PowerPoint Slide Rules

• 00:04 You can scour the internet and you will find thousands,
• 00:08 maybe tens of thousands of rules for PowerPoint and you know what?
• 00:13 I've got some rules for PowerPoint too.
• 00:14 I'm gonna give you a number of particulars, but
• 00:17 there's really only one rule that you need to know and
• 00:21 it pretty much solves all the other problems and all the other issues.
• 00:25 Here's the rule.
• 00:27 If you wanna know if your slide works, simply test it.
• 00:32 By that I mean, you're giving a PowerPoint presentation to 40 colleagues or
• 00:37 40 people in your industry, Thursday.
• 00:39 Find one or two colleagues, get them together at lunch,
• 00:43 give them a free sandwich,Tuesday.
• 00:45 Give them your PowerPoint slide, give them your whole presentation.
• 00:52 Don't tell them what you're going to do in advance, just give them your presentation,
• 00:55 show them your slides.
• 00:56 When you're done, ask them every slide they remember and
• 01:01 what was on the slide and what the messages were?
• 01:06 Very simple test.
• 01:08 Nobody ever does it, except for my clients.
• 01:13 Here's what you'll find 99.99% of the time,
• 01:15 nobody's gonna remember anything from your slides.
• 01:20 It's not because they have bad memories, it's because your slides are awful.
• 01:25 Again, don't take my word for it.
• 01:27 Listen to your colleagues in your office.
• 01:30 A slide is effective if people can remember it, so
• 01:34 they can get the idea and take actions.
• 01:38 If they can't remember your slide, it is worthless.
• 01:42 Throw it in the trash can, please.
• 01:45 The world doesn't need more useless, worthless PowerPoint slides.
• 01:51 So that's the big picture, test.
• 01:53 If your focus group remembers your slide, more important remembers the idea,
• 01:59 the message about the slot then it works.
• 02:04 And it may violate all the rules I'm gonna tell you about it if meets that one,
• 02:09 it's a success.
• 02:11 It's a winner, keep it.
• 02:13 So again, show them all of your slides as a part of your presentation.
• 02:18 Don't tell them you're going to test in advance, but after the fact just say,
• 02:24 tell me every slide you remember from my presentation and
• 02:28 what ideas do you remember from the slide?
• 02:31 On the one hand, it sounds so easy.
• 02:35 On the other hand, most people fail miserably.
• 02:39 Why? Because they put way too much stuff
• 02:42 on each slide, they don't use the visual medium for maximum effect.
• 02:47 And this, it's too abstract, it's a lot of words and bullet points and numbers and
• 02:51 too much complexity and they're intellectually lazy.
• 02:53 They don't make the tough choices and they just dump everything.
• 02:57 So now,
• 02:58 let me give you the particular rules that will help you pass this one test.
• 03:03 For starters, every single slide should have
• 03:07 just one idea you're trying to convey.
• 03:14 I know that sounds crazy to some of you, cuz you're used to these rows,
• 03:19 these columns, seven bullet points, no more than three words per each.
• 03:24 Doesn't work, you can do it that way if you'd like.
• 03:30 But if you wanna pass my simple test will your audience remember it,
• 03:35 understand it and remember it and remember the idea,
• 03:40 I'm telling you focus on just one idea per slide.
• 03:46 Back to the Steve Jobs example when he wanted to unveil the iPhone,
• 03:53 he had an iPad here, a phone here that was on a one slide and
• 03:59 then merge together into an iPhone.
• 04:04 One idea and it just was two images that come together.
• 04:10 Simple, easy to understand.
• 04:13 I can visualize it now ten years later and you can remember it.
• 04:19 Remember what you saw, you remember the idea associated with it.
• 04:23 So that's what you need to focus on.
• 04:25 So you can get into this whole debate with people of what's the proper number of
• 04:30 bullet points?
• 04:31 And some say, it should be five and some say, it should be three and
• 04:35 some say, ten test.
• 04:39 In my professional opinion and
• 04:41 this is all I do is presentation training and media training.
• 04:45 It's a complete utter waste of time to put bullet points on a slide that
• 04:50 you are projecting to people.
• 04:53 You need to put pictures, images,
• 04:58 a graph if it really focuses on just two variables and one relationship.
• 05:06 What's the proper number of bullet points?
• 05:08 I would say, zero.
• 05:10 If you're going to have to put bullet points or you'll be fired, okay,
• 05:14 put bullet points.
• 05:16 The fewer the better, because people just aren't going to remember a lot of them.
• 05:22 Fewer words, the better.
• 05:24 Words are abstractions.
• 05:26 Think of it this way, what's easier for you to remember?
• 05:29 You go to a business conference, you meet someone, you exchange business cards,
• 05:33 you bump into them two weeks later at the airport in another city.
• 05:37 Are you more likely to remember their full name, title organization they work for
• 05:42 from their business card or do you remember their face?
• 05:46 That's right you remember their face,
• 05:48 because your brain is more of an image processor than a word processor.
• 05:51 That's why it's better to put images
• 05:56 on a screen instead of words.
• 06:00 Words are just abstractions that are made up of letters, which are abstractions.
• 06:05 Now the next question I get is what's the best number of slides?
• 06:10 The best number of slides is the most slides you can use and
• 06:14 get people to remember them after you've tested.
• 06:18 I'd be very shocked if you could get people to remember more than
• 06:23 a handful of slides, but don't let me try to handcuff you.
• 06:28 Test it.
• 06:30 There is no magic number 20 or it must be 10, it's utter nonsense.
• 06:37 It's a good slide if and only if it's on your message,
• 06:41 it makes your message more understandable and more memorable.
• 06:46 That's what makes it a good slide.
• 06:47 If you can accomplish all those things, put in 100 slides.
• 06:51 I doubt you're gonna get people to remember it.
• 06:54 You got to narrow your messages down to your top handful,
• 06:58 you need an image to make the idea to come alive that you project.
• 07:02 You have a lot of other facts, details, numbers, data,
• 07:06 put that in a separate power point that gives a handout.

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