7 Tips For Creating Great Presentations
We’ve all been trapped in boring and uninspiring presentations that seem to drone on forever and bore the audience to the verge of sleep. It seems many people rely too heavily on the technologies they use (e.g., PowerPoint, Keynote, etc.) and this becomes a crutch for presenting.
While it’s great these tools exist, you need to remember that the primary focus of your presentation is YOU, not your slide deck. There’s nothing that will make a presentation more engaging and successful than being able to connect one-on-one with your audience.
Over the years I’ve help clients create countless presentations, and regardless of topic or message, every speech comes back to these fundamentals:
1. Outline your story
Storytelling is the heart of every presentation so it’s important to first create an outline of your thoughts. Think of your presentation like telling a short story, you have an introduction, a theme or message, then a conclusion.
Framing your message in this way helps you organize your thoughts, keeps you on message, and makes it easier for your audience to understand and remember what you’re speaking about.
2. Have a singular message
Your presentation should focus on communicating one, strong point or issue. Too often, people pack too much into a presentation and get lost in their own messaging.
Having too many ideas or telling a story that lacks focus will cause your audience to be confused and quickly lose interest in what you’re saying. Keep it simple, direct, and on-track.
3. Use strong visuals
Don’t be static and visually boring. Visual elements are the most important part of any presentation and are the primary way many people consume information. So don’t rely on static images or clip-art to create your visuals.
Whether you’re using PowerPoint, Keynote or some other technology, consider incorporating video or animated elements that add dynamic energy.
These days there are many free online resources for both photos and videos, and the quality has improved dramatically. There are also limitless stock resources available at reasonable monthly costs or cost-per-image plans.
The point is: a picture is worth a thousand words. So don’t underestimate the importance of using quality images.
4. Be consistent with design
Understand and embrace the importance of using a grid to design your presentation. Working with a grid framework not only helps you maintain a consistency in your slides, it also ensures you’re not ‘reinventing the wheel’ with each new slide you create.
Further, consistent placement of common elements such as headlines, logos, footers and other repeated content helps your audience focus on your message rather than becoming distracted as elements jump around slide-to-slide.
5. Say more, show less
We’ve all seen presentations with slide-after-slide packed with information and data. This is simply information overload and the quickest way to make your audience ‘check out.’
Keep in mind that your slides are visuals that support what you’re saying, so the focus should be on your presentation notes or script, and less on packing your slides with bullet points or charts and graphs.
If you’re presenting to a larger audience or in a bigger venue, run through your slides in rehearsal and go to the back of the room and see if the information on the screen can be read.
If you have a lot of data to communicate, consider creating a separate white paper or hand out that your audience can take with them after your presentation. This will have a far greater impact and be more memorable than trying to pack everything into your deck.
6. Pause for engagement
Many people view presentations as a ‘one-way’ communication, but don’t be afraid to build in slides that can engage your audience and make them part of your presentation. Consider building in slides that pose questions or take a short survey with a show of hands. This is a perfect way to immediately engage your listeners directly and creates a more casual and human interaction with your audience.
If you get nervous presenting to larger groups, this is also a great way to calm nerves because it temporarily takes all the focus off of you.
7. Closing strong
Never leave your presentation open-ended — always revisit your original point and close with a strong call-to-action.
You want to leave your audience with a final thought that reinforces the point of your topic. You could also consider a summary slide that asks questions of your audience to see how much they recall. Add 4 or 5 questions at the end to revisit your topic points and then ask your audience to answer them. This is a great way to gauge the impact of your presentation and also gives you a final opportunity to land all of your points.
Conclusion
Many people consider their presentations a ‘DIY’ effort and seem to enjoy the process, however they also tend to overestimate their own capabilities. Presentation design is not a skill that comes naturally for most people, so don’t underestimate the value of seeking professional help when bringing your ideas to life.
If you struggle with layouts or finding the right images and visuals, consider hiring a professional from a site like Fiverr. There are countless designers who specialize exclusively in presentation design and can help create a polished and professional look.
Outsourcing your presentation design relieves the stress of slide creation and allows you to spend more time focused on what you do best — telling your story.
