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Treat your presentation aids as tools that supplement your speech—not the main vehicle for delivering your speech. Your presentation contains your message, and you are the messenger. If you forget this, you risk seeing your audience focus on your aids instead of you. For instance, many inexperienced salespeople rely too heavily on brochures and handouts during a presentation. They assume—mistakenly—that good marketing materials are all they need to sell a product or a service. But a brochure can’t answer listeners’ questions or interact spontaneously with them. Only a human being can connect with audiences in these crucial ways. The best speakers understand that presentation aids support a speech—not the other way around.