You’re an expert in your subject. You know everything about it. You want to get it right. So you open your laptop, dig out last year’s presentation and start moving slides around.
An hour later, you have thirty slides, a new font and still no story. You’re going round in circles.
Why PowerPoint is the wrong place to start
PowerPoint asks only one question: what are you putting on this slide? So you think in slides instead of in a story. You copy what you already have, instead of choosing what your audience needs. The result is a pile of information, not a message.
Preparing a presentation starts in your head. Not on your screen.
Your diamond is in the park
Close your laptop. Take a notebook and go for a walk. That’s not woolly advice. Researchers at Stanford had people do creative tasks, sitting down and while walking. Those who walked came up with 60 per cent more ideas on average.
On the way, ask yourself three questions:
- What do you want your audience to feel, understand and take away?
- What unexpected link do you have with this subject?
- Which sentence should they still be able to repeat word for word tomorrow?
That last one is your diamond. Your key message.
The billboard test
Imagine your entire presentation has to fit on one billboard along the motorway. What’s on it? If you can’t do it in one short sentence, your diamond hasn’t been cut yet.
TED head Chris Anderson calls this the throughline: the one idea that every part of your story connects to. Anything that doesn’t connect to that line can go.
Repeat what counts
Found it? Then don’t let your diamond flash just once. Your audience has to listen, watch and remember at the same time. That’s elite sport. Give them something to hold on to with the tell-tell-tell rule:
- Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
- Tell them.
- Tell them what you’ve told them.
Sounds simple. Always works. Your yoga teacher has been doing it for years.
Only then can PowerPoint open
Know what’s on your billboard? Then you can open your laptop again. Now you build slides around your story, instead of a story around your slides.
In short
Think first, then click. Your best presentation starts with a walk, not with a template.
Stuck in a pile of slides and can’t find the diamond? With the Presentation Check, we look for it together. In the training, you learn how to build every presentation from your key message, before PowerPoint even opens.
