The importance of skilful PowerPoint design cannot be exaggerated. When making sales presentations, for example, effective use of PowerPoint to back-up what you are saying can be the difference between your company winning the contract and your company losing the business. But when designing powerpoint presentations it is very important that you know what you are doing, otherwise it can prove as much of a hindrance as a help.
The main thing to bear in mind when designing a PowerPoint presentation is that it is designed to support your words. You, the speaker, should always remain the focus of attention and should not be upstaged by your use of PowerPoint. One elementary mistake which a lot of people make when first using PowerPoint is in using it to repeat, often verbatim, what they have just said. Large blocks of text are a definite no-no and will make your viewers switch off. In terms of text, on a PowerPoint slide you should try to limit yourself to a few bullet-points at most. These should either act as headings for the more comprehensive statements you are making, or they should highlight core points, such as statistics, that you want to make sure your audience are aware of.
Speaking of statistics, one benefit of a PowerPoint presentation is that it allows you to display data graphically very easily. It is often claimed that a picture speaks a thousand words. Some people certainly do find graphs and pie charts more intelligible than verbal descriptions of the same information. It is important, however, to avoid making such images too small. If your audience cannot see the figures involved or the detail you refer to in an image then think about enlarging it or showing a close-up of the appropriate part of it.
In any presentation it is useful to think about the order in which you want to present information to your audience. This is just as true of PowerPoint presentations, but you must also consider the order in which they will see different parts of each slide, and such things as colour, size and layout will be important in determining this.
Good PowerPoint design can help to demonstrate to your clients that you are a professional and capable outfit, and can help to maintain the interest of your audience. Sales presentations need to convey a lot of information in a short space of time and in such a way that the audience will remember it. powerpoint presentations are an extremely effective way of achieving this.
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