Giving an outstanding, memorable presentation doesn’t come naturally to everyone. However it’s a skill that can definitely be learned alongside using the right tools to bring your slides to life. For example, interactive presentation tools that produce creative, unique content can increase customer engagement and ultimately sales revenue. But how do you use these tools as effectively as possible?
We’ve summarised a few words of advice from world-class presentation experts to help you head in the right direction:
Andrew Scivally from eLearningBrothers:
Capture your audience’s attention
We are shallow readers/learners. Ever watched a person on an airplane as they “read” a magazine? They flip through it quickly until something grabs their attention such as colors, images, headlines, etc. We view presentations and online training in the same way. Give people something that catches their attention. Concise headers, appropriate use of colors, meaningful images, etc.
Jonathon Colman from JonathonColman.org:
Make it big
Guy Kawasaki’s famous 10/20/30 rule of presentation design tells us not to use any text that’s smaller than 30 points. That’s great advice, but when you need your text to pop, make it big—really big! Use type that’s over 100 points or even larger, depending on your typeface.
Rick Altman from Better Presenting:
No more death by powerpoint
When you witness Death by PowerPoint, most of the time it is because a presenter makes these three things all the same. He wants to use his slides as handouts, he writes speeches on his slides, he reads them word for word…say+show+give = all the same.
Alan Goeman from eSlide:
Select your branded template
Before creating slides, make sure you are using a template that defines global properties like fonts, colors and object/chart styles. A small investment of time at the beginning to define these prevents a large loss of productivity at the end rebuilding content to look consistent.
Latisha Alford from Up By One:
Animate points rule
Every slide should cause your target audience to think and feel the way you want the way you desire. Animate points rule – emphasize important points with animation.
Jan Schultink from Idea Transplant:
Think story first
This might should strange coming from the mouth of a former McKinsey management consultant – when designing your presentation flow, think story first to present the solution, rather than relying on the logical structure you used to find that solution.
Presentation expert Nancy Duarte:
Secret sauce of successful speakers
Using humor effectively, sharing personal stories, and calling for action all play important roles in successful graduation speeches. Like a great chef, each speaker uses those ingredients in different combinations to create something uniquely personal.
Hopefully these tips from the presentation experts has been useful for your next business presentation. For more presentation tips, check out this presentation showcase, or head over to the Presentations section of the blog!
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