Five Tips for a Killer Presentation

1. Use fewer words on a slide – think Twitter, 

less text is better.

The second biggest complaint a PowerPoint audience gives is that the slide had too many words. The biggest complaint from a PowerPoint audience is that the presenter read each word on the slide to the audience.

2. Use multimedia and images for impact – a picture 

says a thousand words.

The image on the screen should enhance the words the speaker is saying. Make the image large and relevant. 

Know your audience and use appropriate images. For most presentations clip art should not be used. If you have a short video that ties into the slide topic use it. Try to keep the video length less than a minute. 

Be careful with object and type animation because too much animation can detract from the content.

3. Practice your presentation.  

Practice your presentation out loud.  Practice your presentation out loud while standing and keeping track of your time. The point here to remember is to practice the presentation. 

Most speakers do not practice their presentation out loud ( a lot of speakers never practice their talk) and the first time they say their words out loud is in front of the live audience.

4. Use good and consistent design for the 

slides – white space is your friend.

Be consistent in design and use white space. Do not crowd the screen with too much content and leave space around the images.

The point size of the type needs to be large. The hierarchy for type size should be main heads really big (no smaller than 36 point), sub heads – when used – smaller (try 6 points smaller than your headline size), and body text no smaller than 26 points. Body text larger than 26 points is better because your audience can read the type and you can’t insert too much text on a slide at a large point size.

You should limit the number of fonts you use in the presentation to two. Use one font for headlines and the other font for text. For contrast pick a font from the sans serif family (Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, News Gothic, Impact, Calibri) and one font from the serif family (Times New Roman, Georgia, Minion, Utopia, Charter). Bold and Italic are not fonts, they are styles of a font and do not count as one of your two font choices.

Use color to set your mood. Find colors that match your tone, your company, and your audience.

Color has subconscious feelings; use that in your design. 

Use only two or three colors in your design. Warm colors are yellow (sun), orange (energetic) and red (noticed, hot, danger). Cool colors are blue (trusting, loyal, friendly), green (nature, money) and purple (wealthy, spiritual, passionate). 

Shades are helpful but make sure they are seen well on the screen.

White backgrounds can wear out the eyes of the viewer. Black type is the most readable color for audiences.

The background should be a supporting player that aids the images and words. Think of an art museum wall. Is the wall behind the picture distracting the viewer’s eye from the art? Hope you said no. Make your slide background color light so the words can be in black and the images can shine.

­5. Deliver the presentation like you know what you are doing. Your presentation should have an opening, a middle, and a closing.

Open the presentation by telling the audience your points. Next, show the audience the proof – this is your content. Finally, close early, remind the audience what you said and add a call to action.

Bonus tip: Take a class to learn the PowerPoint program – you will be surprised by how much you were doing the hard way.