PRESENTATIONS IN A HURRY: 26 FORMATS THAT PERSUADE
My latest product is ready! Presentations in a Hurry gives you a series of professionally designed PowerPoint "shells" covering 26 of the most common presentation scenarios, from problem analysis to fund raising. Each shell lets you quickly organize your ideas and insert appropriate content for your specific topic. See the Strategy Recommendation format on my web site at http://www.wilderpresentations.com/products/piah.html

The first 50 people who purchase Presentations in a Hurry will receive one free job aid card summarizing the 10 Steps and 10 Formats in my book The Presentations Kit: 10 Steps for Selling Your Ideas and an article called "The Communication Staircase" giving you ideas on how to connect to your audience, not just speak about data.

There is really nothing just like Presentations in a Hurry on the market. Here's what people have said about it:

Matt Miller, of The Nature Conservancy, said, "even staff who were uncomfortable with PowerPoint were able to create effective, interesting presentations...[that are] better able to communicate The Nature Conservancy's Message."

Robert Reilly, a manager at Gillette, said that with Presentations in a Hurry, "I am able to prepare my presentations in half the time."

	PRESENTERS: CONNECTING ON THE WEB
	PRESENTERS: CHECK YOUR NONVERBALS
	DESIGNERS: USING WHITE SPACE
	REFLECTIONS FROM PRESENTERS

CONNECTING ON THE WEB

What is different about doing a presentation via the web? If and when you do this type of talk, consider these points.

Make it easy for your audience to know which slide you are on. I just listened to an archived web presentation, and I found it difficult to know which slide the presenter was discussing. There were several reasons why I could not tell:

First, the presenter did not give me a cue such as saying, "On the next slide you will notice..." or "As we look into the future you'll see on the next slide..."

Second, the slides were so busy that I had trouble figuring out which points the presenter was discussing. And since there were many words on the slides and I was reading while the presenter was talking, I may have missed some of the word cues.

Third, slide titles could have been more informative so that the presenter could have used these phases to transition into discussing the slide.

How do you connect with an audience on the web? Communicate to your audience that you are considering them as you talk. For example:

"You can see here that our sales are up 35% this year."

"Some of you who are in this business know that we have difficulty forecasting our operational costs from month to month."

Pretend your audience is in front of you and talk to them.

Finally, it is very obvious by just listening to someone's voice whether that person is smiling, frowning, or just talking without becoming emotionally involved in the content-or with the audience. So slow down! Even though your audience can't see you, smile when it is appropriate to the subject matter. When you say sales are up, sound happy about it. Do you need a reason to smile and sound enthused? Tell your audience an example about the business. A four-to-five sentence story can really change the pace of a web talk and help you reconnect with your unseen audience.

CHECK YOUR NONVERBALS

Here is a list of nonverbal behaviors that, when appropriate, add credibility to you and your subject matter. When your behavior, however subtle, is not inappropriate, your audience may not trust you without knowing exactly why. Perhaps it's the way you step back when asked certain questions. Perhaps it's the finger you point at the audience. Ask three people you trust to tell you which of the following behaviors to continue, start, or stop.

Facial Expressions
Effective: smiling some of the time, eyelashes going up when you are enthused about a point.
Ineffective: smiling all the time, blushing all the time, grimacing.

Voice Sounds
Effective: laughing when appropriate, changing the tone of your voice.
Ineffective: sounding arrogant, speaking too softly.

Gestures
Effective: Gestures that emphasize what you are saying.
Ineffective: Hands moving randomly, unconnected to the points you are making. Examples: finishing a sentence but your hands are still moving, holding your hands behind your back or in front when you start to talk, pointing a finger at your audience.

General Body Language
Effective: Moving closer to your audience. Coming out from behind the podium (possible with a remote microphone).
Ineffective: Pacing around the room not really looking at the audience. Standing behind the podium and never moving anything but your mouth.

USING WHITE SPACE

Do not cover every corner of your slide with text or pictures-it will scream at the audience. What does this mean for text? If you only have four points on a slide, do not put them in 48-point size. It seems very strange to see one slide in 32-point text and the next in 48-point.

What about pictures? It is true that pictures add variety and sometimes illustrate a point much better than text. But don't get carried away and put five small pictures that your audience will barely be able to see on a slide.

Finally don't put all the text and all the pictures at your disposal on a slide just because you can. This is one the most common mistakes designers made. Be ruthless! Look at your slides and ask yourself:

1. Where is my eye looking?
2. Is my eye moving towards one or two spots on the slide?
3. Are there so many little text boxes and images that my eye is confused about where to look first?

When you design each slide with a simple layout and a clear point, your web audience will have a much easier time following your message.

Here are three slides from our CD Slides That Win: Your Roadmap to Success. This CD has over 200 examples of effective and ineffective PowerPoint slides. These slides show you how to cut down on the number of words per slide and frame your text with white space.

With too much text the audience has to choose between listening to the speaker or reading the text.

With fewer words, the speaker can "add value" to the phrases on the screen.

When you redo your presentations with slides that include key points and clear, large pictures, you will find that you will enjoy giving your talks! Here's what Alaric Haerens of Aerzen, who took my Winning Presentations Public Seminar, has to say:

Yesterday, I held a technical sales presentation to a group of 20 engineers. I spent the previous day revising my approach and slides based on what I learned at your course. I focused on the importance of adding value to slide points instead of putting most of what I know on the slides. I realize that media other than PPT play a role in making the overall experience more interesting to the audience. The feedback from the audience was excellent and I enjoyed delivering the presentation more than ever before.