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Ever get the presentation blues? It’s when you feel like no one really cares about your presentation and you just don’t understand why. It can make planning an effective PowerPoint presentation extremely difficult. Whether it’s presenting in front of a large audience or pitching an idea to your clients, chances are these following reasons could be the reason your so blue.

5 Ways To Ruin An Effective PowerPoint Presentation

 

1. Lack of Passion

Are you showing enthusiasm when you present? If not, chances are your audience or client is falling asleep. If you’re lacking passion in talking about your service or brand, then who else will care? Always remember to add value to your presentation. In order to execute an effective PowerPoint presentation, remember to be humorous, be personable, and try to relate to your audience. Walking around doesn’t hurt either. If your plan was to stand behind the podium, then you might as well present with no pants on. And always make sure you’re constantly stressing key points.

 

2. There’s No Story

When Steve Jobs presented the MacBook Air, he made an effort to put the laptop into a thin envelope. Then he pulled the laptop out of the envelope to highlight how thin it really is. That moment makes for a great story; something the audience can share and remember. No one wants to sit through a presentation where all they hear is “buy this now”. A narrative approach will help keep people engaged.

 

3. It’s Way Too Long

You may have an hour to present, but keeping the presentation short and to the point allowing more time for a Q&A session or 20 minutes for discussion is a much better plan. Relate back to Guy Kawasaki’s 10.20.30 method. Your audience will be more motivated to execute a great discussion or ask questions when they haven’t already sat through a lengthy presentation.

 

4. It’s About You

If your presentation is a lot of “me, me, me” chances are your audience or client is going to lose interest fast. Remember it’s not about you, but about what your service or brand can do for the people listening. When planning your presentation, take yourself out of the context. Think about your audience and ask yourself questions like “can my service or product make their lives easier?” “How much of their pain can I take away?” Present your brand or service as a strong solution, not a hard sale.

 

5. Terrible Design

Your PowerPoint slides are as bad as NSA’s. Bottom line. There’s too much data on one slide, you abuse bullet points, and there’s way too much information in very tiny text. Take the time to look over some key presentation design methods before designing. Better yet, take the stress off of designing the slides yourself and allow a professional graphic designer to take the wheel.

P.S. Yes, there’s a grammar error in the meme. Just roll with it.

About the Author: Shannon Callarman is the Inbound Marketing Manager at Cubicle Ninjas. She’s the tiny ninja behind the CN Twitter. You can also follow her on Google+

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