How to design a powerful presentation using PowerPoint

Overview

This ‘Impact!’ programme covers the essentials of how to design, develop and build a great presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint or similar presentation tools.

Most people think they know how to use PowerPoint. But too many people still have great slides yet spoil their presentation by not structuring it properly to begin with – and others could achieve vastly better results if they only knew how to use more than a few basic PowerPoint functions.

This course is therefore in two halves – the first explains the principles of effective presentation design and the second uses a case study and a structured approach to unlocking the potential of PowerPoint. Put these two sessions and your people will be able to create compelling and entertaining presentations – immediately!

Training objectives

Participants will learn how to:

• Prepare and structure a presentation appropriate to the audience, the subject matter and the needs of the audience
• Maintain audience interest by using PowerPoint more effectively to complement proven presentation and demonstration techniques
• Learn powerful and practical short-cuts to developing presentations in PowerPoint, including using and selecting templates, style sheets and master slides
• Master many advanced techniques, including using animation, slide design and layout, transitions, creating slideshows, outputting to Word and creating handouts, importing and converting Word documents
• Best practise tips and tricks, including timings, fonts, colours and many more

Audience

Anyone who needs to make presentations on a regular basis, including

• Senior managers
• Sales people
• Line managers and team leaders in all functions
• Sales people
• PAs and secretaries who prepare PowerPoint presentations for others to use

Format

A highly interactive half-day course involving practical exercises and case studies.

The expert trainer

Graham has been designing and delivering high-quality training programmes on management techniques, personal development, sales and customer service for many years. A top-performing sales professional, he was Managing Director of Sales Productivity and Development for Thomson Financial, helping develop a large European sales force, and now runs his own very successful training consultancy.

His work has taken him all over the world and involved him in working closely with hundreds of different organisations from all business sectors, his client list including such organisations as BT, Vodafone, AT&T, Orange, Pfizer, GSK, Boots, Unilever, American Express, Thomas Cook, Apple, Sony, Motorola, Cisco, MFI, Barclays Bank, LIFFE, Abbey National, Prison Service, Home Office, Law Society, BBC, Daimler-Chrysler, Citroen, Weetabix, Nikon, Shell and many, many others. In addition he has written over twenty books published in several different countries, including Companies don’t succeed – people do!, 90 Brain Teasers for Trainers, Customer Service Games for Training, Sales Training Games, Telephone Tactics and Working Smarter.

Known internationally as both a trainer and a popular motivational speaker, he believes that effective learning has to be interactive and challenging. All his learning events are built around practical exercises, role play and case studies. His training style focuses not on just explaining new ideas or developing new skills, but also on motivating people to use them and to develop themselves as individuals. This approach gets results, as the following comments from course participants show:

‘Brilliant course, really interesting and very focused to my job role and day to day work.’

‘Took away some very good ideas that I can use every day÷ good examples too.’

‘Very confident in the subject, and amusing too. Made the course very interesting. A very clear sales model to use going forward.’

‘Full of useful hints and tips which I will apply to my job.’

‘Extremely well presented and structured’

‘A very intensive course and a lot of concrete tools provided.’

‘Useful data, tools and insights; engaging and interesting as always.’

‘Very good÷ contained everything we do on a regular basis and problems we have come across÷ the exercises made it very interesting too.’

Course outline

1. Getting the structure right
   • Step 1: Developing your objectives
     – The five questions that you must answer before preparing your presentation
     – Defining your objectives and outcomes
     – Creating a first draft
   • Step 2: Analysing your audience
     – Doing your homework: audience, event, venue
     – Developing a pre-event check-list
     – Methods and means for researching your audience
   • Step 3 and 4: Structuring the main body and stating main ideas
     – Ways to structure your presentation for maximum impact
     – Balancing and managing content and topics
     – Organising your information: 6 options and methods
     – Your ‘one main point’ and creating a 30-second summary
   • Step 5: Supporting information
     – Making your case convincing: ways to support your claims
     – Selecting and using relevant and interesting examples
     – Quotes, case studies and printed material
     – Presenting statistics, tables and graphs
     – Ways of maintaining visual interest
     – Transitions and links, creating a ‘golden thread’
   • Step 6: Creating an effective opening
     – Claiming the stage and creating a good first impression
     – The three most powerful ways of opening a presentation
   • Step 7: Creating an effective close
     – Signalling and sign-posting; the importance of, and how to do it effectively
     – Five ways to close a presentation successfully
2. Getting the slides right – PowerPoint workshop
   • Using a series of case studies and exercises, participants will quickly learn many advanced PowerPoint functions and short-cuts
   • Includes numerous ready-made examples