How to Create an Awesome Slide Presentation (for Keynote or Powerpoint)
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of SPI TV, Pat Flynn shares expert tips on crafting an engaging slidedeck for presentations. He emphasizes avoiding bullet points, using slides as visual guides rather than script readers, and ensuring readability with large fonts and clear images. Flynn also advises on choosing the right slide size, customizing a personal style, keeping text visible to all, using roadmaps for structure, simplifying data presentation, employing the 'lightbox' effect to focus attention, and 'going dark' during storytelling for an impactful delivery.
Takeaways
- 🎨 Presentation Slides Matter: Poorly designed slides can bore the audience and make the presenter appear unprepared.
- 📝 Avoid Bullet Points: Bullet points can distract the audience and lead to a lack of engagement; instead, use images or other visual elements to convey information.
- 📐 Get the Right Slide Size: Ensure the slide dimensions match the event requirements to avoid last-minute adjustments.
- 🛑 No Templates: Customize your slides to fit your content rather than using generic templates provided by conferences.
- 🖼️ Use Visuals Wisely: Each slide should have a clear topic with one supporting image to maintain audience focus on the presenter.
- 🎨 Choose Your Style: Find a presentation style that resonates with you by looking at other presentations and adapt it to your own.
- 🔝 Keep Text High: Position important text at the top of the slide to ensure visibility for all audience members.
- 🗺️ Utilize Roadmaps: Use a roadmap to guide both the audience and yourself through the presentation structure.
- 📊 Simplify Graphs and Tables: Only include necessary data to support your points and avoid overwhelming the audience with information.
- 💡 Lightbox Trick: Use the lightbox effect to highlight important parts of the slide and direct the audience's attention.
- 🌑 Go Dark for Impact: Turn off the slides during storytelling to focus the audience's attention solely on the narrative being shared.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of the SPI TV episode 17?
-The main purpose of the episode is to teach viewers how to create an engaging and visually appealing slidedeck for presentations, avoiding the common pitfalls that lead to uninteresting and 'boring' presentations.
What does Pat Flynn refer to as 'death by PowerPoint'?
-'Death by PowerPoint' is a term used to describe presentations that are so dull and filled with excessive bullet points that they put the audience to sleep or cause them to lose interest entirely.
What is the guiding principle for creating slides according to Pat Flynn?
-The guiding principle is that slides should act as a 'trail guide', triggering stories and supporting the speaker's narrative without the speaker having to read directly from them.
Why does Pat Flynn suggest avoiding bullet points in presentations?
-Bullet points can lead to audience disengagement as they tend to read ahead and stop listening to the presenter. They also make the presentation sound unprepared and boring if the presenter is simply reading from them.
What are the two common slide sizes or ratios mentioned in the script?
-The two common slide sizes or ratios are widescreen (16 by 9) and standard (4 by 3).
Why should presenters check the slide size or ratio before starting their presentation?
-Checking the slide size or ratio ensures that the presentation will be correctly formatted for the event's requirements, avoiding last-minute changes and ensuring a smooth presentation experience.
What is the recommended slide design according to Pat Flynn's general rule?
-The recommended slide design consists of a few words about the topic and one supporting image to visually reinforce the point being made.
How can presenters find a slide style that works for them?
-Presenters can find a style by observing other presentations, visiting sites like slideshare.net, and adopting a style they like without copying it directly, to make their presentations unique and interesting.
Why is it important to keep text high on slides?
-Keeping text high on slides ensures that all audience members, even those in the back, can see and read the information without straining, which helps maintain the flow of the presentation.
What is the purpose of showing a roadmap during a presentation?
-A roadmap helps the audience understand the structure of the presentation, where the speaker is in the content, and what topics will be covered, making it easier for them to follow along.
How can graphs and tables be effectively used in presentations according to the script?
-Graphs and tables should be simplified to show only the data necessary to prove the point being made. This avoids overwhelming the audience with too much information and keeps the focus on the key message.
What is the 'lightbox trick' mentioned in the script?
-The 'lightbox trick' is a presentation effect that highlights a specific part of the slide, drawing the audience's attention to that area. It can be used to emphasize a call to action or a key piece of information.
