Business Development Tip 3 - Avoiding the cardinal sins of PowerPoint

We've all been there, we've all sat through one, and we've all wished we'd been somewhere else at the time!

However, by following some simple rules, whether you're presenting to a group of 20 people, or delivering a presentation on your lap-top to a potential client in a cafe, you can avoid the cardinal sins of PowerPoint and use it as an engaging tool to support you, rather than a lethal injection which sends your audience to sleep.

1) Present to your audience and not the screen. It sounds simple enough, but even the most seasoned presenters can get sucked into their own PowerPoint presentation, and before long, they're talking to the screen, rather than their audience.

• It makes the presentation more boring to watch. 

• The screen cannot make any purchasing decisions, so why are you talking to it?

If you're genuinely prepared for your presentation, other than quickly checking that you're on the right slide, you should not need to look at it again, until you move to the next one.

2) No essays please. The point of PowerPoint is that it's a visual aid which supports your presentation rather than dictates it. It should be colourful, contain images and add something which is visually pleasing and which remains secondary to your personal presentation skills. In terms of the text, if there are more than 4-5 bullet points on the slide, there's too much and it's boring to look at.

3) Easy on the formatting. If your text spins onto the screen like a moving whirlpool, before coming to rest for the audience to read, or your company logo soars across the screen like a comet, it looks a bit naff!

Whilst colour, relevant imagery and video can add a useful visual support to your presentation, keep the formatting of your slides simple, so that the PowerPoint element always remains in the background, behind you. Your customer will not choose you because of a groovy PowerPoint presentation. They will choose you if they like your product and can afford it, if they have a need for your product, and if they trust you.

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