A handy guide to how to navigate your way around the choppy waters of Death by PowerPoint. Useful hints, tips and general guidance on how to swerve a blizzard of bullet points and get rid of cliched clipart for your next presentation.

1. Beating
Death by PowerPoint
in your business
An introduction to Presentation
Optimisation from Eyeful Presentations

2. The Presentation Paradox
The vast majority of
corporate presentations
aren’t good enough.
This strong statement bears witness when you
consider most of the business world heaves a
collective sigh when they become faced
with an unending set of slides, whatever the
presentation topic is. In short, the prospect of
a PowerPoint presentation fills many business
people with dread.
But it doesn’t need to be that way. Many
people have now realised the value of a high
quality presentation – and have reaped the
benefits of leading a charge against
mediocrity in PowerPoint.
Read on if you genuinely want to rid the
world of shameful slide decks.

3. Introduction – The Presentation Paradox
In business today a huge amount of time is
wasted creating and then sitting through poor
presentations. In many organisations
PowerPoint is regarded as a hideous creation
and the task of creating sales and other
presentations falls to the “person in marketing
who’s a bit techie minded”. Even in those
organisations that take a more serious
approach, the end result is still rarely a good
advertisement for the organisation.
Let’s take the humble sales presentation as an The problem then lies with the single
example. Take some time to examine just how opportunity you get to make a sales
much money you’ve spent getting to the point presentation – and the perplexing gulf in
where you fire up and use a sales presentation. investment between all the steps to get
There are a multitude of costs, both direct and there and the presentation itself.
indirect -
The simple truth is a poor sales presentation
Product Development demonstrates an inability (or lack of
interest) to invest properly in all the stages
Product research, build & testing, market of customer acquisition.
testing, product branding and others
In this brief guide we’ll share some tips on
Marketing how to change this and in doing so help to
increase the effectiveness and impact of
Advertising, direct marketing, e-mail your business presentation.
marketing, telemarketing, collateral, trade
shows – the list goes on
People resources
Salaries, bonus & commission, training,
recruitment and a multitude of indirect costs
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4. How to make it better
Changing the way you pull together your To aid you in getting your PowerPoint up to
presentation slide deck can be a daunting the level it should be, we’ve put together
task – and certainly with a lot of people this the 3 headline improvements you can use
only adds to the reluctance to change. But to immediately get more from your slides.
change is a necessity in all things we do in
business and presentations are no
exception.
Scenario 1
Living in the present - Write down what your key message is
– what is it you want your audience to
dealing with existing remember once you’ve finished
presenting? Now make sure all the slides in
slide shows the presentation help to deliver this
message
Ask us what to do with any presentation that
is in need of change and we’ll typically come Do a slide sense check
back with the same answer – start from – look at every slide and decide what you
scratch. are trying to get across and make sure that
each slide helps you (as the presenter) to
Having said that, we are also realistic and deliver what you need
acknowledge that this isn’t always feasible
and a lot of people need to work with what Once you know that each slide
they currently have. In these instances here delivers what you want – print 2
are the best ways to review and amend your copies of each slide out
existing slide set – – one with the words on and one with
them all deleted. Now imagine what you
would put on the blank slide in place of the
words – where this is feasible do so. The less
words the better.
Now present this to a
056
8528 colleague/friend/loved one/man
from the sandwich shop
– and make sure that the changes you’ve
made help you to deliver the message
By doing these 4 things you can
radically change a presentation,
and make it better to present
and better to watch
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5. Scenario 2
Taking it back to the
beginning –
the “from new”
presentation
We’ve identified 3 essential stages to Headline creation – THE MESSAGE
putting a presentation together from
the beginning and have incorporated Every presentation should have one thing
them into our Presentation Optimisation at the very heart of it - the message.
methodology -
The importance of this cannot be
underestimated. Get this right and you’re
well on your way to presentation success.
Miss this stage out and you’ll be floundering
around for the rest of the project.
So ask yourself - what you are trying to get
