by Al Golzari
PowerPoint, no matter what kind of presentation it
is, is designed to simply be your aid.
Two critical issues to share:
1. The Litmus Test
Most presentations today are done using PowerPoint
or Keynote. I have what I think is a good litmus test
for once you’ve completed your PowerPoint. Ask
yourself this very honest question:
If I emailed someone this presentation, does the
information I have here convey everything I need to
share without needing to present it?
If the answer is yes, then you did not create a
PowerPoint presentation. You’ve created a deck! If
you’re not familiar with the term, it’s often used in
corporate settings and is designed to be similar to
reports that people read but in a “lighter,” more
concise and digestible way. In other words, if you
answered yes, you’ve provided far too much detail
and have “written” yourself out of a speaking role.
Why does the audience need you to present
anything when you’ve already provided everything in
deck? Not enough people ask themselves that
question. So, if you’re planning to present and
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you’ve created a deck, you’l need to go back and re-work your PowerPoint to make it a presentation.
2. Slides are for Your Audience, Not You
Too many presenters forget the true purpose of
slides; they are for your audience. Also, remember
that you don’t really want your audience to read
much of anything. You want them to look.
Additionally, you’l notice some presenters look at
their slides far too much, or worse, they read word-
for-word from the slide. Literally! This is likely an
indication that they don’t OWN their content.
Many books discuss how to prepare slides, and I
generally agree with the advice. Things such as
keeping slides clean and simple, not putting too
much information, limiting the amount of text, using
il ustrations, tables/charts, etc. These are all good
advice that I prescribe to.
MAKE NUMBERS MEANINGFUL
With regards to presenting numbers, I always stress
that you should use analogies that your audience can
relate to.
I’l take a page from one of my business heroes,
Steve Jobs. Jobs always made numbers meaningful.
Whether you’re a finance person or not, don’t be
afraid to simplify numbers with analogies that make
sense to a general audience.
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I remember when MP3 players were gaining
popularity in the late 90s. Al the major players at
the time, Sony, SanDisk, Creative Zen, etc., were
marketing their devices with 256 mb, 512 mb, 1 gb,
etc. of storage (yes, back in the late 90s that was a
lot of storage!) But when Jobs unveiled the very first iPod in 2001, he simplified it by saying “1,000 songs
in your pocket”. It was simple. It was relatable.
Whether you’re presenting to a technical audience
that understands megabytes and gigabytes,
simplifying it in a way that everyone can understand
makes a lot of sense and can set you apart. Putting
on my marketing hat for a moment, when the MP3
player was a new device, most people don’t know
what storage sizes meant. Everyone knows what
1,000 songs in your pocket means though, right?
Your sweet little 95-year-old grandmother in 2001
would have known what 1,000 songs in her pocket
meant.
A word to all of the finance folks reading this: making
your numbers meaningful wil not only make you a
more dynamic presenter but can also set you apart
from other finance professionals who just focus on
the numbers. What good are the numbers if others
can’t understand and digest them.
PRESENTATIONS WITH NUMBERS
In addition to making numbers more effective from
the standpoint of what was discussed above, it’s also
important to make your numbers visually impactful
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as wel . While many of us (myself included) are trained to keep overall slide presentations to approx.
10 (exclusive of appendices), there are times where
you can break the rules and the reward wil be worth
the risk.
For example, I’ve seen many presentations with basic
financial numbers reported like this:
Revenue: $53B, Up 17% YOY
EPS: $2.34, Up +40% YOY
Operating Income: $11.5B, Up +33% YOY
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this,
why not make 1 slide 3 slides and make it more
impactful? Perhaps something like the following 3
slides?
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$53B | +17%
Q317 $45B
Revenue
$2.34 | +40%
Q317 $1.67
EPS
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$11.5B | +33%
Q317 $8.7B
Operating Income
Here, I think you’l agree; the numbers are large and
impactful. And if you were thinking, why are the
slide titles on the bottom as opposed to the top?
Well, my response is…who cares? I think this looks
good and doesn’t compete with the numbers. What
wil really happen if you put the slide title at the
bottom, as long as it stil makes sense and works? Is
the TITLE POLICE going to come and arrest you?
