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.
