A question I get a lot when I do workshops is, Should I be using
PowerPoint when I present? We're going to look at the details of that answer coming up.
Hello again friends. Welcome back. And if we're just meeting for the
first time, I'm Alex Lyon and this channel, Communication Coach, is here for
rising leaders to help you increase your impact so you can lead the people around
you to higher levels of excellence. And when I say rising leaders, I'm mainly
thinking about people like team leaders, front-line supervisors, front-line
managers. These are the people who really changed my life growing up and this
channel is for you. So should you be using PowerPoint when you present? I lean
toward yes. I'd like to unpack some details however to make sure we're doing
this in the best way possible. The first tip is that PowerPoint is just a visual
aid. It's not meant to replace everything you were going to say and put that in a
verbal form. You've probably seen people do this. They mistake a visual aid for
the actual presentation. They put the whole thing up there and then they read
through it and everybody's flipping through the deck and they're not really
focused. It usually leads to pretty poor presenting. So, it's just an aid. It's
supposed to enhance and add to and emphasize your message. It shouldn't be a
replacement for your presentation. Second tip is that your visual aid is for your
listeners, not for you. So keep that in mind when you're creating them. Don't put
everything up there that you need to keep track of so that you keep glancing
back at the PowerPoint, looking at it the whole time. You should have a whole
different set of speaking notes that you speak from. And this will really free you
up. Once you have your speaking outline, then you can craft way better PowerPoints so
that it can enhance learning and enhance retention of everything you're saying. So
with that in mind I want to talk about what these PowerPoint slides should look
like. Well first of all, I recommend starting with just one slide. If you're
not using any or if you're using way too many, this is like a little bit of a challenge.
Try to use one slide. In terms of what should be on that one slide, maybe you
could just put up the whole central idea in one sentence right in the middle of
it in a nice clear font. And the whole time it's up there you're presenting
people come away with that central message. Another option that you might be
able to try is just put up your main two or three or four
main points that you're presenting on. And so that at any point in the
presentation if people get a little lost they can glance up at the PowerPoint and
see what point you're on. I've seen this used really effectively by a lot of
speakers. So those are the two suggestions in terms of how to do one
slide and what you should put up there. Now, what should this look like visually.
Well, you want to make sure it's big, clear, simple, and helps emphasize your
point. Those are the main principles. If it gets too complicated or gets too
distracting or has too many animations and transitions, this is not video, right?
So, you have to keep in mind that you want people's attention mostly on you.
And, so the visual aid is just there to enhance your message. So in terms of font
size, you want to have a pretty good size font, nice and easy to read even from a
far distance away but you don't want it so big that it eats up all the blank
space on your slide. You also want to use shorter phrases or at least very short
sentences instead of lots of text that makes it much easier to look at. And you
want to make sure there's a high contrast between the background and the
font. So, a really light like a white background and then a black font or a
super dark font. That high contrast makes it all very easy to look at. So those are
my suggestions for how to use maybe just one slide and use it more effectively.
Don't go with the normal habits and practices you've probably seen around
you. So my question for the day is this. What are your tips what are your pet
peeves? What's your advice for using PowerPoint in presentations. I would
love to hear your response and your comments in that section below. So thanks.
God bless. And I will see you next time. Or set of notes for yourself the
third tip okay . . . So if you use one slide or maybe two you're in good place [haaah] . . . I'm
going to get this. I'm going to get it!