Your PowerPoint Will Create Engagement, Not Slumber

• 00:04 We've got to talk about PowerPoint and visual aids during presentations and
• 00:09 speeches.
• 00:11 Look, folks, I like PowerPoint.
• 00:13 I use PowerPoint all the time.
• 00:14 Some of my best friends are PowerPoint.
• 00:18 But let's get real here.
• 00:20 Most PowerPoint presentations are really dull.
• 00:24 They're boring, they're excuses to put people to sleep.
• 00:27 Or to encourage them to check their Facebook feed because it's so darn boring.
• 00:33 Now there are more than 6,000 books about PowerPoint on Amazon.
• 00:37 I've done entire courses on PowerPoint.
• 00:40 I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about PowerPoint in just a few
• 00:44 minutes right here.
• 00:46 For starters, if you are thinking of giving a PowerPoint presentation,
• 00:50 time out right there.
• 00:51 You are not giving a PowerPoint presentation.
• 00:54 You are giving your presentation,
• 00:56 your ideas that you have to make come alive for your audience.
• 01:01 The PowerPoint slides are just an extra.
• 01:06 It's just an enhancement.
• 01:08 The second you tell yourself, I'm giving a PowerPoint presentation.
• 01:13 For most people, it flips a switch and they become boring,
• 01:17 robotic, incompetent speakers and presenter.
• 01:21 Don't let that happen.
• 01:24 My advice, don't create the first slide until you've done some of the things we've
• 01:28 already talked about in this course.
• 01:30 You've really identified in one sentence the one thing you want your
• 01:33 audience to do.
• 01:35 You've identified your five key ideas, messages to resonate with the audience.
• 01:41 You have a story for each one of your message points.
• 01:44 Then and only then should you think about having slides to back it up.
• 01:52 Now here are the rules you need to follow if you really want to be successful using
• 01:56 PowerPoint.
• 01:57 Rule number one, one idea per slide.
• 02:02 When you see three bullet points or ten bullet points, it just doesn't work folks.
• 02:08 I understand that's how it's done in your organization.
• 02:10 You've seen other people do it.
• 02:11 But there's no evidence that that helps people remember your ideas.
• 02:17 If you want notes, remember I gave you a solution on notes,
• 02:21 already have a single sheet of paper.
• 02:24 PowerPoint slides are not for your notes.
• 02:28 The next big rule, use images, not text.
• 02:32 Now I love text, I've written half a dozen books.
• 02:35 I like to read, I don't have any evidence that putting text on slides
• 02:40 that you are projecting actually helps your audience remember it.
• 02:45 That's how it's been done before.
• 02:47 But you don't really have evidence that putting text up on the slide while you
• 02:52 speak to the slide works.
• 02:54 So if you want to be effective,
• 02:57 put one image per slide that doesn't have text on it.
• 03:03 I know, I know this sounds crazy.
• 03:04 It isn't how you normally do it.
• 03:06 You want to have lots of text, email that to people in advance,
• 03:10 give it as a handout.
• 03:11 But don't project it during your presentation.
• 03:16 Next, when you're speaking, let people look at you, don't have a slide up.
• 03:19 You want people to look at the slide, put the slide up, and
• 03:23 close your mouth, and let them look at it.
• 03:26 And one solution to that is if you hit the letter B on your keyboard,
• 03:30 it will black out the screen.
• 03:32 If you want people to listen to you, let them just look at you,
• 03:35 don't have anything up there.
• 03:37 Any key whatsoever brings back the PowerPoint to wherever it was.
• 03:42 So you can be in complete control even if it's someone's bad PowerPoint, your boss
• 03:47 just gave you a horrible PowerPoint, said deliver this in five minutes.
• 03:51 You can still control what people look at and
• 03:53 when they look at it by using the letter B.
• 03:56 Hitting it once blacks out the screen, hit any key whatsoever it goes back,
• 04:02 and you can advance to the next screen.
• 04:06 Here are the two rules you need to apply to every PowerPoint slide,
• 04:11 two questions you need to ask.
• 04:14 Does this slide actually make my idea more understandable than me just saying it?
• 04:21 And does this slide make my idea more memorable than me just saying it?
• 04:27 If you can't say yes to both of those things, it is a horrible slide.
• 04:33 Do yourself a favor, do your audience a favor and throw it in the trash can.
• 04:38 I know that sounds harsh, but you know what else is harsh?
• 04:41 Being in the middle of your presentation and you look around, and
• 04:43 everyone in the audience is doing this.
• 04:46 I'm trying to help you avoid that harsh reality.
• 04:51 And just because you can use PowerPoint doesn't
• 04:54 mean that's always the most effective visual aid.
• 04:59 Someone like Steve Jobs had unlimited budgets for presentations,
• 05:02 known as a great presenter.
• 05:05 He used the Apple version of PowerPoint, Keynote.
• 05:11 But he didn't rely on that exclusively.
• 05:12 When he wanted to unveil a brand new laptop that was extraordinarily thin,
• 05:18 he didn't just put up a slide and
• 05:21 put the statistics of how wide it was, no, not what he did.
• 05:26 He walked over to a table, picked up an envelope.
• 05:29 He said how thin is this new laptop?
• 05:31 He picked up an envelope, reached in, and pulled the laptop out of the envelope.
• 05:37 It was such a powerful message because it was a powerful image.
• 05:42 Wow, this laptop is so thin it goes right into an envelope.
• 05:46 That's much more powerful than just writing the facts and
• 05:50 the specs on a slide and quickly going through the numbers.
• 05:54 So remember, you can use props.
• 05:59 What did this cost Steve Jobs, 20 cents?
• 06:03 So look around you and ask yourself, what tools do you have?
• 06:07 What images do you have?
• 06:10 What things in real life do you have that will make your
• 06:15 ideas come alive for your audience?
• 06:18 If you're just looking for the poor man's,
• 06:21 the poor woman's teleprompter, you are not looking in the right place.
• 06:26 There's nothing like a good old fashioned piece of paper,
• 06:31 if you just need notes for what you want to say.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.