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PowerPoint Slide Rules

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About this lesson

Best practices for how many points, slides and images to use in a PowerPoint presentation.

  • 00:04 You can scour the internet and you will find thousands,
  • 00:08 maybe tens of thousands of rules for PowerPoint and you know what?
  • 00:13 I've got some rules for PowerPoint too.
  • 00:14 I'm gonna give you a number of particulars, but
  • 00:17 there's really only one rule that you need to know and
  • 00:21 it pretty much solves all the other problems and all the other issues.
  • 00:25 Here's the rule.
  • 00:27 If you wanna know if your slide works, simply test it.
  • 00:32 By that I mean, you're giving a PowerPoint presentation to 40 colleagues or
  • 00:37 40 people in your industry, Thursday.
  • 00:39 Find one or two colleagues, get them together at lunch,
  • 00:43 give them a free sandwich,Tuesday.
  • 00:45 Give them your PowerPoint slide, give them your whole presentation.
  • 00:52 Don't tell them what you're going to do in advance, just give them your presentation,
  • 00:55 show them your slides.
  • 00:56 When you're done, ask them every slide they remember and
  • 01:01 what was on the slide and what the messages were?
  • 01:06 Very simple test.
  • 01:08 Nobody ever does it, except for my clients.
  • 01:13 Here's what you'll find 99.99% of the time,
  • 01:15 nobody's gonna remember anything from your slides.
  • 01:20 It's not because they have bad memories, it's because your slides are awful.
  • 01:25 Again, don't take my word for it.
  • 01:27 Listen to your colleagues in your office.
  • 01:30 A slide is effective if people can remember it, so
  • 01:34 they can get the idea and take actions.
  • 01:38 If they can't remember your slide, it is worthless.
  • 01:42 Throw it in the trash can, please.
  • 01:45 The world doesn't need more useless, worthless PowerPoint slides.
  • 01:51 So that's the big picture, test.
  • 01:53 If your focus group remembers your slide, more important remembers the idea,
  • 01:59 the message about the slot then it works.
  • 02:04 And it may violate all the rules I'm gonna tell you about it if meets that one,
  • 02:09 it's a success.
  • 02:11 It's a winner, keep it.
  • 02:13 So again, show them all of your slides as a part of your presentation.
  • 02:18 Don't tell them you're going to test in advance, but after the fact just say,
  • 02:24 tell me every slide you remember from my presentation and
  • 02:28 what ideas do you remember from the slide?
  • 02:31 On the one hand, it sounds so easy.
  • 02:35 On the other hand, most people fail miserably.
  • 02:39 Why? Because they put way too much stuff
  • 02:42 on each slide, they don't use the visual medium for maximum effect.
  • 02:47 And this, it's too abstract, it's a lot of words and bullet points and numbers and
  • 02:51 too much complexity and they're intellectually lazy.
  • 02:53 They don't make the tough choices and they just dump everything.
  • 02:57 So now,
  • 02:58 let me give you the particular rules that will help you pass this one test.
  • 03:03 For starters, every single slide should have
  • 03:07 just one idea you're trying to convey.
  • 03:14 I know that sounds crazy to some of you, cuz you're used to these rows,
  • 03:19 these columns, seven bullet points, no more than three words per each.
  • 03:24 Doesn't work, you can do it that way if you'd like.
  • 03:30 But if you wanna pass my simple test will your audience remember it,
  • 03:35 understand it and remember it and remember the idea,
  • 03:40 I'm telling you focus on just one idea per slide.
  • 03:46 Back to the Steve Jobs example when he wanted to unveil the iPhone,
  • 03:53 he had an iPad here, a phone here that was on a one slide and
  • 03:59 then merge together into an iPhone.
  • 04:04 One idea and it just was two images that come together.
  • 04:10 Simple, easy to understand.
  • 04:13 I can visualize it now ten years later and you can remember it.
  • 04:19 Remember what you saw, you remember the idea associated with it.
  • 04:23 So that's what you need to focus on.
  • 04:25 So you can get into this whole debate with people of what's the proper number of
  • 04:30 bullet points?
  • 04:31 And some say, it should be five and some say, it should be three and
  • 04:35 some say, ten test.
  • 04:39 In my professional opinion and
  • 04:41 this is all I do is presentation training and media training.
  • 04:45 It's a complete utter waste of time to put bullet points on a slide that
  • 04:50 you are projecting to people.
  • 04:53 You need to put pictures, images,
  • 04:58 a graph if it really focuses on just two variables and one relationship.
  • 05:06 What's the proper number of bullet points?
  • 05:08 I would say, zero.
  • 05:10 If you're going to have to put bullet points or you'll be fired, okay,
  • 05:14 put bullet points.
  • 05:16 The fewer the better, because people just aren't going to remember a lot of them.
  • 05:22 Fewer words, the better.
  • 05:24 Words are abstractions.
  • 05:26 Think of it this way, what's easier for you to remember?
  • 05:29 You go to a business conference, you meet someone, you exchange business cards,
  • 05:33 you bump into them two weeks later at the airport in another city.
  • 05:37 Are you more likely to remember their full name, title organization they work for
  • 05:42 from their business card or do you remember their face?
  • 05:46 That's right you remember their face,
  • 05:48 because your brain is more of an image processor than a word processor.
  • 05:51 That's why it's better to put images
  • 05:56 on a screen instead of words.
  • 06:00 Words are just abstractions that are made up of letters, which are abstractions.
  • 06:05 Now the next question I get is what's the best number of slides?
  • 06:10 The best number of slides is the most slides you can use and
  • 06:14 get people to remember them after you've tested.
  • 06:18 I'd be very shocked if you could get people to remember more than
  • 06:23 a handful of slides, but don't let me try to handcuff you.
  • 06:28 Test it.
  • 06:30 There is no magic number 20 or it must be 10, it's utter nonsense.
  • 06:37 It's a good slide if and only if it's on your message,
  • 06:41 it makes your message more understandable and more memorable.
  • 06:46 That's what makes it a good slide.
  • 06:47 If you can accomplish all those things, put in 100 slides.
  • 06:51 I doubt you're gonna get people to remember it.
  • 06:54 You got to narrow your messages down to your top handful,
  • 06:58 you need an image to make the idea to come alive that you project.
  • 07:02 You have a lot of other facts, details, numbers, data,
  • 07:06 put that in a separate power point that gives a handout.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

There is No Such Thing as a PowerPoint Presentation
06m:07s
Use Two Separate PowerPoints
06m:08s
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