I have read many posts about the scourge of PowerPoint and how it derails presentations. Being a PowerPoint fan, I have resisted these barbs. That is, until this morning.
I sat through a presentation in which the speaker used PowerPoint during his 60 minute talk. Here’s what I experienced in the audience:
-His laptop was turned perpendicular to the screen so he spoke mainly to his laptop with his shoulder facing the room. I was on the “backside” so I spent the majority of the time looking at his back.
-He used animated bullets that would fly in, sweep in, float in, etc. On one slide, a bullet point slowly floated up from the bottom to the top and off the screen. It never stopped – just disappeared. Everyone got a laugh out of it, but I am certain that was not his goal.
-There were, on average, 6-7 small font bullet points on each slide which led the speaker to read many of them (at 90 degrees to the audience). You could hear the multiple sighs in the audience as they attempted to crunch the voluminous data on each slide.
I was sitting there aghast as I observed this presentation. I’ve personally used PowerPoint for many of my talks and I now find myself those talks in my mind.
PowerPoint is an effective tool as long as it is used properly – maybe more like a prompt and less like a book. If you use PowerPoint in your sales presentation, make sure you do not allow it to suck the spontaneity out of you.
And double check all of your animated bullets.