How to create killer presentations

All right, welcome back everyone. Welcome to Mastermind Session number 5. Today's session is going to be very interesting, and I'm saying that because all of us, either we are working in corporate or we are trying to be an entrepreneur, or we're trying to go all out. And there's one thing which is really common to all of us, and, and when I was thinking about planning this topic, I thought This probably would be something that all of us do. We may not be speaking every day, we may not be writing every day, we may not be going all out and speaking, but this is something which is very, very relevant to all of us. And I'm not gonna make it as a game because I already mentioned that today we're gonna discuss about PowerPoints. Exactly, PowerPoint. How can you improve your PowerPoint? How can you use— provided you are not using corporate template, provided you don't have that restriction, if you had all the free hand and if you had the liberty of doing the way you want to do, how can you make the best use of PowerPoint? At any time, feel free to put it in the chat, your perspective, your thought, your experiences, and we can take it up. But let me share my screen. To show you how to create killer PowerPoints. I'm not talking about PowerPoints that murder people, but the PowerPoint that have more impact on people. So number 1, which already is there, is one slide per minute. What is one slide per minute? Now, many times we have PowerPoints and we have all been into those meetings where either there are too less slides which is like, it's only one slide going on for 13.5 minutes, and we are like, okay, is that, is that the only slide that person has? And, and is he gonna move forward? And there have been other times where there are 255 slides which will be covered in 15 minutes, and we'll be like, is this guy gonna stop? How, how fast is this person moving? So the thumb rule is You need to have one slide per minute. You can have plus minus one or two slides, but typically if you have one slide per minute, what does that do? It gives your audience ability to look at it. If I put a slide now, right now, for example, let me say this. So if I put one slide per minute right now, and this is the slide that I'm talking about, if I'm talking about this for one minute, it is not too much. At the same time, there is, there is no hurry from, from me. I can actually go on and explain. You can also take it easy, and, and that way the retention, the retention of the audience, of the data that you're providing, the retention of the graphics, the retention of the point that you're covering actually increases a lot. If it is 25 slides in 1 minute, the person will be bogged down and it'll be like— it's like, uh, it's like the fire hose put it into your mouth and you're not able to cover, everything is falling out. So you need to make sure that you have appropriate number of slides, typically 1 or maximum 2 slides per minute. You don't want to go too less or you don't want to go too more. Now there's also a point actually before that, that you should also always look at, do you really require slides or not? Many times we don't even require slides because we're going to talk to our audience, we're going to talk to people, and if it is the slide is only saying that, no, welcome to this, hi, or anything like that, you don't require slide for that. You can very well communicate through your face and you can actually do that. So that's point 1 before the 1, that 1 slide per minute. Any, any insights, any bad experiences you had?

If the person is not able to speak, so then it is better to write whatever he, uh, I mean, whatever he is going to present. So about that, he can, he can, he can write in the slide.

Right, so when the person is not able to speak, there are different ways. We are gonna, uh, we are gonna cover something called presenter view shortly, which is for the presenter to refer. The new, uh, new version of PowerPoint allows to do that. You can have presenter view, and if you have two, two slides, I mean two screens or something else, we're gonna talk about that in our bonus section. So that can help you give you notes, but you don't need to put your notes out there in front of public. So if you can present one slide and not too many, too many text, that's another point. Only one idea per slide is actually a better idea.

Yeah, I do have a question.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah. Uh, okay, so I was asking like, if I do have something important to share on the slide, like that is I have to put emphasis on, so that may take more than 1 minute or someone like that, like if that is a key point of my slides, total slides, like I do have 20 slides and slide number 6 has the main content of the, if I see, so in that case would I be okay with 1 minute, I should give more than 1 or 3 minutes or anything? Like that.

Yeah, that's the average one. You can give more than one. There is no absolute rule that if you say 1 minute, 1 second, you are out. There is not a game. But in general rule is this is the rule of average. If you have a 20-minute presentation, you don't want to have 120 slides. Or another way around also, if you have a 2-hour presentation, you need to have at least 60 to 100 slides so that you're going in the flow and you are able to take people. Otherwise, if you're talking about 20 slides in 2-hour presentations people will be bored down unless you have subpoints and other things that we're gonna cover later. But you need to make sure that it is based on that appropriate time. It's a, it's a suggestion. It's not the absolute fast rule that you have to do this only. But, but the way it is that, no, if you are have the liberty, as I said earlier, and if you can do, then do one slide per minute.