Why is turning the slides off during certain parts of the presentation recommended?
-Turning the slides off, or going dark, helps to eliminate distractions and focuses the audience's attention solely on the presenter, which is especially effective when telling a story and aiming to create a memorable impact.
How can viewers get the slides from the SPI TV episode 17 presentation?
-Viewers can download the slides by visiting watchspi.tv/episode17 or by texting 'SLIDETIPS' to 33444 and providing their email address to receive the slides directly.
Outlines
📝 Introduction to Creating an Engaging Slidedeck
Pat Flynn introduces episode 17 of SPI TV, focusing on crafting an impressive slidedeck for presentations. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding the common pitfalls of boring presentations, often caused by overuse of bullet points and lack of practice. Flynn shares his experience and provides a preview of nine tips that will guide viewers in creating slidedecks that captivate audiences and stand out from the norm.
📐 Choosing the Right Slide Size and Avoiding Templates
Flynn discusses the importance of selecting the correct slide size for different events and ensuring the slide ratio matches the requirements. He advises against using conference-provided templates due to their often cluttered design and suggests customizing slides for a cleaner, more focused presentation. The section also touches on Flynn's personal preference for not overusing conference names on slides.
🚫 Eliminating Bullet Points for a Dynamic Presentation
The speaker insists on avoiding bullet points, likening them to 'bullets that kill engagement.' He suggests alternative methods for listing items, such as using images, to maintain audience interest. Flynn emphasizes the need for creativity in presentation design and the importance of guiding the audience's focus away from reading slides to listening to the presenter's narrative.
🎨 Simplifying Slides with a Topic and Supporting Image
Flynn outlines his rule of thumb for slide design: a slide should contain a few words about the topic and one supporting image. This approach serves as a visual trigger for the presenter and helps the audience quickly grasp the subject matter, allowing them to then focus on the presenter's story rather than reading the slides.
🌟 Developing a Personal Slide Style and Positioning Text
The presenter encourages finding and adopting a personal slide style by observing other presentations and sites like slideshare.net. He advises against copying others' work but taking inspiration to create a unique style. Additionally, Flynn stresses the importance of placing text high on slides to ensure visibility for all audience members and to maintain the flow of the presentation.
🗺 Utilizing Roadmaps to Guide Presentations
Flynn highlights the use of roadmaps in presentations to indicate progress and structure. He shares examples of visual roadmaps, such as the Affinity Pyramid and a timeline, which help both the presenter and the audience track the presentation's flow and make it easier for the presenter to memorize and organize content.
📊 Presenting Data with Clarity Using Graphs and Tables
The section addresses the common issue of overcrowded and confusing graphs and tables in presentations. Flynn advocates for simplicity and clarity, suggesting that only the data necessary to prove a point should be displayed. He demonstrates how focusing on the essential information can make a presentation more impactful and easier to follow.
💡 The Lightbox Trick for Focusing Attention
Introducing the 'lightbox trick,' Flynn shares a technique to draw the audience's attention to a specific part of the slide. This effect, which can be achieved in presentation software like KeyNote and PowerPoint, helps in highlighting key information or call-to-action points without overwhelming the audience with too much on-screen content.
🌑 Turning Off Slides to Enhance Storytelling
As a final tip, Flynn recommends 'going dark' during storytelling segments of a presentation. This involves temporarily turning off the slides to eliminate distractions and focus the audience's full attention on the presenter. This technique is described as a game changer for making presentations more memorable and engaging.
📚 Conclusion and Additional Resources
In conclusion, Flynn thanks the viewers for watching and provides information on how to access the slides from the presentation. He also invites feedback and mentions upcoming episodes, including a trip to Ghana where he will visit schools he helped build. Flynn encourages viewers to subscribe for more content and shares his excitement for future episodes.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Slidedeck
💡Engagement
💡Bullet Points
💡Death by PowerPoint
💡Trail Guide
💡Visual Trigger
💡Slide Size
💡Roadmap
💡Graphs and Tables
💡Lightbox Trick
💡Going Dark
Highlights
Pat Flynn introduces episode 17 of SPI TV, focusing on creating an engaging slidedeck for presentations.