IMAGERY – LOGOS, PHOTOS, ETC.
I also suggest using imagery when appropriate.
You’l need to decide when it makes the most sense
to use it. But images on a slide can often be more
powerful than words on a slide, particularly when
the images refer to something official. See Appendix
A.
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A PICTURE IS NOT ALWAYS WORTH A
THOUSAND WORDS
I once saw a wel -known businesswoman give a
presentation on their life, a sort of mini biography,
using PowerPoint, and included photos of herself.
While imagery can be very powerful, showing a
photo of yourself that arbitrarily coincides with a
breakthrough moment in your career doesn’t really
add any value to the presentation. It’s just a photo
of you that happens to be from that time in your life.
So what? It doesn’t relate back to the point.
For example, if you finally saw career success come
at age 50 and you show a picture of yourself blowing
out candles on your 50th birthday cake, that’s not
very important. It’s arbitrary. Your presentation is
not about you turning 50. It’s about you sharing that
you achieved “real” success at 50. However, if you
want to show a picture of yourself opening the door
of the office you were finally able to rent, and you
happen to be 50 in the photo, that can be effective.
See the difference? I hope I’m not stating the
obvious, but I thought it was worth mentioning since
I know many people who can’t make the distinction.
So, don’t let it be arbitrary or come across as trivial.
Make it meaningful and relevant
.
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SLIDE COUNT AND USING
APPENDICES
I’d also suggest that you try to limit the presentation
to 10 slides, if possible (excluding a cover slide).
There are, however, some exceptions to this rule.
But 10 slides are a good gauge. Create an appendix if
you have additional information.
An appendix is great for two reasons. It shares
additional detail with your audience if they ask for it
afterwards, and it shows that you came well
prepared. This can be particularly meaningful when
the audience is comprised of your superiors.
A QUICK NOTE ON SLIDE ANIMATION
I’m a fan of slide animation but you should know
how and when to utilize them. Be conservative and
use them with purpose. In other words, don’t have
something flying across the screen just for the sake
of it flying across the screen. You might find it fun,
but your audience might find it distracting, trivial, or
even juvenile.
Keep these guidelines in mind when animating your
slides:
• Have separate bul et points and/or imagery
appear one at a time when presenting ideas one
at a time.
• Al ow animation to mimic the ideas expressed on
the screen. For example, if you are presenting
either an outdated idea or something you don’t
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agree with in order to juxtapose it with
something better, allow it to dissolve before
introducing the better idea. That’s where you can
have “fun” with animation and it’s completely
appropriate.
• Both PowerPoint and Keynote allow you to set a
time duration for animations. Make sure you
test it out. Believe me. If you don’t, your
animation may look fine when you’re creating it,
but when you’re presenting you’l end up
wondering why it takes so long. If your bul et
points are set to appear every second, drop it
down to half a second.
• This might seem obvious, but make sure your
animations are in the order you want them and
that you didn’t leave any “ghost” animations. If
you animate bul et points on a slide but later
revise the content, take out the animation for
those “ghost” bul et points. If you don’t, you’l
get frustrated by clicking and having nothing
happen. People wil notice.
VIDEOS
Videos can either be great or lousy, so use them with
purpose. There are many ways to utilize a video.
Some presenters do it in the beginning, which is also
one of the introduction techniques, some in the
middle, and some at the end.
What you generally want to keep in mind is to limit
the number of videos you use. Recognize when
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you’re either playing too many videos or when your videos are too long. A few quick rules-of-thumb to
help with this:
Use one video for every 10-15 minutes and do your
best to keep each video under 90 seconds. Of
course, there are exceptions, such instructional
videos, etc. But for most presentations, you
probably want to stick to this rule as your guide.
Unless you’re using a video as part of your
introduction, you’l need to provide some type of
transitions to it. We spoke about transitions in an
earlier chapter, so think about how to incorporate
those principles. Before starting the video, tel your
audience what they’re about to watch. After, explain
its relevance. That wil go a long way in making your
videos far more effective. If you’re using a video as
an introduction, then provide a combination of
what/why after it ends.
