Things to Do if You Forget What to Say During a Presentation

It would be terrible if you suddenly forgot what to say in the middle of a presentation. Even if you practised hard to have an excellent presentation, things might still end up unexpectedly. Before you panic, these are the things you need to do to carry on with your presentation.

Pause for a while

Try to pause for a while before you move ahead with your presentation. You might need that short pause to remember what you’re going to say. As long as you don’t take too much time to think, no one will notice the problem.

Refer to your notes 

It will also help if you bring some notes with you while speaking. You don’t have to write everything that you need to say since it can also be distracting. It helps if you have a few bullet points to refer to if you forget what to say. Sometimes, these keywords are enough to remember essential ideas.

Interpret the information on the slides

If you prepared slides, it might be better. It’s even more helpful if the office has a projector ceiling mount. It’s easier to present with a projector ceiling mount in the meeting room. It also helps if you study the slides before using them. If you did the whole presentation, it would be easy to refer to it when you forget what to say. You can click here if you want to purchase a projector mount.

Apologize and move forward

If you already did everything and still can’t remember the words, you can apologize and be honest with your audience. Let them know that there are key points that you can’t remember for now, and you have to move forward. However, you should make it a point to come back to these details once you remember them. The reason for moving forward is that you want to avoid wasting time.

The people in the room will find it better if you are honest with what’s going on instead of pretending to know everything. The risk in making things up is that you might get proven incorrect. Imagine if you’re pitching ideas to the people in the room. When they realize that you presented inaccurate information, they won’t trust you again. Instead of winning them over, you end up losing their support.

Make sure it never happens again

Once your presentation is over, you have to identify what made you forget the words to say. It can be due to a lack of practice. It can also be because of the environment. Arriving at the venue late might also cause these problems. After determining the reasons behind a failure, you should avoid doing them again next time. If you forget some details, you have to send an email or call the people who attended the presentation and let them know the right information. It’s also not too late to correct any mistakes that you made during the presentation. It’s better to correct them at a later stage than to leave it as incorrect information.