The importance of making slidedecks visually appealing to avoid a boring presentation is emphasized.
Flynn discusses the common issue of 'death by PowerPoint' and how to avoid it with better slide design.
Slides should act as a trail guide, triggering stories and points rather than being read verbatim.
Nine specific tips are promised to improve slidedeck creation and presentation delivery.
The first tip is to get the correct slide size appropriate for the event or conference.
Avoid using templates provided by conferences due to their often cluttered design.
The second major tip is to avoid using bullet points in slidedecks.
Flynn suggests using images and creative listing methods instead of bullet points.
Each slide should ideally contain a topic with one supporting image for clarity and focus.
Finding and adopting a personal slide style by observing other presentations is recommended.
Text placement should be at the top of slides for better visibility by all audience members.
Flynn explains the value of a presentation roadmap for audience and personal reference.
Graphs and tables should only display the necessary data to support the point being made.
The 'lightbox trick' is introduced as a method to highlight specific parts of a slide.
Turning slides off or going dark during story segments can enhance audience engagement.
Flynn offers the slides of the presentation for download and provides contact information.
An upcoming trip to Ghana and the anticipation of sharing experiences in future episodes is mentioned.
Transcripts
- [Flynn] Hey, what's up, everybody?
Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 17 of SPI TV.
This episode you're going to learn
how to create an awesome slidedeck.
So the next time you're up on stage
or doing any sort of presentation,
anything that requires a slidedeck,
I'm going to help you make it look better,
much better than what you see here.
There's a lot of things you should be doing,
a lot of things that I do see out there
and hopefully this will help guide you
so that you create an awesome slidedeck
and impress people who you are presenting to,
have a more memorable presentation,
and you're going to be able to stand out
from all the other presenters out there
who are going to be creating slidedecks
the normal, boring way.
So, check it out.
Cue the intro.
(upbeat music)
Have you ever sat in on a presentation,
whether at work or at a conference,
where you literally just want to fall asleep
or maybe you have fallen asleep
or maybe you get bored or just lose interest
and you check your phone for email
or Twitter or Instagram or
maybe you're playing a game or something?
It's the worst, right?
You just want to leave.
You know you're wasting your time.
Well, if you're a presenter,
if you're up on stage presenting,
this is obviously not what you want
the audience to look like.
You want to hold their interest.
You want to captivate them.
You want to engage them.
You want them sitting on the edge of their seats,
listening and hanging on to every next word
that you have to say.
That's what we want,
and a lot of times we don't do that.
One of the big reasons is
because of the slides that we have.
Slides are an amazing tool.
Unfortunately, we abuse the tool
that allows us to create these slides,
PowerPoint or KeyNote,
we use them in a way that bores people to death.
That's why there's this thing called
death by PowerPoint.
I found this really funny cartoon
where this guy's being executed,
but he's not being executed
by guillotine or hanging or anything like that.
He's being executed by being bored to death
by a PowerPoint presentation.
There's a guy pointing at the presentation
in the little mask
and it's just so funny because it's so real,
this death by PowerPoint thing.
I mean, this is a typical slide
you'll see at presentations, at board meetings,
at conferences and it's just
you're killing people when you do things like this.
I mean, the bullet point situation.
They're called "bullet points" for a reason.
Why? Because bullets kill people, right?
And because, when people start reading this from the top,
I mean, they see all these bullet points,
they start reading ahead,
and when they do that, they don't listen
to what you're talking about.
Plus, oftentimes you're just reading
off this bullet point list.
It sounds totally boring and unprepared.
And then you might think,
"Well, you know, having all the information there
helps me cover all the points I need to hit."
And, yeah, if you don't practice.
And that's what most people do.
When they don't practice, they rely on the bullet points,
they rely on the PowerPoint,
to help guide them through and
it just sounds boring
and it just shows that you haven't put in the practice.
This is what happens if you don't know the content
and if you don't believe in yourself.
But I'll tell you what:
If you know what you're talking about
and you do believe in yourself,
you don't need this
and you can make your presentation much more engaging
and here's the guiding principle.
Slides are your trail guide.
That's it.
They're there to help trigger
certain stories and case studies
and things that you're going to say,
but you're not reading off of them.
They're there to trigger something,
to be a visual to the story that you're telling,
to the point that you're making.
If you consider slides to be your trail guide,
it's going to help you in so many ways.
You have to trust yourself
to know the content that you're talking about,
but you can use the slides as a trail guide,
as that arrow that's going to point you
in the right direction.
Now, you've probably sat in
in presentations that are amazing,
that have amazing-looking slides
and then you try to do it yourself,
you try to make it look great,
but then you get frustrated
and then you punch a hole in your computer
because it's too much work.
Here's a hint: It doesn't have to be
and I'm going to show you
the following nine tips that I'm going to give you.
I'm going to give you nine specific tips
to help you work your way through the slides
to give you some guiding principles
so that you can totally crush it
the next time you're on stage
and so you don't have to rely on your bullet points.
So let's get started.
Okay, first up: Get the correct slide size.
Get the correct slide size,
because different conferences, different events
require different slide sizes.
You want to make sure you know what the size is,
or what the ratio is of the slides you need
before you start building your deck
so that you don't build it on the wrong size
and then the night before have to switch over
when really the night before you should just be relaxing
or maybe going over your presentation a few more times.
Typically, the slides come in two different ratios or sizes:
widescreen, which is 16 by 9,
or standard, which is 4 by 3, but check.
Some do different or custom sizes.
Contact the conference director or owner
or sometimes they'll have
a packet or a PDF file for you to read over.
Sometimes they also give you a template
and you can use that template to guide you
and have that be really the size that you want to use.
Now, I will say one thing about the templates
that these conferences give you:
I never use that.
And you may be required to,
but I often try and fight that
because they don't really look very good.
There's a lot of stuff on there
that doesn't need to be on there.
I want my slides to be
exactly what they need to be,
not anything more.
I mean, a lot of those things have
the name of the conference.
We all know what conference it is.
We don't need to say it on every single slide.
Anyway, that's just a pet peeve of mine.
Try to be able to customize your slides
for what you need to do
based off of everything else that I mention
in this particular episode of SPI TV.
Don't use templates if at all possible.
Number two, and this is a hard one,
probably the hardest one:
Don't use any bullet points.
What?
Yeah, try not to use any bullet points whatsoever.
This is a gun-free zone.
Bullets kill people.
Try not to use any bullet points.
Now there may be a part of your presentation
where you will have to list a few things.
There's a lot of different ways to list things.
Maybe it's images, like I'm doing right now.
I'm listing nine different things,
by using a different image for each.
Now, if that's overboard,
you might have to put some bullet points
in your presentation,
but, for the most part, try to avoid them
as much as possible.
You're going to make your presentations so much better
if you try really hard not to use the bullet points.
It's going to help guide you in other creative ways
to share that content with your audience.
No bullet points.
Number three, and this is my general rule for slides.
Most of my slides will look like this.
You've probably already noticed
in this particular presentation.
Just a few words about the topic
and then one supporting image to support that topic.
Again, this is used as a visual trigger for me
so I know stories to tell
and what topic I should be focusing on
and it's a tool for the audience to understand
in a flash what we're about to talk about
so that they can then take their eyes off of the slides
and put them back on me.
That's what you want to happen.
You want people to look at you and focus on you
and hear every word that you're saying.
And you get to control the experience your audience has.
When you get people reading a slide,
it's all over the place.
Everybody's at different points, but no.
Here is the topic, an image to go along with it.
We're all visual learners,
and then they can focus on you
and listen to the story that you have to tell.
The topic, one supporting image, boom.
Number four: Choose a style that works for you.
Well, what do I mean by that?
What I mean is pay attention to other presentations.
Pay attention to different slides.
Go to sites like slideshare.net
and view as many presentations as you can
and try to find a style that you like
and adopt that style for yourself.
Now, I don't mean copy.
I absolutely don't mean that.
Don't copy the fonts, don't copy the images that they use,
but copy the style.
That's where I got this style of
having the big blocky letters right next to
a cursive style font
and it just works for me
and whatever words they use is going to be different,
but, again, choose a style that works for you.
