Your Presentation Success Is Our Passion
Present It Right...The First Time!

Welcome to 2006! For you, your family and friends may this year be full of laughter, love and peace.

In this age of “no time to plan—no time to read—no time to do everything I need,” I’ve decided to change my format a bit. This will accommodate those of you who like to read short sound bites. I’ll start each bulletin with an executive summary of key points. Then, if you want to read more, you can. I’ll end with the design aid of the month.

By the end of 2006 you will have learned:

• 12 habits of successful presenters
• 12 keys to compelling presentation content
• 12 ways to save hours creating PowerPoint presentations
• 12 products you need
• 12 case studies of companies or individuals and how they improved their presentations
• 12 design aids for PowerPoint.

Practice out loud, prefereable with two listeners. [more]

Presentation overview: Write down your objective and key messages before creating slides or a script. [more]

Learn to use the slide master—you’ll save time and have professional-looking slides. [more]

Remote mouse. [more]

Slide content affects presentation style. [more]

Crystal Graphics PowerPlugs PhotoActive FX [more]

Get written up in my bulletin when you…

Presenters: Tell me how a presentation went in which you practiced out loud. Send me your presentation overview. Buy a remote mouse and tell me how your talk went using it.

Designers: Send me your Slide Master look with all the conventions in it.

PRACTICE OUT LOUD, PREFERABLY WITH TWO LISTENERS.

• Every time I teach a class or start to coach an individual, I hear, “I get nervous before my talk. And sometimes I can’t sleep.” I ask, “Do you practice out loud?” Usually I hear comments like:
• “I think about it in my car.”
• “I don’t have time to practice. I finish my talks at midnight.”
• “I’ve gone over the slides in my head. That’s enough."

None of these behaviors will reduce a presenter’s nervousness. The only way to really improve at presenting in front of a group is to do a dry run. And it’s best to have two audience members: one who does not know your subject and one who will represent the typical audience for this presentation. The one who does not know your subject can tell you what words, phrases, and acronyms do not make sense. Most audiences include some people who are not that conversant in your area of expertise, and you want to be sure that your talk makes as much sense as possible to them. The listener who knows your subject will tell you what is unclear, doesn’t flow logically, and may cause your audience to be aggressive and disagree with you.

Next time you feel nervous, rethink your rehearsals. Perhaps you should spend less time creating your slides and more time practicing. Your content is important, but if you don’t sound in charge of it and convincing, your audience will not pay attention. And all your hard work will not produce the result you desire.

Desired Goal: Practice the entire presentation in front of two people.

Acceptable Goal: Practice the entire presentation alone. Imagine people sitting in the chairs around the room and end your sentences looking at certain chairs.

Better-Than-Nothing-Goal: Practice the opening and transition phrases between major points and closing.

PRESESNTATION OVERVIEW: WRITE DOWN YOUR OBJECTIVE AND KEY MESSAGES BEFORE CREATING SLIDES OR A SCRIPT.

There are two scenarios when creating a presentation.

• Scenario 1 is creating the talk from scratch. This happens when you are presenting at a conference, proposing a change, or being asked to explain a new product.
• Scenario 2 is choosing slides from several talks to create a new presentation.

Save yourself time and aggravation. More importantly, influence and convince your audience. Don’t try either scenario without a plan. Write up a presentation overview before you make your slides.

Briefly, you need to provide the information below before you create a single slide. If you coach people to create presentations, then you need to ask for their Presentation Overview. If they haven’t done one, you are coaching them blindly. How can you tell them if their voice, slides, and content are effective if you don’t know their objective?

Presentation overview:

1. The key objective for my talk is:
2. The 2 (or 3) key messages are:
3. The underlying theme of my talk is:
4. When I’m done I want my audience to…
   • Do:
   • Feel:
   • Say to others:
5. Two ways to engage my audience’s interest:
   

LEARN TO USE THE SLIDE MASTER—YOU’LL SAVE TIME AND HAVE PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING SLIDES.

Here are some tips on how to design a great Slide Master. In PowerPoint versions 2002 and 2003, you can have more than one Slide Master look in a presentation. But before you make more than one, set up your slide master. When you use these conventions, your slides will look professional.

From now on you will go Insert>New Slide and find the content layout you like. Do not use the Text Box in the Draw Toolbar to put text on your slide. Also, do not insert your pictures using a content layout. Insert your pictures by going to Insert>Picture.

• First, be sure you like the Slide Master you have. To make it perfect, go to View>Master>Slide Master. If you have a master designed by a PowerPoint professional, use it!
  • Title placeholder font size:
    • Arial Narrow, 30 to 36. Most people like long titles, and Arial Narrow lets you squeeze in more words.
      
