Powerpoint presentations are extremely easy to throw together, thanks to the simple and intuitive feel of the software. Unfortunately, it has been a victim of its own success – or more likely, your company has – because good Powerpoint design is a much rarer beast. Sales presentations that engage and convince listeners and give them something to take away with them are few and far between. This is why there are companies that specialise in corporate presentations and making sets of highly effective Powerpoint slides: done well, they can make all the difference in securing a bid or winning a contract. Done badly, your intended customer or audience will have switched off and discarded you as a prospect before you’ve got to the end of the first five minutes.
If you want to do it yourself, there are a few points to bear in mind. You may, like others, be tempted to squash in all the information you can – apparently ‘making the most’ of the room you have – and repeating your spoken presentation on the screen (and perhaps, for good measure, triplicating it with a handout, too…). This won’t do you any favours.
Start by planning the narrative of your presentation on paper, ensuring that you have a thread and a story that brings the audience through from start to finish. A disjointed presentation will lose their attention and leave them unimpressed – fast. When it does come to designing the slides, keep the background straightforward and simple: you don’t need unnecessary distraction. One idea for each slide is fine. If you try to cram in too much they will be overwhelmed and won’t take in anything very much. Make the point, and make it well. You can use suitable graphics to illustrate your point in a way that is impossible using the spoken word – a chart showing year-on-year results or other data, for example, is infinitely more effective than explaining them in words.
Powerpoint design is an art as well as a science, and you can’t underestimate how important Powerpoint presentations are in winning over your audience. They are an expected feature of sales presentations, but they are usually done so badly that if you can improve on the average you will immediately gain an edge over the competition. It doesn’t take much – just a willingness to do a bit of research and scale back your ambitions in the interests of doing a little very well. Simplicity is everything.
Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.
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