By Kevin McAleer

13 July 2014   Project Management Presenting PowerPoint

Presenting your kick-ass slide deck

Top 10 Common Presentation Mistakes

Here is a list of the most common mistakes made when presenting slides:

1. Too much text on each slide
2. Text is too small to read
3. Format is wrong for presentation environment
4. Too many pictures
5. Too many topics on each slide
6. No Focus or central idea
7. The slide is essentially a speaker script
8. Awful design – clashing colours, too many fonts, text over pictures
9. Humour used to try and make the presentation more interesting
10. Lack of preparation – no rehearsal, did you bring handouts just in case?

Top 5 presenting mistakes

1. No interaction with audience – you can ask them questions
2. No eye contact, or facing the screen instead of the audience
3. Monotonous voice, droning on
4. No story of human interest
5. To quietly spoken

Presenting Tips

Create a test card for your presentations. I usually put this as the last slide in my deck so I can calibrate the projector or onscreen display so that all text can be read easily. It can also be used to calibrate the projectors image to ensure its square and keystone-corrected.

Know your audience

Ask them what they want to see, in advance. Therefore you can craft a presentation that meets, neigh, exceeds their expectations.

No more than 6 words per slide

Seth Godin recommends no more than six words per slide. Ever.

10/20/30 rule

10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point text size.

The 5 Golden Rules of Presenting

1. Keep it stupid simple
2. Tell a story
3. Start with the main idea and work backwards
4. Speak loudly, with interest with what you are talking about
5. User bold, powerful imagery

Follow up

The last thing about presentations is that they require follow up. A great presentation is only as good as the effect is leaves, and if you don’t follow up with the audience it will have been for nothing.

Downloads

Download my free PowerPoint test card here: