How to Create an Awesome Slide Presentation (for Keynote or Powerpoint)

Summary

In 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

00:00

📝 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.

05:01

📐 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.

10:01

🚫 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.

15:03

🎨 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.

Keywords

💡Slidedeck

A slidedeck refers to a collection of slides used in a presentation, often created with software like PowerPoint or Keynote. In the video's context, the slidedeck is the central tool for delivering information during a presentation, with the goal of making it more engaging and visually appealing rather than 'boring to death,' as the script humorously puts it.

💡Engagement

Engagement, in the context of presentations, is the level of interest and involvement from the audience. The video emphasizes the importance of captivating the audience to keep them from being distracted by their phones or feeling the urge to leave. It suggests that an engaging slidedeck can help maintain this engagement.

💡Bullet Points

Bullet points are short, concise phrases or terms arranged in a list format, often used in presentations to outline key information. The script humorously refers to them as 'killers' because they can lead to audience disengagement if overused or poorly implemented, as they may cause the audience to stop listening and start reading ahead.

💡Death by PowerPoint

This term is a play on words that describes the phenomenon where presentations, particularly those using PowerPoint, become so monotonous and uninteresting that they put the audience to 'sleep' or cause them to lose interest entirely. The script uses this term to highlight the need for more dynamic and less text-heavy slides.

💡Trail Guide

In the video, the term 'trail guide' is used metaphorically to describe the role of slides in a presentation. Slides should not be the main focus but rather a guide that triggers stories and points, allowing the presenter to lead the audience without reading directly from the slides.

💡Visual Trigger

A visual trigger is an image or visual element in a slide that prompts the presenter to recall and share related information or stories. The script suggests using slides with a topic and one supporting image to serve as a visual trigger, helping both the presenter and the audience to focus on the narrative.

💡Slide Size

Slide size refers to the dimensions of the slides, which can vary depending on the event or venue requirements. The script advises checking for specific size requirements to ensure that the slidedeck is properly formatted, avoiding last-minute adjustments.

💡Roadmap

A presentation roadmap is a visual or textual guide that outlines the structure and flow of the presentation. In the script, the presenter uses a roadmap to indicate progress and upcoming topics, helping both the audience and the presenter to track the presentation's pace and content.

💡Graphs and Tables

Graphs and tables are used in presentations to display data in a visual format. The script warns against overcrowding slides with too much data, suggesting that only the essential information needed to support a point should be included for clarity and impact.

💡Lightbox Trick

The lightbox trick is a presentation technique where a part of the slide is highlighted to draw the audience's attention to a specific piece of information. The script mentions this trick as a way to focus the audience's attention without overwhelming them with too much data or text.

💡Going Dark

Going dark in a presentation means intentionally using a blank or dark slide to shift the audience's focus from the screen to the presenter, especially during storytelling. The script recommends this technique to enhance the impact of stories and create a more memorable presentation.

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.