Microsoft Powerpoint is a powerful presentation tool. It comes loaded with tools to wow any audience. Look under the menus and you’ll find a variety of animation methods, unlimited tools to apply styles to text, and countless resources to create a creative masterpiece. So, why do so many Powerpoint presentations fail?
Most of the presentations I review start with a company background, move to corporate capabilities, and may even focus on features and benefits of their products and services. Remember that customers buy for their reasons and not our reasons. So, we need to focus our message on the needs of our client, and not on us. In simple terms, we need to illustrate what is in it for them.
First: Identify the Issue, Impact, and Importance associated with their needs.
Second: Focus the presentation on their top priorities, and demonstrate your differentiation on how you can solve their challenges.
Third: Remember that slides are not a replacement for a document or the presenter.
Finally: The presentation and presenter should tell a story. The slides should provide graphical support to the message
If you follow these simple steps, your presentations will achieve greater success… and then you can use all of those wonderfully distracting tools in Powerpoint.
