How to Cut the Slack and Get To Point in Your Presentation

Posted by kirthi on May 24th, 2019

When was the last time you came across a presentation that was exactly on point? No more, no less? Chances are you answered in the negative. So let us put in differently. How often have you come across a presentation which only had a couple of useful slides and rest all was crap? Now your answer must be in the affirmative. Not just in the affirmative, but by the dozens! Or you might have said - always! Well, the point is simple. Presentations are full of so much extra, unnecessary, unwanted stuff that is nothing but waste of time. Waste of time for not just the intended audience but also for the ones who made and edited and reviewed that presentation. So you see, a poorly made product launch ppt is a total waste of time and effort and sometimes money too. Here we’ve put down a few ideas given by a presentation design company to help you cut the chase and get to the point so that nobody wastes their precious resources.

1. One idea per slide

Focus on one idea per slide. And that too preferably with a picture or just one short caption. What’s written on the slide should be a cue to what you want to say next. The explanation has to be oral - delivered by you. Each and every word shouldn’t be put up on the slides. Just one underlying idea on the screen and to explain it, you do the talking.

2. Avoid fillers

Don’t write full sentences. Also don’t begin sentences with “In my opinion”, “There is”, “It is”, “In other words”, “What I mean”. All these are fillers. They just fill up the space without adding any value to the presentation content. There are many ways to depict an idea. Choose a different and better sentence structure that conveys your message in the minimum words but with maximum impact.

3. Avoid passive voice

Active voice is more concise and crisp than passive voice. Therefore, using passive voice will only add to the word count of your ppt without enhancing the effectiveness of your idea. Not to mention the awkward structure passive voice brings in to your prized ppt, active voice actually gets the idea across using less number of words.

4. Fire the bullet

Bullets are no good. You can never tell which point your audience is focusing on, while you’re just on bullet no. 1. Since we’ve already talked about using one idea per slide, there’s no need to put multiple ideas on one slide using bullets to distract the audience.

5. Add pictures or better still, some movement to your slides

Always better than words - a picture or a video snippet! This is the rule. Remember it no matter what. If there’s an image or a video that explains what you’re trying to say in words, it’s always a great idea to skip the words and go wholeheartedly with graphics. Your audience will spring back to attention and give you all their focus within a nanosecond. Such is the power of high quality graphics.

These suggestions from a reputed presentation design company are not very hard to apply to your presentation, whether it is a corporate ppt or a product launch ppt. Remember every presentation is unique, you can present it in your own style but the content and design have to be bang on. You can’t go wrong with the basics. So the next time you plan to create a new slide deck, pay heed and make sure you don’t scare or snooze your audience away.