Want to get In The Boardroom faster than your peers? Then here’s a topic that is easy to master and will make you differentiate yourself. These days, more than ever, PowerPoint slides are making a huge impact on the way we work and the way we communicate our intentions to others. But are your slides making the impact that you want them to make? Are you effective at delivering our intended message? And more importantly, are you doing them right and getting attention from management?
Here's the most important thing. Your slides are a manifestation of how you think, how you are organized and your articulation of your thoughts. Think of it as an extension of the way you dress. You wouldn't dress sloppily or casually in the boardroom, would you? You would look the part. So why would your slides be any different in terms of how they look?
Let's look at 7 easy tips you can use to improve your effectiveness and improve your reputation with Management.
Adopt your company’s brand guidelines 100%.
The importance of branding is outside the scope of this article, but the point is that you must respect brain guidelines and use them both internally and externally. You are part of a tribe and this is how the tribe speaks. Not learning the tribal language is akin to being an outsider and you will be treated as such. Most companies will have brand guidelines in a folder or a portal and with all the resources you need to adopt them easily, like templates.
Make sure you are always up to date on brand versions
It's annoying when the company goes through a brand revamp and employees still use the old version of the guidelines. It's the same result as the first rule above. Keep abreast of changes in the company or it will seem like you either don't care or you don't re important emails. You're an outcast again.
Spell check your text
There is no excuse for not spell checking your text. Spell checks are built into most applications, and you can always write your text in Microsoft Word and spell check them there before putting them into your PowerPoint slides. When building your slides, the last thing you should do is check for spelling errors. This is schoolboy stuff. Only schoolboys make spelling errors. Not grown professionals yearning for the boardroom.
Be fastidious about layout and arrangement
Managers hate to see boxes out of alignment, jumping out where they shouldn't be. It's just sloppy and distracts from your presentation. It's like having one sleeve longer than the other or your tie hanging loose. You wouldn't dress like that in front of Management so why shouldn’t you slides look likewise? Master the alignment tools in PowerPoint.
Present your slides professionally, don't read from them
By now you would have all heard the saying: prepare, practice, present. That's what TED speakers and senior corporate executives do. Here's a link to a great article on how you can easily master your presentation in front of an audience. Practise religious and commit them to memory. You can use teleprompters or turn on presentation mode on your screen but it will look like you're just reading of a page, rather than presenting. Ultimately you will be doing an injustice to your wonderful slides. And remember it's not about reading your slides as it is about presenting a story and using your slides as a presentation aid.
Try To Tell A Story
While not always possible, storytelling is an effective way to convey information and make it more memorable. Build a narrative into your presentation, whether a single scenario that you carry through your presentation to emphasize and give context to specific points. If you can show conflict or challenges in your story, it will make the solution you’re proposing the hero. Not only will it be more memorable if you can tailor your story to an audience, it will connect more readily.
Rehearse and polish your presentation.
Great politicians prepare days and weeks ahead for a speech. They don't just wing it and hope that it sounds good. They have a hundred tries at it until it sounds almost perfect and committed to memory. You don't need a hundred tries but you need several to make sure that you master your presentation structure and flow. Make use of presentation versions. Make use of present of you and the note section to prompt yourself on what you should be doing or saying. Make eye contact.
How you present your slides is just as important as how they look. Because at the end of the day your words, and how you deliver your words, complete the communication of your intended message. If you fumble for the right words or you stumble when you deliver or worse, you pre-face every sentence with fillers like ‘Ah’, you're not projecting confidence to Management and they won't think twice about you after the meeting.
Get this done right and you’re one step closer to being In The Boardroom.