By Caleb Petty

I was once told that you should never make a presentation that you wouldn’t want to sit through yourself. 

Presentations should not be boring or useless and you certainly don’t want to make people feel as though you are wasting their time. 

Presentations should be engaging, fun and, if you do them right, persuasive.

So, how do you achieve this? Here are our top five suggestions for making good presentations.

Tip #1: Preparation is Key

Preparation is the first step to any presentation and is the key to a successful delivery. 

This may seem obvious, but people can tell when you don’t prepare and they won’t respond well to your message. This includes the slides you present and the way you talk. 

Make sure the slides are organized, error-free and relevant. After completing the slides, practice, practice and practice some more. You can never practice enough.

So do your homework, know the information and be prepared to answer any question thrown at you.

Tip #2: Grab Em’ Early

Connect with the audience quickly. Getting people hooked on your topic will draw them in and make them want to listen to what you have to say. 

There are various ways to engage with the audience and you don’t always have to use a PowerPoint slide to do it. 

Do whatever you can to grab their attention early and connect it back to your topic. The hook should always relate to your core message, or you’ll leave people wondering why you wasted their time with a pointless activity.

Tip #3: Keep It Simple (KISS Principle)

Remind yourself: Keep It Simple, Stupid. 

Make it easy for the audience to pay attention to you. You never want to make it hard on the audience by overcomplicating things. Once things get hard or confusing, the audience loses focus. 

The first step to keeping your presentation simple is by identifying the core message. What is the single most important thing that you need to communicate and how does each thing you say relate to that one idea? Identifying the core message should help you cut out unnecessary slides. 

Additionally, use common, straightforward words throughout the presentation. Express things in quotidian everyday terms whenever possible. 

Lastly, it’s a good idea to include a one-sentence summary or a takeaway slide at the end of your deck. You want people to walk away with one concluding thought about your message, so make it count.

Tip #4: Visualize

Ah, the dreaded slidument (slide + document). If your slides have so many words on them that they look like documents, it’s time to trim them down. 

To avoid a slidument, try pictures instead. Using pictures to visually represent your ideas can sometimes be more effective than bullets themselves. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

But don’t stop at pictures. Is a video a more compelling way to communicate your message? What about a physical demonstration or prototype? A good mix of text and visual aids will ensure that your audience receives your message in more ways than one.

Tip #5: Be Consistent

Following a few basic rules of design will go a long way in ensuring that your presentation deck looks clean and consistent throughout. 

Don’t overdo it with crazy fonts and colors. You don’t want your audience paying more attention to the look of your slides than what the slides actually say. Stick to three primary colors and no more than two fonts. 

Pro tip: Edit the “master slides” when you start creating your PowerPoint so that your color scheme and fonts are automatically used on each slide.

Additionally, check the line spacing between bullets and the spacing of pictures on slides. This will ensure that when you flip between slides, the words and pictures aren’t jumping all over the page. Having consistent spacing is important because it adds another level of organization and professionalism to your deck.

 Pro tip: Turn on “guides” to help you keep a consistent layout on all slides.

That’s it! You don’t need to be an expert editor or PowerPoint pro to follow these simple guidelines. 

Just remind yourself to keep your presentation simple, consistent and visually engaging. And no matter how your PowerPoint looks, make sure you know the content by doing your homework and practicing.

Following these five tips will help turn a good presentation into a great one, and one that your colleagues won’t want to miss!