What ingredients for a successful Powerpoint presentation?
As you have to prepare for a presentation in front of an audience or through video conference, it is paramount to put your audience in the best conditions to listen and understand your message. Here are a few things to keep in mind for a successful presentation.
How to perform a efficient powerpoint presentation ?
1. Profile your audience to adapt your presentation strategy
How you approach your presentation should be based on who will be in the room. Some people are more receptive to visual content, whereas other persons are looking for measurable data in order to understand or process information. Generally speaking, avoid to overload your slides otherwise you will overwhelm your audience. The key message of each slide needs to be captured and understood in less than 8 seconds!
2. Articulate a concise and precise key message
VYou should be able to summarize your presentation in one sentence. If your audience should take away one thing, what would it be? A well constructed message is a message that is well thought through and subtly induced.
The best presentations are the ones that allow the audience to come up by themselves to the message you are trying to convey.
3. Use storytelling techniques
Portray your presentation like a movie or an engaging book and tell the story. Broadly speaking, your presentation shall contain an enemy (the issue(s) at stake, the challenges), an element of surprise (stats, insights that you uncover), a hero (you, the proposed solution or the obtained results), etc. Wrap everything with a bit of drama, bring hope, show courage and passion! To learn more about storytelling techniques and take your presentations to the next level, you can read our Storytelling 101 article here.
4. Be human, have a sense of humour!
Put everything you are in everything you do, including Powerpoint presentations. At the end of the day, you are talking to other human beings who also have been through the stress of presenting to an audience. Be playful, engaging, show your human side but stay inbound. The key here is to be subtle, control the energy of the room and keep your cool without being arrogant or out of line.
5. Prepare a nice exit
At the end of your presentation, be extremely clear in the conclusions and the next steps. A successful and productive presentations opens new perspectives by producing concrete recommendations and actions with clear individual or group ownership.
6. The presentation already starts the day before
Finally, send a precise and concise agenda of the meeting the day before to let your audience also prepare to the flow of your presentation. Prepare your outfit in advance, charge your laptop, your phone, bring the adapters you may need to project and come half an hour earlier to prepare the room and solve last minute technical issues!
And we will never say that too much: have proper sleep and drink enough water! If you rush towards your presentation deadline and need some support for your slides, contact Pokeslide, the Powerpoint, Keynote and Google Slides agency!
