For many of us, giving a business presentation starts with putting together a slide deck. But, we often spend more time on this deliverable versus building a story for the audience. Since slides can play a big role in connecting visually with the audience, let’s explore three different ways to use slides during presentations at work for the biggest impact.
1. Take Advantage of Before and After a Presentation
The default is to use slides during our presentations and then possibly send them afterward for people to reference.
But, could we send it as a pre-read instead? Depending on the topic and situation, it might make sense to share content in advance of speaking to it so people can digest it and come in with questions. Or, if time is short, sending information in advance also gives us an opportunity to spend the time we have focusing on the couple of key points we want to highlight live.
Additionally, when we send the slides after the presentation, we want to use the opportunity to reinforce the key points we want the audience to take away. We also want to include the action we want them to take with this information. If appropriate, we can also tease out when additional information will be coming to them so we people know the conversation will continue.
2. Create Slides That Help Tell the Story
When using slides during our presentations, we want to make sure each one helps tell the story. Try thinking through and building the messages before developing the slides. This way, we figure out the most effective way to serve our audience and accomplish our business goals. For more details on this, check out How to Give a Killer Speech.
Here are some additional tips for developing great slides:
- Stick to one message. Stick to one takeaway or point per slide. Highlight it. Draw a circle around it. Make it super clear what we want our audience to know from each single slide.
- Make it easy to read from the back of the room (for in person talks) or when viewing on a phone (for virtual presentations). Make the words large and limit the number of words on the slide. Ensure graphs, tables, pictures, graphics, and other visual elements are large enough to see. If appropriate, highlight the row in the table or the part of the pie chart that reinforces the point.
- Test it out. If possible, do a trial run in the room or virtually to see how the slides will look to our audiences.
3. Turn Slides On and Off During Presentation When Presenting Virtually
We want to make sure that our slides enhance how we come across to our audience, rather than being a potential distraction. For example, when we present virtually and share our screen, our slides might take over most of the screen and give us limited ability to use our visual presentation tools like eye contact, smiling, hand gestures, and more to help connect with the audience. If possible, try switching between sharing slides and turning them off to go back to you being the focus to help engage audiences.
This can be a little tricky to do so we need to spend time to practice it before we present. We want to feel very confident in the online platform we are using – whether it’s WebEx, Zoom or something else. The important thing is to make sure we can maneuver smoothly between sharing and not sharing so it takes no more than a couple seconds to switch. Otherwise, we risk distracting the audience with how we are presenting instead of the information we are sharing. If in doubt, just stick to sharing our screen.
Take Action
Decide how you can use this during your next presentation – can you try doing a few less slides? Sharing before or after? Can you make your slides less cluttered?