View other presentations and see what you like
and you can pull inspiration from those
to make yours unique and interesting for your audience.
Number five.
Now, you have to realize that when you presenting,
especially if it's in a large room
but even if it's not,
there's going to be people who won't be able to
see everything that's going on in the slide,
especially if your text is on the bottom.
You want to keep the text up as high as possible
for everybody in the room,
never down here at the bottom.
I've been in a number of presentations
where people put a lot of important information,
URL's for example, at the bottom of the slides
and you see people start to stand up
and start to take pictures because they can't see.
It just kind of ruins the flow of the presentation.
Keep your text up at the top,
never down at the bottom,
especially your most important text.
And now you may realize that
the fact that we're doing just a few words
with a visual image
means that we can make the fonts much bigger
which means that, as a byproduct,
our audience in the entire room
should be able to see what's going on
and see what that slide's about
and then, again, focus on us
because they don't need to read anything.
They see it up there.
It's a big font; it's great.
It's near the top.
Everybody in the room can see it.
Everybody's happy.
Number six.
Now, one thing I love to do
is to let people know where I'm at
and let people know where I'm going
and also how far along we are.
In other words, I like to show a roadmap
and you can even see this roadmap
that I've had since the beginning.
We're at number six right now out of nine tips.
And this is really helpful for you
because you can see how far along we're at.
It also helps you keep the bullet points kind of organized
in your notes, if you are taking notes.
It also helps me, too.
This is a little trick to help yourself, too,
because then I can see which number we're on.
It's another thing I can associate
with either a story or a topic or a tip
or something I can share.
It becomes much easier to memorize
when you have a roadmap, not just for your audience,
but for yourself as well.
And they don't just come in numbers like this.
There's a lot of different ways to do this.
This is something I shared at the beginning
of one of my other presentations
which was essentially the roadmap
that I was going to take people on.
This is the Affinity Pyramid
and here in this presentation I was talking about
how to convert your casual audience members
into raving fans.
So you start at the bottom with your casual audience.
You convert them into an active audience
and there was a whole section
in the presentation about that.
Then I talked about how to convert
your active audience into a connected community
and then into a raving fan
and this is exactly how the presentation was split up
and I brought people back to this pyramid every session
where we added a new part to it.
Here's another slide from a recent presentation
where I had a roadmap built in.
You can see it at the top here
where I talked about the past, the present, and the future
about different topics
and you'll also see the same format
that I was talking about earlier
with the few words talking about the topic
and then the one visual to go along with it.
This is really helpful for people
and also for me to understand where I was at
in the presentation.
Number seven: graphs and tables.
A lot of us love to include graphs and tables,
and it's great to introduce data to support your points,
but when your data looks like this.
I mean, think about it.
You're sitting in a presentation
and you see this slide;
what do you make of it?
You have no idea what's going on.
Even if the person who's presenting
is telling you what to look at,
you're going to be confused
and your eyes are going to go in every which way.
You just see colors and numbers.
You won't know what to look at
and just imagine what it's like
for the people in the back of the room.
My gosh!
You've all seen tables like this, too,
where it's a little bit more organized.
This person is trying to do a better job
of making the fonts a little bit bigger
and helping you understand exactly what's going on.
Again, I just randomly pulled this image from Google but
just to show you this still doesn't work.
And, for one, I don't know why it starts
with 2006 on the left-hand side
and goes to 2002 on the right-hand side.
Typically, it should be flipped around.
But let's say for example this person put this up here
to show that they finally have in 2006
a positive net earnings per share.
Well, if that's the point,
then you don't need any of this other stuff.
Here's the trick:
You only want to show what is necessary to prove your point.
That's it.
You only need to show what is absolutely necessary
to prove your point.
So, net earnings per share positive in 2006.
This is how I would go about it.
And, again, I'm not even going to put fancy graphics
and you shouldn't even try to make it so fancy.
I'm just doing this to show you the impact
of just how when you just focus on
the information that's important to
this point that you're talking about
the kind of impact it can have on your audience.
So, net earnings per share.
So, like, hey guys.
We've had an interesting few years here.
In 2002, our net earnings per share was -$5.09.
