What can make or break your PowerPoint presentation?

Recently, at a workshop, I heard someone give a talk that was very interesting and I got some valuable points out of it. So it got me thinking about what makes a good presentation. Now, I’ve designed a lot of PowerPoint presentations in my time, but delivered very few. Like many people, the thought of standing in front of a group makes me nervous. Others, however, can stand up for an hour and speak extemporaneously on their topic, and make it interesting and memorable. How they did it? Okay, there are some people who are natural public speakers, but for most of us, it takes a lot of preparation to stand up and speak clearly and concisely about our topic.

So, from my experience creating and listening to presentations, I’ve put together some tips for what I think can make or break a presentation.

Do

• Rehearse your speech and ideally get someone to listen or record you.
• Use humor and a personal story to open the presentation, but be appropriate.
• Know the message you are trying to convey and stick to the key points.
• Keep the color scheme simple and make sure the text can be read against the background.
• Have the same slide layout throughout the presentation.
• Put your company brand and logo on the presentation to make it look professional and help build a relationship with your brand and audience.
• Keep animations and transitions to a minimum so they don’t confuse or distract your audience.
• Use creative ways to present your information, such as images, graphics, and animations that grab people’s attention.

Whose

• Speak without preparation or notes unless you have done it successfully before.
• Start the presentation without checking that everyone can hear you.
• Stay on topic, and if you do, make sure your audience knows why and quickly get back on topic.
• Use technical language, acronyms, or jargon unless it’s relevant to your audience.
• Read from a script – it can sound forced and prevents you from making eye contact with the audience.
• Put everything you want to say on the PowerPoint slide and then just read it.
• Overload the slide with too many graphics or animations. They should be used to make the message clearer and not to confuse the audience.
• Use different formatting and color schemes on each slide.

Maybe you have other tips to add to the list? However, it is important to remember that a clear and well-designed presentation will professionally and effectively promote you and your business to your audience.