3 Tips For Professional Powerpoint Presentations
It’s hard to know what a professional Powerpoint presentation is until you’ve seen a really bad one. If you’ve seen many presentations, you probably know what I’m talking about. Picture the scene. Slide one is pulled up and you’re immediately bombarded with miniature, jammed-together text which the presenter proceeds to read word-for-word without ever looking up at the audience. This type of presentation will illicit yawns even paired with the most exciting products or information. It’s awkward to witness and even worse to present something of this nature. This begs the question—what makes a professional Powerpoint presentation? Let’s examine a few things you should do to make your presentation a success.
1. Tell A Story
Whatever it is you’re sharing with your audience, you can find a story to tell there. Even if you think it’s the driest topic in the world, there’s always a way to view it adventurously. There are heroes and conflicts; there are themes to be told and morals to be learned. A good story always has structure. So your Powerpoint should have a beginning, middle, and an end.
2. Beauty Is Simplicity
Subtlety is the hallmark of good writing. A great literary work never spoonfeeds the reader a plot summary. Instead, they bring it out course-by-course and lift the platter lid slowly, so that steam masks the dish yet allows hints of delicious smells to escape into the air.
Relating that to your Powerpoint, you should have as little text as you can manage on your slides. Your design should be simple, yet elegant. Limit what you allow yourself to use design-wise. You’ll find that limiting your mind brings out creativity. Be careful with images you choose to use and don’t cram your slides with too many of them. No garish sound effects or text that spins around in odd ways. Those are annoying distractions that will detract from you as the presenter.
3. Presenter And Powerpoint Should Work Together
Your Powerpoint presentation should complement the story you tell. As the presenter, you should ultimately take center stage, but your presentation needs to back you up. Powerpoint and presenter act as a team—neither one can deliver a successful demonstration without the other. The speaker needs to learn and research the topic well enough to stand on his or her own. And the Powerpoint should provide mood-setting visuals that evoke and create an atmosphere for the presenter.
These tips will help you achieve a good presenter-Powerpoint relationship. This relationship is necessary to achieve a balanced presentation that will captivate and engage your audience.