This is a guest post by Brian Lash who can be found at his entrepreneurial blog BrianLash.com (feed).
Most of you guys run Internet-based businesses. At least that’s my suspicion, because that’s what brought me to Blogtrepreneur.com – the great content about SEO and RSS and every other three-letter acronym that characterizes Web 2.0.
So what place does a post about presentations, you may be asking, have on a blog that emphasizes e-commerce?
The logic is that, Internet age or not, every one of us needs to win buy-in for our ideas. Whether fundraising to finance a new project. Or trying to win the favor of a new client. Or team-building for a startup project.
And many times the medium we use is the Powerpoint presentation.
Unfortunately most of us don’t know a whit about making – much less about delivering – effectivce presentations.
But it’s not our fault – we’ve been ill-trained.
Professionals today encourage us to follow a few simple rules when developing an effective presenation:
- Limit the number of words per slide: Different people interpret this point in different ways. Seth Godin sets the limit to six words. Others are less rigid about length parameters. All discourage full sentences.
- Use BIG fonts: People should be able to see your words, plainly and clearly.
- Don’t write what a picture can say: Graphs, charts, and other statistics are interesting… in a report. But when using Powerpoint, why not leverage its strengths – the ability to convey emotion. Grab your audience with a graphic that reinforce your words (re: your message).
- Don’t get cutesy: No slide transitions. And no moving graphics and/or audio unless they are undeniably relevant to your message.
- Dark text, light background: Perhaps the easiest of the Powerpoint principles to adopt. Do it in the interest of visibility - Anything else is hard on the eyes.
Writes Guy Kawasaki, founder and managing directory of Garage Technology Ventures, “I am trying to evangelize the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.”
That’s advice all of us online entrepreneurs would do well to consider.
Have you given a presentation recently? Did you adopt the principles presented here? If so, share how it worked out for you.
“Small Business, Big Vision provides a framework for you to unleash your driven and relentless passion to achieve unprecedented growth.”
Very good tips here. A lot of people think PowerPoint is only for old-fashioned brick an dmortar businesses, but web entrepreneurs can make good use of it too.
And no matter what the occasion, attempting to inflict “Death By PowerPoint” is never justifiable.
Guy Kawaskai’s tips are marvelous, after all the years I spent enduring over-inflated PowerPoint presentations I wich he had come along sooner.
may i just add 3 points on your list?
1. “tell what you will say”
people are more comfortable (and… hopefully intrigued) when they know what you’re to say speak about.
2. “tell what you’ve just said”
stop frequently rephrase and draw conclusions. this will make your audience remember and… learn what’s been said ;)
3. always display a “content”.
and let in be shown always during the presentation.
webee.ro is a design blog.
Hello,
As an e-marketing speaker/consultant and PPT trainer, I read your posting with a good deal of interest. Effective use of PPT and effective presentation skills are techniques that all communicators in business, religion, education, etc. should be comfortable with. I have a Resource Guide at my blog PPT – Powerful Presentation Techniques that provides links to a broad range of presentation and PPT resources that your readers might find interesting.
Paul Gibler
the Web Chef
Brian – awesome post! I’ve had to use Powerpoint quite a few times at school for presentations for homework etc. I’ve always found that having pictures as a Watermark work particularly well as you can read the dark text and there’s something to look at in the background in case you get boring!
I also like to animate but only using a “fade in”, this helps to break up what you’re saying and add a little more fun into your presentation.
Cheers,
Adnan
Hey guys:
WOW – I really missed the boat on the comment moderation thing.
Sorry guys. I haven’t been ignoring you. I just I don’t have a moderation feature set up on my own (Typepad) blog. Didn’t anticipate the difference here.
Dave – so glad you found Guy’s tips useful. And I’m glad you see the relevance face-to-face presentations have for Internet entrepreneurs.
Webee – neat points. And you remind me of another important lesson we should internalize: Answer the “so what?” man on your shoulder. That is, anytime you give a fact that supports a case, pretend the little man on your shoulder asked you “so what?”. That way you know that you’re framing things in a what that’s relevant to the audience.
Great insight Webee.
Paul – glad to hear you liked the post as well. I’m eager to check out the points your blog makes on the same topic.
Adnan – as always, I love the feedback. I’m a fan of the picture-as-a-watermark as well :)
One other tip from a long time of giving/sitting thru PPT shows. Follow guidelines like Guy’s and severely limit the number of slide. But make sure you keep WeBee’s advice in mind … there may be a “so what” guy for real in the audience and if he’s a client you can’t just tell him, “I’ll get back to you on that”. I always tried to make a presentation in say 10 or 12 slides, but for potentially contentious points? Have a “back up” slide or “hip pocket” slide at the end of the presentation … if the audience demands you increase the length/depth of the presentation, you’ll be prepared and if all goes to plan, no one will see the “reserve tank”.
Great stuff. I’ve never prepared a “reserve tank” before, but I’ve heard about them more and more lately – especially as they apply to fundraising presentations – and they just make sense.
Stick to the most distilled, fundamental points of your plan, but be ready for anything.
Great advice guys.