Power Through Presentations: Tips and Tricks to Build a Better Slide Deck
By Andy Balser
5/5
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About this ebook
Power Through Presentations is a light-hearted but practical guide to overcome one of the most common challenges that faces millions of business professionals today: translating ideas into sleek presentations.
Other books target presenters who are taking the stage to speak to a room full of people. But most of us create a presentation deck that is then emailed or reviewed over the phone. There’s a massive underserved market of business professionals who need help to create effective PowerPoint® slides in their day-to-day work.
Some common challenges are addressed:
• How can I turn facts and data into compelling visual images?
• How can I create a concise project update to review with my boss?
• I have a ton of detail on this service we’re going to launch. What’s the best way to explain it so it’s understood even when I’m not there to speak to it?
• Where can I get a useful PowerPoint® examples without researching for hours?
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Reviews for Power Through Presentations
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5simple yet effective. Focuses on the what to present, target audience, and how to do it right.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5good concepts. examples and principles explained well. Very useful for presentations.
Book preview
Power Through Presentations - Andy Balser
you.
Choosing what to use
DON’T BE A DUMB-ASS, ONLY PRESENT WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS
Let’s be clear about one thing: the people you’re making the slides for aren’t there to see, hear, or read about you. They just need to get information quickly and clearly. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s you delivering it or you’ve trained a talking donkey to do it.
If you take nothing else away from this book, take this: you must understand exactly what your audience needs to know and then let that be your guide in choosing what to include on your slides. If you find yourself thinking, But I spent 50 hours analyzing the last three years of sales data and they should know how hard that was,
then give yourself a shake and refocus. The only thing you’re there to do is address what your audience needs. If that analysis is on target, that’s great, it’s in. If it doesn’t help you deliver what your audience needs, then too bad, it’s out. Creating a presentation is a bit like carving a stone sculpture. Try not to get too hung up on the big chunks of rock that are falling to the floor; just make sure the end result is great.
So, right off the bat, figure out why you’re there. It could be for a number of reasons, such as:
They need an update on the status of my project
;
We need to make a decision
;
I need to convince them to do something.
Consider starting your presentation by telling everyone exactly what you want them to walk away with. This will ground their thought processes so that, as you go through your material, you build toward an established goal. Here’s a quick example:
If you were a sniper, the gray box at the bottom of this slide would be your crosshairs. Any material that doesn’t directly help answer these questions should not appear in your presentation.
So how can you develop the crosshairs for your presentation? Start by asking yourself (and others) questions about who your audience is, what decisions your presentation might help them make, and what else they do when they’re not taking in a riveting presentation by you. You can approach these questions in a similar way by asking yourself what you want people to think when they see your material, how you want them to feel about it, and what you want them to do once it’s all over. Use your answers to come up with the two or three outcomes that your presentation needs to accomplish (i.e., your crosshairs). Since you’re a clever person, you can probably come up with your own list of questions, but here are a few examples to get you started:
Why does each person want to see/read my presentation?
What decisions will my information help them make?
What are some of my audience’s preconceived notions, which I might need to overcome?
Are audience members involved with other projects that might be affected by my project or knowledge?
How does each person’s job performance get measured at the end of the year? How can my presentation help others meet their performance targets?
Who will be the most likely person to raise questions? Is there anything that I can include to help anticipate questions? Can I send this person anything beforehand to avoid being taken off track?
What are the company’s or team’s biggest priorities? What parts of my initiative link to these?
There’s a reason that everyone isn’t the CEO
As you’re plotting and scheming to develop a great presentation, it might help to keep in mind what part of the corporate ladder you’re developing slides for. Different levels typically have different needs. Each situation will vary, but here are a couple of examples of the types of concerns some of these different groups might have:
Frontline
How does this help me do my job better?
Does this help me understand the bigger picture?
Middle management
How will this impact my team?
Does it inform any decisions I might have to make?
Does this keep me aware of things that are important to the company?
Senior management
How does this help me make investment decisions?
How will this differentiate us in the market?
What impact will this have on financials and shareholder value?
Sorry, baby, it’s not you. It’s me.
There’s a good reason that your company pays you the bags and bags of money it does. It’s because you know stuff. Probably a lot of stuff. However, the audience isn’t there to be in awe of all the wonderful things you know. Yet going on and on about the stuff we know is one of the most common traps that we fall into when putting a presentation together. Breaking your emotional attachment to the work you’ve put into something or the expertise you’ve developed is one of the best ways you can improve your presentations. Don’t worry about trying to show that you’re the smartest kid in the class or that you’re the hardest working bee in the hive. If you deliver what your audience needs, the rest will shine through. So as emotionally attached as you might feel to some of your work, detaching yourself will help you build a stronger focus on your audience.
Delivery options
WE’RE NOT ALL AL GORE
Most of those other books on creating pretty slides were probably written by smart, well-intentioned people whose mothers love them. The