A QUICK NOTE ON SOUND EFFECTS
If you’re going to use sound effects, great. But if
something that is particularly attributable to just one
person on the planet, include a clip of the actual
sound as opposed to trying to mimic it. I take
nothing away from any talents you may have as an
actor, singer, etc. –I’ve had them all in my classes
over the years, including a trained opera singer—but
I am a fan of the “real McCoy” as they call it. For
example, if you’re giving a presentation on Donald
Trump and you want to use his famous “You’re
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Fired” line, play a clip of him as opposed to
mimicking it. As good of an actor you may be, the
best person to play Donald Trump is Donald Trump.
With the ability to connect conference room audio to
your personal devices, creating, uploading and
playing different types of audio should be relatively
easy.
A QUICK NOTE ON HANDOUTS TO
YOUR AUDIENCE
Personally, I’m not a fan of handing out printed
version of my presentation to the audience and,
frankly, I never understood this. You’re probably
reading this and thinking, “it helps people fol ow
along and take notes.” I get that, but I’m stil not a
fan.
When you hand out a printed version, the audience
spends too much time looking down, flipping pages
or looking ahead rather than giving you the attention
you deserve. If the audience wants to take notes,
they can do so on their own without a copy of your
slides. As mentioned earlier, if you are going to
provide a hardcopy of the slides, do it at after.
Alternatively, you can tel the audience that the
slides wil be available later on via email or saved on
a shared drive, etc. My guess is this wil alleviate
some anxiety for those who tend to take lots of
notes.
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For those of you concerned about the environment, not printing your slides for handouts saves trees and
probably saves an assistant from doing work that
s/he doesn’t really need to do. Most people throw
out the handouts anyway.
A QUICK NOTE ON USING COLORS
While some of you may like to get creative with their
slides, try not to go too far with choosing colors that
aren’t appealing to most people. Remember, slides
are not for you; they are for your audience. So,
slides with colors that are too rich or distracting can
be unappealing. Aesthetic matters to your audience.
I’d also suggest that you keep colors to a minimum.
Have some fun but keep them conservative.
A QUICK NOTE ON SAMPLES/VISUAL
AIDS
Samples and other types of visual aids to hand out to
the audience to touch and feel are great, but
execution is important.
If, for example, you have to give a presentation on
new fabrics and you have samples, this is
opportunity to pass out swatches, but be sure to do
it as the presentation is happening. If you have a
somewhat large audience to have multiple swatches
and ask someone to help you pass them out to rows,
etc. This is for obvious reasons. You wouldn’t want
to move on to the
next fabric while the previous
swatch is stil being passed around because the
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audience won’t really be paying attention. Having someone else provide multiple swatches of each
fabric as you are presenting wil be more time
efficient. Also, the audience wil have seen and felt
swatch 1 by the time you are finished speaking about
it, and you wil both be ready to move on to the next.
For other types of presentation where samples are
helpful, it may be better to hold off until the end.
Just be sure that during the presentation you tel the
audience that you wil be sharing samples at the end.
This wil hopeful y alleviate the logistical nightmares
that could result. I’ve seen in many corporate
presentations where either no one was paying
attention or people are busy trying to pass along a
sample to the next person. This can be quite
distracting and frustrating.
One last thing about preparing your slides. Again,
forgive me for bringing up a basic issue, but make
sure that you’re using a large enough type font. Your
type font may look large enough on your computer,
but most of the time it isn’t. So, in addition to
keeping information on slides to a minimum, make
sure to use a type font that uses enough space on
the screen. Somewhere between 35 to 45-point is a
general guideline.
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CHAPTER TWELVE | DECIDING
WHEN TO DO A PRESENTATION
WITHOUT SLIDES
It’s been said that Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, doesn’t
use slides. This is pretty common, so I think there’s
some value in discussing this.
Before we go any further, I’d like to unapologetically
state that I don’t at all subscribe to the belief that
one’s decision to give an entire presentation without
visuals depends on the size of the audience. I don’t
believe this is a valid consideration. That’s the type
of guidance you find on the internet and is mainly
technical in nature. Remember, this guidebook is
about strategy, and the important nuances of
presenting that I believe aren’t given enough
attention.
Think of the days before PowerPoint and Keynote.
They weren’t that long ago. There were great