In 2003, it improved a little bit,
still in the negative at negative 87 cents.
2004, getting a little bit better:
negative thirteen cents.
2005, negative two cents.
In 2006, guess what, guys?
We're in the positive.
Twelve cents net earnings per share.
Woohoo! Yeah!
You see how much more impactful that is?
I mean, you don't need the picture of the kid there.
I just put that there for dramatic effect,
but that's much much better
than looking at this graph here like that.
Right?
It's much more impactful,
it gets the point across,
and I'm only sharing little bits of data
that are required to prove that point,
not all this other stuff.
People put too much on the screen.
You don't need to do that.
Okay, let me fast forward here.
Okay, next I have a really cool trick for you.
This is called the lightbox trick.
Now, I already did a video for you
a long time ago, actually,
that shows you how to do this in KeyNote.
Now, I expect that you can also do this in PowerPoint,
but it's a really cool effect
where you can highlight one portion of your slide.
For example, if there's a lot of text going on
and you want people to focus on one thing.
For example, if I want you to just focus on this URL,
which will redirect you to the video, boom!
You see how clear it is what the call to action is
just by the lightbox trick?
So, go to smartpassiveincome.com/lighbox-trick
and that will redirect you to the YouTube video
where I teach you how to do that.
So, again, smartpassiveincome.com/lightbox-trick.
So you can grab the information you need
to create that effect.
Alright, and to finish off, number nine.
One of my favorite tips,
I think it's very subtle
but it can make a big difference
in how your audience responds to you
during your stories.
Now the thing is we've been talking this whole time
about what to put on the slides
and what to not put on the slides.
This time, I want you to think about
turning your slides off.
Now that's not turning your PowerPoint presentation off
or your KeyNote presentation off.
It's not shutting down your computer.
It's the fact that, when you're presenting,
you know there's a part in your presentation
that's coming up
where there's a story that you're gonna tell
where you really want people to focus on,
this is what you do:
You go dark.
You essentially are turning the slides off,
taking people's attention away from any slide distraction
and putting that focus directly on you
so that you can tell your story on stage
and really wow people.
This is one of my favorite tricks to do
and you'll notice this.
If you see me speak on stage,
I do this quite often,
because I try to control where people's attention is,
and if it's story time, I want them to focus on me.
You should focus on that in your next presentation, too.
I really feel like that's going to be
a big game changer for a lot of people.
If you do that, it's a small subtle thing,
but it makes a huge difference
and it allows you to really get deep into your story
and the stories are truly what make presentations memorable.
It is the stories you tell.
It is the people in the audience putting themselves
in your shoes or in the shoes of those
who you are telling the story about.
And the next time you go into a story, go dark.
Obviously you'll need to put that
into your PowerPoint presentation.
This is essentially a slide.
It's just a dark slide
and to get into that fading effect,
I just used the dissolve effect,
so it dissolves from one slide to the next.
I'm not going to go into exactly how to do that now.
I'm sorry you've been looking at a blank screen for awhile,
but I'm going to switch to the next screen
and just say, first of all,
thank you for watching this.
I hope you got a lot out of it.
Let us know what you think.
Leave a comment on YouTube or on the blog
and also I have the slides for you.
If you want to download the slides for this presentation
you can go to watchspi.tv/episode17.
That will take you to the blog post.
If you're on the blog post now watching this YouTube video,
you can use the form there to download the slides.
Or you can actually, you can test this out.
This is brand new.
You can text "SLIDETIPS" to 33444
and just respond with your email address
and you'll get it sent right to you immediately.
So, again SLIDETIPS to 33444.
Hey, thanks so much, guys.
I really appreciate your time
and I hope you enjoyed this episode of SPI TV.
Make sure to subscribe
because we've got a lot of great stuff coming up.
Got a little bit of a break during summer
because I'll be headed to Ghana.
I'm also going to Hawaii and also Australia,
but then, on the other side of that,
you'll see actually some footage in Ghana
with a couple of schools that I built
and I get to meet the kids and the teachers
and to see what the schools are like.
I am so excited for that upcoming trip.
You'll see it in a future episode of SPI TV,
so make sure to subscribe
and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
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