Your Slides Are Your Partner

I really love giving presentations.? I love the story telling. ?I love making the slides. I love seeing people react to what they're seeing and hearing.?

But I have to tell you something:? it wasn’t always that way.

Rewind almost 30 years to the start of a career.? This thing called PowerPoint was appearing, although some people still used acetates.? Acetates!? Suddenly we were all presenters, with zero practice beyond a few presentations at school or college that no one had taken very seriously.? And now it was serious.?

Not long after I started my first real job, the company I was working for was acquired by a very large American parent company.? And the presentations ramped up.? Our new US colleagues weren't just good presenters, most of them were outstanding.? Presenting was the way to communicate knowledge, ideas, competence and I saw a lot of great people really struggle with it.? ?A lot of us were terrified.?

At the time, I suffered a big crisis of confidence as well.? I mean, I was in marketing, and they’re supposed to be good at this aren’t they?

So I stepped back and thought about it.? As a confidence booster, I decided to really work on my slides.? I’d put the time in and make them better than anyone else’s. That would do it.? I’d cringe at the slides now (we’re talking 90s clipart and some basic stock photos) but for the time they stood out.? There was sound and some video too with more graphs replacing text-heavy tables.? And lots of late nights putting them together.?

I could see it working.? People started asking me to help with their presentations and I could see my slides resonating with audiences, reacting to them before I’d even said anything.?

And then I realized something.? I wasn’t standing there on my own:? it was me and the slides, a double act.?

Have you ever sat in a presentation where the speaker just read all the slides?? Like the slides became something to wade though.? It’s torture, for the presenter and especially for the audience. ??When this happens, either the presenter or the slides are redundant – and most likely it’s the presenter because people can read to themselves more quickly than someone can speak.

When you’re presenting, you are the discussion lead.? But while you’re talking, your slides are the way you reach into hearts and minds for the aha moment:? a clear graph, an inspirational photo, something amusing, something that creates emotion.? Emotion, gentle humor especially, is a winner.? You always know a message is getting through when an audience smiles or laughs.? You see the engagement in their eyes. And you don’t need to be a stand-up comedian with perfect comic timing.? You can let your slides get the laughs.?

These days, most of my presentation slides are just photos, simple graphs or a video.? Or maybe a few words in huge fonts.? Sometimes they're hand-drawn.? On their own, they often make little sense because they’re not meant to be on their own.? If I’d wanted them to make sense on their own, I’d have emailed the document and canceled the presentation.? The slides need me and I need them.? We work together.

Of course there are different types of presentations. A presentation to a group of investment analysts is very different to a brand launch.? But the core principle is the same, although the way you apply it may be different.?

I spent 26 years with that big American company, presenting to audiences from 5 to 500+ people, in person and online, making my own slides and often doing them for other people. ?And yes after all this time, before presenting I still get those butterflies in my stomach. But these days they’re positive butterflies, the ones that help you perform better and keep you sharp.? ?