Bad Powerpoint presentations can be found in every level of business and government. There are several very simple principles that are well-accepted – in theory – to improve presentation design and create convincing sales presentations. In practice, though, people don’t seem to be able to keep to them. That has a major negative effect on the outcomes. A conference that could have captivated and enthused an audience instead leaves them disinterested thanks to a convoluted, amateurish or nonsensical slideshow. A sales bid that could have resulted in a lucrative contract is dead in the water. Reputations are undermined; communicators who are skilled at speaking lose their listeners.

It’s no wonder that organisations are turning to professional outfits to put together their presentations, complete with powerpoint slides and presentation training: these firms are skilled at creating a coherent narrative in which your Powerpoint presentation complements the spoken word – not distracts from it or undermines it. They will also train your people to do it themselves, if you prefer.

If you are putting together your own slides, bear in mind a few basic points. Keep things simple. You’re not looking to duplicate on the screen what the audience is hearing from the speaker. Summarise information in short, easy-to-remember chunks – bullet points are good for this. Don’t be tempted by some of the flashier effects Powerpoint offers: it’s all too easy to include them, thanks to the software’s relative simplicity, but in practice they rarely add value. They just end up as a distraction.  And don’t just limit the amount of information on any given slide: limit the number of slides too. If your presentation is so complicated that it warrants a long series of slides to make it clear, something is wrong anyway. You can’t expect your audience to leave with the entire content of your talk in their heads. What you do want is for them to take away a  handful of clear, meaningful points. That’s far more effective than overloading them.

Effective Presentation design is about picking what to show visually. Many sales presentations overlook this and do not distinguish between information that is communicated aurally and visually. Powerpoint presentations are very well suited to simple, graphical communication – even if those pictures conceal a wealth of complex detail, as in the case of graphs and charts. They are not suited to large volumes of text. Short captions and summaries are fine, but don’t think your audience will take in much more from the screen.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/

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