How to Create Persuasive Presentations with PowerPoint

• Think from your audience’s point
  of view, and build your presentation from there. You may be really excited
  to tell your listeners all about your new idea or product, but you’ll
  serve your audience better if narrow your material based on their needs.
  Put yourself in your listeners’ shoes as you consider length, scope, and
  level of detail. How can you solve their problems? What questions are they
  likely to have? Be willing to trim content if necessary. Focusing on the
  needs and expectations of the audience can transform the way you plan and
  build your presentations, and it can mean the difference between a
  presentation that’s engaging and persuasive and one that makes your
  audience want to jump out the window.

• Be very clear about what you want
  your audience to do. Presentations
  are often used in the sales process, but ask yourself this . . . do people
  make the sale with the presentation alone? Typically not. If the
  presentation doesn’t clinch the sale or the decision, what exactly is it
  doing then? How does it move the decision process along, and what is the
  next step you’d like the audience to take? Is there a demo to try,
  customization options to explore? A persuasive presentation contains a
  call to action, even if it’s just to invite the audience to learn more
  about the product or idea. The clearer you are about the role of the presentation
  in your overall process, the more successful you’ll be at creating a
  presentation that persuades your audience and inspires them to act. 


• Create memorable slides. Your slides have two purposes: to
  act as prompts for your presentation (see the bullet below), and to
  reinforce the points you want your audience to remember. Choose four or
  five main points from your talk that you want your audience to retain —
  studies show they are unlikely to retain more than that, so be judicious.
  Then create graphically clean slides that effectively frame and reinforce
  your chosen points. The eyes of your audience should be able to light on
  your slides and register the meaning instantly without any conscious
  effort at processing the information — and without diverting their
  attention from you. Don’t clutter your slides with lots of content. You
  want your audience to remember having seen your concepts as well as heard
  them: experiencing the content visually aids in retention. Slides that are
  heavy with text and images are harder to take in than streamlined slides
  that feature lots of white space. If you have detailed information that
  you want your audience to have, you can create a leave-behind version of
  your deck with more complete content. 


• Engage with your audience, not
  with your slides. When
  it comes time to give the presentation, your attention should be focused
  on your audience, not on the screen behind you. Never, ever stand there
  and read your slides. Your audience can read faster than you can speak;
  they will read ahead of you and lose interest waiting for you to catch up.
  Use the content on your slide as prompts for your talk, to keep yourself
  organized and on track. A presentation is a kind of performance: to
  succeed, you must rehearse and become thoroughly familiar with your
  material rather than leaning heavily on your slides for information. If
  you take the time to get truly comfortable with your content, you’ll exude
  confidence and form a real bond with your audience, rather than limping
  along constantly looking back over your shoulder. It’s the dynamic human
  connection, even more than the quality of your information that creates
  real persuasive engagement during a presentation.

Thirty years
ago, a software genius named Robert Gaskins had a vision of helping millions of
business people create persuasive presentations easily and inexpensively, and
PowerPoint was born. Despite its misuse over the years, PowerPoint still has
terrific potential to engage audiences because it can combine both verbal and visual
information with real live human interaction. Creating and delivering slides
with your audience’s experience in mind can help you exploit that potential and
move your listeners to action. 

Author Bio 

Laura Brown, PhD, author of How to Write Anything: A Complete
Guide, has taught writing to just about everyone — from corporate
executives to high school students. She has more than twenty-five years’
experience providing training and coaching in business writing, and she has
also taught composition and literature at Columbia University. Her expertise
encompasses instructor-led training, individual coaching, classroom teaching,
and e-learning development. She has worked with clients such as Morgan Stanley,
AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, DHL and MetLife.