across to your audience? Yes, there may
well be pieces that sit round this or nuances
that add to it, but at the very start of
creating any presentation you must
understand what this message is.
If you realise you’re doing something for
the presentation that doesn’t underpin
your message, you don’t need it.
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6. Scenario 2
Telling the story – THE CONTENT Visual Clarity – THE DESIGN
Once you have your key message (and note The last of the points is where many people
that you’ve still not opened PowerPoint yet!), start and, with the risk of repeating
you now need to create a story to deliver ourselves, this is a huge mistake. Only once
that message to your audience. you have a message and a story to deliver
it can you look at the visual aspect.
Just like the big Hollywood studios, we
“storyboard” our story as part of the Finally reaching this stage is not a license to
presentation planning process. This allows us write War and Peace! Remember one
to view, refine and adjust the presentation simple rule – simple is best. Never explain
content, flow and structure to ensure it stays something simple with something that is
in message and delivers the intended result. more complicated.
However you build your story, build it you The use of pictures (cue cliché – a picture
must! Most presentations resemble a dogs paints a thousand words…) is good but
dinner with slides that have obviously been also refer back to step 1 – your message.
pulled together on the fly.
Don’t just go pretty for the sake of it.
That’s not a story - that’s just lazy..!
Ultimately think of what you want to
Create a story you are sure will deliver your convey and how best this could be
message and then, maybe then you are demonstrated – for example if you are
ready to open the first blank slide in trying to describe an emotion no written
PowerPoint… words will do it – use a relevant image and
then you can describe it. Your audience
will get what you say so much better than
reading the words “I was angry/upset/
delirious”.
Used effectively these 3 steps are incredibly
powerful. By building on the foundation of
a strong and defined message, you’re
giving yourself the best chance to create a
presentation that will not only get your
audience to sit up and listen but also
remember for weeks to come.
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7. Scenario 3
Panic time – OK so you’ve got 30 minutes until you have to
submit/deliver your presentation. How can
the 30 minute refresh you make it better in that very small window?
Here’s how –
1 Decide the one single reason why you are
giving the presentation. Sounds simple but it
isn’t always - do this and remember it.
2 Cull 20% of your slides. Typically people add
slides and words when they’re doing last
minute amends, it’s human nature to do so
but don’t. Have a hard look through and trim
it down so that you say more and let your
audience read less.
As part of your slide cull – ask yourself one
3 question with each slide “does it help get my
message across” going back to the first point
if any slide doesn’t help re-enforce your
message bin it. This also counts for any slide
that you’ve put in because it looks good/is
funny/is a great video, if it’s that good and
doesn’t underpin your message people will
remember the funny slide and not the
message.
These 3 don’t sound much – and 30 minutes
isn’t a long time but we’ve given this advice
to many, many people. It has helped not only
to focus the presentation but to also focus
the presenter – and in doing so has enabled
a much better experience for their audience.
One point mentioned in passing but worth
reiterating is that the job of the presenter is
unavoidable (sorry!). We’ve talked about the
slide set itself here but always remember a
good presenter is worth ten well pressed
slide decks.
As well as making sure your presentation itself
is up to scratch – spend time making sure
your presenters are top quality too.
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8. So what now?
These 3 sets of tips should give a pretty good
lead into how to deal with presentations
whatever timescale you are looking at. Whilst
we wouldn’t necessarily advise to use only 30
minutes – it is better than no minutes and
hopefully if you do that you’ll see what a
difference it can make.
One point we can’t stress enough is the
paradox of the company who doesn’t value
their sales presentation.
So much hard work by a lot of people and
taking a lot of financial investment goes into
getting that person stood in front of a
potential customer. The lack of investment in
that final stage is a very weak link in an
otherwise strong chain. The cost of making it
better is far outweighed by the return that
people see.
Make some simple changes to the way you
put together your corporate presentations
and you could well see a remarkable
change in your business.
For more information, visit Eyeful via the
web at
www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk
0845 056 8528
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