving at all.

The delivery guy represents a communicator who has just delivered his point . . . and for some reason is still talking. The more he talks, the more diluted and distant his point becomes.

To avoid this, be aware of the moment you’ve successfully conveyed your point. When you get there, stop or conclude quickly to avoid self-sabotage. Deliver the goods, recognize that you have, and get the heck out.

One mistake meeting speakers often make is connecting their final word immediately to another agenda item, such as a Q&A session or the introduction of another speaker. They allow no time for that final point to sink in. It sounds like this:

“This approach will help us save more lives than ever before—now let’s bring up Sally for our next presentation.”

Don’t rob emphasis from your point and dilute the impact of your power period by rushing into a housekeeping item. Put a virtual paragraph break between the two:

“This approach will help us save more lives than ever before.”

(beat, probably applause)

“ . . . Now I call on Sally to show you how this approach will also save us money.”

or

“ . . . Now I’m happy to take some questions.”

The biggest reason people muff their endings is that they have no clear point to begin with. Without a true point, you have no case to make and thus nothing to offer your audience as you conclude. So the speaker stops abruptly, or goes on and on, in fruitless search of that one idea she meant to convey.

You often see this during wedding toasts, when the speaker thinks his point is simply “Jack, my best friend.” Twenty minutes later, it’s a rambling mess in search of a real point, and not just because Jack’s BFF was drunk.