  • Text placeholder font size:
    • Arial 28 or 24 for the 1st level. Tahoma takes up too much space. Serif fonts are harder to read on slides, especially with numbers.
    • 24 or 22 for the 2nd level.
    • Avoid the third level on screen.
    • How small can your font be? 18 or 16 bold is the limit, and that depends on the contrast between font and background color. But not for a lot of text—just for a word or two describing an image.
      
  • Line spacing:
    1st level, 28 or 24-point font: Line spacing .95, Before paragraph .35
    2nd level, 24 or 22-point font: Line spacing .95, Before paragraph .25
    To adjust spacing between phrases: Format>Line Spacing.
    
  • Text box color, font, and size: Go to Format>Font. These are the default settings for the text box in the draw toolbar.
    • Don’t use the text box to put words on your slides. Only use the text box to put a caption under a picture. Use the slide layouts for all other text. 
• Second, decide what other type of look you want. Then go to Insert>Duplicate Slide Master and edit it. Don’t do Insert> New Slide Master—you’ll have to format the slide all over again to match your original Slide Master.
• Third, be sure to save your masters. Go to View>Master>Slide Master and select Preserve Master in the Slide Master View toolbar. Preserve Master means that the master won’t automatically be deleted if no slides in that file are in that master look. Then, whenever you add a new Slide Master, it will automatically be preserved.
  

STREET SMART TECHNOLOGY: REMOTE MOUSE. 

Street Smart Technology is offering my readers a 10% discount on their remote mouse. Go to www.powerremote.com and use discount code 43069. What I like about this mouse is that it is very small, does not need any software installed on the laptop, and always works. I prefer the PowerPresenter over the credit-card-sized mouse because I can feel the buttons under my fingers. The PowerPresenter also has forward and back buttons and a laser pointer. Choose which model is most comfortable for you.

SLIDE CONTENT AFFECTS PRESENTATION STYLE.

• Problem: Presenter starts to feel in at ease discussing the content when in front of the room. All of a sudden the logic of the presentation is not clear and the presenter gets lost in the details.
  
• Results: Presenter isn’t able to connect to the audience and doesn’t come across as competent and credible.
  
• Design solution: Redo the slides to have only one key message on each, including informative titles. Don’t put transition phrases on the slides. The presenter can say those words.
  
• Presenter solution: Make the presentation into a story. State what the data mean for the audience’s work. Say transition phrases from slide to slide to capture the audience’s interest about the next slide’s message.
  
• Major learning: Practice the presentation out loud to discover which titles help the presenter make a major point and move easily from slide to slide. Story board the presentation by titles and key messages before putting all the content on the slides.

This presenter was able to change her whole style. She came alive and was able to truly influence the audience with a strong voice and demeanor. For example, once she was able to look at the slide and instantly see its major point, she was able to discuss it crisply and clearly while making eye contact with the audience rather than the screen. When presenters aren’t sure what, exactly, is the point of a slide, they stop making eye contact and start talking to the ceiling or the screen. Start watching presenters and notice that those ones who connect with their audience use slides that are organized and highlight messages with subtitles or other methods.

CRYSTAL GRAPHICS:PowerPlugs PhotoActive FX.

Every month I will show some slides from a product to give you ideas for slide design. This month’s product is from Crystal Graphics. I am showing you some of their still effect shapes. You can use these images to replace text on your slides with just three clicks.

For more information, go to http://www.crystalgraphics.com/presentations/photoactivefx.main.asp

Two Key Seminars:

1. The Winning Presentations Seminar—two days. Offered publicly. Also offer a version for sales people.
2. Creating PowerPoint Presentations That Get Your Point Across Seminar—one day.

Individual Coaching: I help executives and managers present with more confidence and persuade their audience.
Visuals Makeovers

1. One-hour analysis of your slides with ideas for changes.
2. Total redo of your slides.

Corporate Consulting: Presentation Performance Process for Your Company or Division—save days of time putting together a talk. I guarantee everyone will save at least 1/3 of their time putting together a talk after this process is in place.

Clients Include: The Gillette Company, Genzyme Corporation, Mercury Computer Systems, Harvard Medical School, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Avid Technology

Presentation Points may be forwarded via e-mail, printed for circulation, and quoted free of charge. No permission is required, but please mention where you got this information.  Also, it’s perfectly acceptable to post Presentation Points on your company’s intranet. To subscribe to Presentation Points or visit my website, go to www.wilderpresentations.com.