All of us do it, some more than others – we insert empty, distracting phrases that take us into what I call the Presentation Tall Grass.

You know the feeling of walking through tall grass.  Tall grass, as in knee high.

It slows you down.

Think of wading quickly through knee-deep water . . .

Right, you don’t wade quickly through knee-deep water.

You push forward.

Sluggish.

Likewise, tall grass tugs at you, brushes your legs.

Holds you back.  And in this case, it holds your audience back too.

It’s so unnecessary, too, so let’s see what to avoid and why to avoid it.

Presentation Tall Grass Phrases

In the business presentation, we sometimes enter the tall grass needlessly.

We insert qualifying phrases that add no necessary substance but do distract the listener from our main points.

These phrases do not cripple your presentation.  But if you can eliminate them, you move out of the tall grass.

Your presentation becomes cleaner.

Crisper.

So what do these Tall Grass phrases look and sound like?

Here is one of the most common tall grass phrases.  And it seems innocent enough.

“Now, I want to talk a little bit about . . .”

Say what?

No, you aren’t here to “talk a little bit about” anything.  You’re here to deliver powerful, even stunning information in a tight, direct presentation that grips your listeners.

The affected breeziness of “talk a little bit about . . .” conveys a chattiness that is anathema to most business presentations.

In some public speaking venues this toss-off line might be acceptable, but I find it difficult to think of any presentation of my own where I would say something like this . . . except by mistake.

Because it’s a phrase that creeps into our show at times when we aren’t careful.  I know that if I use it once, it’s bound to show up again.

And again.

As an affected filler.  So I train myself to avoid it.

Perhaps you should, too.

References to Repetition – Ugh!

“As my colleague mentioned before . . .”

“As I said earlier. . .”

We tend to say this from an over-cultivated sense of honesty.  It springs to the lips, unbidden, when we poise to deliver a point . . . and then we suddenly remember that another presenter said something similar earlier.

We believe that someone in the audience is ready to pounce, to call us on our repetition if we don’t confess.

So we feel compelled to “fess-up” and give credit to our teammate.  We inject this wholly unnecessary comment:  “As my colleague mentioned before . . .”

Uh-oh.

Suddenly, the audience is jolted into thinking back, tugged back to several minutes earlier, trying to remember if someone actually said this thing earlier and wondering why you’re saying it again.  In other words, you have injected all sorts of unneeded distractions into audience minds.

Suddenly, you’re in the presentation tall grass, qualifying and interjecting, distracting.

It’s discordant.

Don’t be discordant.

Simply deliver your point.  Don’t refer back to a teammate or to yourself, for that matter.  Simply repeat the information.

Are these small points?  Sure they are.  They’re like individual brushstrokes.

And that’s how any master paints a masterpiece.  A single brushstroke at a time.

Deliver enough bad brushstrokes because you believe that each stroke by itself is inconsequential, and soon enough you’re giving just another routine, bad presentation.

You don’t want that.

So stay out of the presentation tall grass.

For more on the smart choices in your business presentations and how to achieve personal competitive advantage, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presentations.