How to bring your presentations to life?
Everyone who has been in the workforce has surely sat through a PowerPoint presentation. Good decks can be beneficial at visualizing data points and explaining goals.
But when PowerPoint presentations are wrong, like in the case when you spend more time to find out how different fonts can fit into a single slide instead of paying attention to the words they spelled.
When the time comes for you to make a PowerPoint deck—and there will likely come a time—when you would want to be sure that you use the program correctly to strengthen your core messages and bond with your audience.
These 10 PowerPoint hacks shared here can help to bring your presentations to life.
Write before designing:
At first, you should explain your message and your presentation goals.
Create headlines for your slides on sheets of paper, post-It notes, or a sketchpad as PowerPoint is not suitable for writing notes. It is better to write one headline per page to see your story come to life in the form of headlines. This way, you can quickly move pages around as well as adjust the headlines.
Ensure to give a clear beginning to your story, middle, and end. You can write your script once you have the bones of the presentation laid out.
Begin with a title slide that arouses interest:
Your title slide should be such that it can make your audience very curious to find out more about the topic. A statement that directly addresses the questions you’re going to answer can pull them in really fast.
Making the audience part of the presentation is another way to pique interest. Tell them straight the way you are going to be involved in the information you’re presenting.
Focus on simple designs:
Resist the temptations to unleash your inner artist as you are making your PowerPoint presentation deck. So less is always more.
Pick any template with a simple background in case your organization doesn’t have a template to use. You can always Google “free PowerPoint templates” and get started straight away on a basic slide deck in case of a rush.
It would be best if you try to choose standard, sans serif fonts such as Arial or Calibri that can efficiently work on all computers and are easy to read simultaneously—now talking about fonts: Select three, max, and use them consistently. This means the same font for all the headlines and body texts.
Lay emphasis on one point per slide:
Your audience must absorb the information you’re sharing quickly in your PowerPoint presentation; otherwise, all your efforts would go to waste. Piling so many points into one slide can risk overwhelming people, so it’s best to share one thought per slide. If you see that you require more slides, then you have minutes left in your PowerPoint presentation? That means you might be cramming too much into the presentation itself.
Sparingly use text:
If the audience is busy reading your slides, then they aren’t listening to you. Try to keep the volume of text on each slide to the least, as it will also help to increase the impact of each word. It will be best if you write short points so that you to expand on each idea as you talk.
To make sure people can easily read your slides, choose a font size of at least 24 points. Using only one headline or short sentence for each slide works perfectly. Also, use only three to five bullets with only three to five words each and trust that everyone’s eyes will thank you.
Choose Pictures for more impact:
Select images carefully to support your message, not just for jazzing up your PowerPoint presentation slide.
Show comparisons and trends with the help of graphs and charts. There is no need for a bar chart to show that sales grew by a specific percentage, but one can demonstrate how sales increased comparatively.
And please avoid using generic clip art. Instead, there are a lot of places online where you can find generic stock images.
Verbally Practice your presentation:
PowerPoint presentation slides are only the story’s illustrations that you’re telling, not the star of the night.
Rehearse your presentation aloud to tell a good story and also make sure it flows and fits in the allowed time. You will be more confident on the presentation day if you have already rehearsed in the room with the equipment, you will be using.
Record yourself during the practice presentation to quickly identify and correct areas where you stumble and try to improve on them.
Take the help of a colleague:
Before you go live, let someone review your PowerPoint presentation deck. You can check Embarrassing typos with the help of a trusted colleague or friend. They can also help o find out whether your message comes through loud and clear.
You may be describing something one way, and a colleague may be able to suggest a better approach to follow.
Finish with a persuasive call to action
The ending few slides of your PowerPoint presentation should quickly summarize whatever you shared and guide your audience on using that information. This is not the time for introducing new ideas.
To be specific, upbeat, and actionable, a great call to action is a must. Like, adopting a new business process might be a common one for an internal audience. In case you are working in sales, you might invite them to demo your product privately. In case of a presentation to an external audience, ask them to contact you for more information.
Explore PowerPoint:
Even though these hacks are helpful in a pinch, but it’s worth it to become familiar with the PowerPoint software for getting the long-term benefits while making your PowerPoint presentation. Learn the finer points of creating presentations by taking an online course, including complex graphics, videos, and slide changes.
These points shared above will help bring your PowerPoint presentation to life and make you feel more comfortable while making presentations and presenting them.
