Winning Mind Training

  • Home
  • About
    • About Winning Mind
    • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Courses Listing / Calendar
    • Training Schedule
    • Course Descriptions
      • Dare To Be Great Leadership: Strategies to Help Build and Sustain a Culture of Leading, Learning and Excellence
      • Dare to Be Great: Strategies for Creating a Culture of Leading
      • Dare To Be Great Leadership 2.0: Continuing the Journey of Building a Culture of Leading, Learning and Excellence
      • Dare To Be Great Leadership: Strategies to Help Build and Sustain a Culture of Leading, Learning and Excellence
      • Excellence In Training
      • Performance Enhancement Imagery
      • PPCT Threat Pattern Recognition Use of Force Instructor Course
      • Ground Fighting and A.C.E. Edged Weapons Defense Instructor Course
      • Lessons From Life’s Most Powerful Question
  • Resources
  • Contact Us

January 24, 2017 By Brian Willis

7 Ways to Piss Your Audience Off With PowerPoint

Last week I discussed whether or not you should give copies of your PowerPoint presentation to the event planner or seminar participants. This week I want to revisit an issue that continues to be a problem for presenters around the world; using PowerPoint (Or Keynote for us Mac users) in a way that aggravates, instead of inspires your audience.

During my Excellence in in Training Courses I ask participants (who are all trainers) for a list of things presenters do with PowerPoint that annoys them when they are participants in someone else’s presentation. The list is consistent from class to class.

Here are 7 guaranteed ways to annoy your audience with Powerpoint:

  1. Having too much text on the slides.
  2. The text is too small to read. (This is usually because the presenter was trying to cram too much text on the slide.)
  3. Reading from the slide to the audience. (They cannot read your slide and listen to you at the same time.)
  4. Poor choice of colors making the slides hard to read. (If they cannot read it, they will get frustrated.)
  5. Too many slides for the allotted time resulting in the instructor blasting through the slides while saying, “I don’t have time to cover this.”, “We don’t have time for this.”, “This is a great video but, we don’t have time to watch it.”.
  6. Making the PowerPoint the focal point of the presentation.
  7. Slides are too busy – Stuff flying in, flying out, sound effects, etc. (This gets very annoying for people very quickly.)

Let us take that list of 7 PowerPoint Sins and turn it into a To Do list for using PowerPoint / Keynote:

  1. Use just a few words and more high quality pictures on your slides.
  2. Use a minimum of 32 size font using Helvetica or some other easy to read font. The bigger the room, the bigger the font size.
  3. If you have a quote or other text on the slide then shut up, and let the audience read it themselves. Once they have read it you can expand on it and discuss how it applies to the principles and concepts you are teaching.  
  4. Keep color choices simple. When in doubt, check it out. Create a slide in the colors schemes you think will work then project them onto a screen and stand in the back of the room. If you cannot read it, go to something different. The lighting in the room will impact the effectiveness of the colours you use. You cannot always change the lighting to an ideal level for your presentation. I have found that black background with while font is usually a pretty safe bet. 
  5. Spread time preparing in advance so ideally you have the appropriate amount of slides for the allotted time. If you discover you have too many slides, and it happens to all of us, then hide slides on the break or use the tools and shortcuts that allow you to jump ahead without anyone knowing. You can also print off a handout for yourself with 6 or 9 slides per page. Number the slides and if you realize you need to jump ahead from slide 45 to slide 64 simply type in the numbers 64 on your keypad and hit Enter. It will automatically go to that slide and no one in the audience will be the wiser. 
  6. People are there to listen to you and learn from you, so make yourself and your content the focal point of the presentation. PowerPoint is a visual aide. If the screen is in the center of the room and is distracting to the audience then blank the screen while you are expanding on a teaching point. Hitting the ‘b’ key will blank the screen. When you are ready to move on simply hit the ‘b’ key again and unblank the screen. 
  7. Use animations very sparingly, if you use them at all. There are a lot of fancy things you can do with Powerpoint, Keynote and other presentation platforms. Remember that just because you can, does not mean you should.

Take care.

Brian Willis 

Winning Mind Training – Dedicated to helping good trainers become great trainers and great trainers to deliver awesome training.  

 The Excellence in Training Academy – Where trainers come to grow. Committed to serving law enforcement trainers and leaders to help them learn and grow. 

Check out the free Introductory webinar and Featured Interview at www.excellenceintrainingacademy.com 

Join the Excellence in Training Academy using the code eitblog to the the first month membership free.  

Interested in hosting an Excellence in Training Seminar? Contact to me at winningmind@mac.com and we can work together to determine what will best suit your needs. 

EXCELLENCE in Training Academy Black Small version

Filed Under: Blog

Subscribe To Our Blog

Sign up to the Winning Mind Training blog to receive new articles, tips and posts directly to your email inbox.

Excellence In Training Blog

  • Are you intentional and deliberate about this? January 24, 2023
  • Working through the dissonance; uncomfortable, but necessary. January 17, 2023
  • Do you think of yourself as a coach? January 10, 2023
  • Are you reaching up, down and across? January 2, 2023
  • The third element of evidence based – research informed. December 27, 2022

Contact Winning Mind Training

Address:
246 Stewart Green S.W., Suite #2486
Calgary AB. Canada. T3H 3C8

Phone: 403-279-5954

Email: winningmind@mac.com

Connect With Us

  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Winning Mind Training is a proud member of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. To get more information and to find out how you can become a member of the Chamber of Commerce go to www.calgarychamber.com

Events

  • Lessons From Life's Most Powerful Question - Closed Workshop
    • Thursday, Feb 02, 2023
  • Dare To Be Great Leadership: Strategies to Build and Sustain a Culture of Leading, Learning and Excellence - Madison, WI
    • Monday, Feb 06, 2023 - Tuesday, Feb 07, 2023
    • Madison
  • Excellence in Training Course - Madison, WI
    • Wednesday, Feb 08, 2023 - Friday, Feb 10, 2023
    • Madison
  • Copyright © 2023 · Winning Mind Training