Powerpoint presentations are very simple to put together, but outstanding presentation design is extremely hard. Pushed for time, most of us will put together a bunch of slides based on our talk, perhaps illustrating some key points. The versatility of Powerpoint makes this easy – too easy. Thanks to the user-friendliness of the product, you can very quickly build up slides with text, images, audio and video, transitioning to each other with a range of special effects. But that’s not enough. Good sales presentations are more than window-dressing, and if you don’t know what you’re doing your audience will find out pretty fast.
Bad Powerpoint design simply repeats what the audience hears in your spoken presentation. Good design has a narrative: a story that continues through the presentation and that is communicated with conciseness and clarity. The visuals matter, but only in enabling this primary aim. People take in information in different ways, so don’t assume that the slides are an optional extra to the talk you deliver. In many cases these snapshots will be most or all of what a viewer/listener takes away.
This isn’t something that just anyone can do – at least not without training.
If you work in a business of any size, you’ll already understand that. Although you can create your own copy, it’s far more effective to hire a copywriter to do it for you. Anyone can write; not everyone can copywrite (although in smaller organisations they may try). Powerpoint is the same. The problem is that the ease of using the software means there are a lot of dilettantes out there, with unfortunate results. Creating a really killer slideshow is actually quite an art; it’s just that creating a mediocre slideshow is within anyone’s reach – just as writing a lacklustre sales pitch or website landing page is something anyone can do.
If your powerpoint design or your presentation training is letting you down, there are companies who can either do it for you or train someone within your organisation so that they can put together high-quality training presentations. Great Presentation training doesn’t just happen by itself; it is crafted, just like any other worthwhile product – copy, artwork, software, a website.
As in anything like this, the proof of the pudding should be in the eating, and very quickly. Return on investment is the only meaningful measure of success when hiring a service like this, and you should see it almost straight away in the form of successful bids and convincing presentations.