Avoid Death By PowerPoint

Ditch the slides and be your best visual aid.

It's after lunch or dinner and the presenter dims the lights and begins the PowerPoint presentation. Slide after slide rolls on, densely packed with graphs, text and images and the presenter's face fades into the background. Her voice is a metronome lulling you to sleep.

Yawn. You’re gone.

Presentations don’t have to be like that.

Slides are best used sparingly to underpin key points or show interesting and relevant images. The power point is not the main attraction; you are.

You are your best visual aid. Really!

Being human and passionate about your topic goes a long way to capturing your audience's attention.

Our fascination with faces is hardwired. Scientists claim even near-sighted new-borns seek out faces before anything else in their environment.

However, while we love eye contact with individual faces, we don’t usually like being stared at by large crowds – unless we’re very extroverted.

It’s our fear of being watched and judged that leads many of us to hide behind PowerPoint presentations.

However, if you insist on using it, here are my PowerPoint golden rules:

1. Keep the number of slides to a minimum.

2. 6X6 – use only six dot points per slide with only six words across.

3. Match your words or concept to the slide.

4. Use only simple and easy to read graphs or a relevant image

5. Spell-check. Grammar and spelling mistakes kill credibility.

   
   
   
   

If your slides don't match what you're saying, people's attention will be split between listening to you and reading the PowerPoint. Ideally, the slides highlight and underpin your key messages - making your content easier to understand.

To combat nerves, focus on your audience.

But if the thought of standing alone on a podium or in front of a group without your slides, leaves you feeling naked - consider this old adage: ‘you wouldn’t worry what people thought about you, if you knew how little they did.’

One of the best ways to combat nerves is to focus on the audience rather than yourself. Your audience wants you to succeed and they certainly won’t see your sweaty palms or the butterflies in your tummy. In any case, no one goes to your presentation because they want to see how jittery you are. They go, because they think you'll have something helpful, insightful or entertaining to say.

When you focus on the audience's needs, you take the pressure off yourself.

Ask yourself: ‘what problem can I solve for this audience? How can I make their lives or work easier, more profitable, or meaningful?’

We tend to get nervous when we visualise all the things that could go wrong. Ninety-nine per cent of presentations do not end in the presenter’s death.

Visualising your presentation being a success is not pop-psychology advice – it’s a proven strategy. When a sports reporter once asked U.S. super star basket ball player Michael Jordan what he thought about when he attempted a goal in front of millions of viewers, he said: “I just think about all the times I’ve done it right.”

Occasionally, things do go wrong. Technology can fail – (another reason not to rely on PowerPoint), sometimes you can lose your train of thought or trip over a power cord.

Mistakes are human, not the end of the world.

Once when I was giving a presentation, my wrap-around dress began to unravel. When I finally realised, I quickly tied it up and made a gag about getting more exposure. Fortunately, the audience laughed with me, not at me.

Preparation and rehearsal are crucial to combatting nerves.

For some people preparation means researching and practising for days. For others, it’s writing a few notes on a beer coaster or iPhone minutes before getting up to speak. Only you can gauge how much prep you need to feel comfortable.

Have a clear objective – why are you presenting?

Are you there to inform, inspire, entertain or educate? This will help structure and tailor your presentation and give you a specific and dated call-to-action at the end of your talk, e.g.: 'fund our research, buy my book, invest in our start-up, donate to our charity, buy my service or enrol in my media and presentation skills course.

Final tip: Smile.

It will trick your brain into relaxing and help build rapport with your audience.

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