Does Your PowerPoint Look as Good as You?

Guess what?
Your PowerPoint is part of your professional image

We forgot – mea culpa

We always make a point of dressing up for our presentations. Everbody should but let’s face it, we have to. We’re image

consultants. We try to look good on the platform. (Joanne is a 10, I’m somewhere around a 7 or 8.) What we didn’t realize was that another part of our image was letting us down. It was around a 3 or a 4. It badly needed a makeover.

The truth hurts

A friend and colleague Nadine Riopel, who has sat in on our seminars told us that our presentation skills, humour and warmth are excellent (our heads are swelling) BUT our slides are old-school and they don’t convey the warmth and emotion of our presentations. (Ouch, as the guy who puts together our PowerPoint, I had a hard time not taking this personally.)

Presentation Zen

Nadine offered to give us some tips and help update our slides. She recommended an excellent book by Garr Reynolds, entitled Presentation Zen Design. Garr is a leading authority on presentations and a long time student of the Zen arts. He writes a popular tip and advice blog at www.presentationZen.com.

Your PP image make-over

The book is a real eye-opener, full of great tips especially to text heavy, old-school PowerPoint-ers like myself. The subtitle to Garr Reynolds’ book says it all – Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. Besides learning to use fewer bullet points, one of my biggest takeaways was using photos and graphics to get across the feeling or emotion behind the point you’re making. A picture is truly worth a thousand words (or a thousand bullet points).

Less is more … really

When Joanne and I are giving image and dress tips on accessorizing an outfit, our main advice is less is more. Too many focal points on a clothing outfit or a slide make it confusing because the eye doesn’t know where to go. After reading the book, it was painful to look at my old PowerPoint presentations. (Above you see one of my old Savvy Networking slides and Nadine’s make-over. Night and day difference?)

Try not to take it personally

Your business image and brand encompasses so much more than your dress. It’s how you come across to others in your networking, dining and business etiquette skills. But it also includes your presentation tools especially those PowerPoint slides that act as a backdrop to yourself and your ideas. Read Garr’s book and take a second look at your slides and you’ll see what we mean. (If your slides s**k or put people to sleep, try not to take it personally. I’m still trying not to.)

Other Articles:

• Executive Etiquette Power eBook
• Executive Image Power eBook

Posted by Terry Pithers – The Business Etiquette Expert and New-school PowerPointer