Okay.

Any, any question? Anything? No.

Okay.

Number 2, don't have a traffic jam in your slide. What do I mean by that? Have you seen those slides where there are 35 lines of data and 75 images in there and you are left wondering what exactly am I supposed to say? I'm gonna actually share another slide, which is one of my favorite one. I got it. Uh, you don't, you don't want to make your slide like this one where it's like the whole Delhi traffic on the road and you have so many images, so many texts, and people are wondering like, which one do I need to really worry about? So you need to have one useful data in one slide. If that means that, and that's again, uh There's a misconception that you can't have more slides. The concept— the misconception is that, no, you, you should have all the things in one slide. Not required. You can move the slide, you can put one point, emphasize one point at a time, and then move on, rather than having a traffic jam in your slide and people are getting confused. Where is my vehicle? Where is my data? So that's point number 2, very important point, that when you are presenting online, when you have a slide to share, make sure that you are having no traffic jam. You're having appropriate number of images, appropriate text. Number 3, which is show one bullet at a time. Now you would have noticed in my presentation, whenever I'm talking about searching Yeah, yeah. Sorry, your voice is breaking.

Yes, Haritosh, actually I was saying, um, Not more details or—

I'm not sure I got your question.

I was saying in the slide there should not be any more details or any more pictures. Right?

Yeah, if possible. I mean, I know there are corporate templates where you have to put that, but if we are talking about effective presentation, the principle says that no, you don't need to have too many things. You need to probably have one or two things at a time.

No problem.

Right.

And another thing, which is the interesting point, is the third point, which is, uh, show one bullet at a time. And I'm gonna give you example, and we have used it extensively in our workshops. Which is, uh, let me share the screen. I'm talking about storytelling myth. What will I do? I show one bullet. I'm not showing all the 7 bullets that I have. I'll show one bullet. I talk about that, that I don't have any story. That's a myth. I'll talk about that. I'll take the inputs, and then I go on, and then I show the next one. Then I talk about that I don't have enough stories. Then I go on. Instead of showing you, if I put like all the 5 at once, it won't be interesting, right? So you want to show one point. If you have a bullet and, uh, no, if it is allowed, you want to show one bullet at a time so that you are having enough audience engagement, enough audience interest. So that's a third, uh, PowerPoint tip to killer presentation that show one bullet at a time. And you might actually want to increase that font also, or now make others one as a little bit dark and not highlighted. But if even if you don't do that, show one bullet at a point, it becomes very clear for the audience that which point you're talking about.

All right.

Any questions? Okay. Evident to say, so images or infographics instead of text. If you just— if I just tell you what are the different, uh, I'm trying to— okay, let me put another example for you. Which will make this much clear. So instead of telling you and writing it out that these are the 5 ways to wow your audience, if I show you this infographics, it makes sense, right? It is more easy for you to remember that, okay, you have to plan your stage, you have to connect through your eyes, have the eye contact, you need to have pauses, you need to have gestures. Now this, what is this? This is basically an image or infographic. So if you can use images or infographics, there are a lot of places where I actually go on, see, these are images instead of just saying use. And instead of having a closed body language, use an open body language, I put an image. So all of these are images and text. So try to use as many images as possible instead of putting too much of text because we are critically bored of seeing text again and again. So we want to use images, infographics more than the all the text in our PowerPoint.

Okay, this was happened with me. This was happened with me when there was a one meeting, internal meeting, and instead of writing Instead of pictures or any, uh, diagram, okay, I have written all this thing in the slide. So the audience has told me, was you are telling the story or you are showing some presentation? Exactly.

You want to tell your story through your voice. You want to keep one images, image of one place you went, and then you tell the story what happened at that place versus writing each and everything on the slides, and that will keep your audience, yeah, awake. Okay, let's move on to some bonus points. Number 1, always have a dry run if possible. A lot of time we just go on and we are so much busy in preparing the slide till the last minute, uh, we, we don't, we don't go through the dry run, we don't go through the PPT Uh, and, and then when we are presenting, we are not sure what's coming up next. So always try to have a dry run if possible so that you are able to see the flow, uh, what is coming up after that, what is that, so that you are aware. You should know what is there in the PowerPoint instead of revisiting every slide. Okay, I don't know what is coming next. You don't want to get into that. And the second one which I was talking about is called Presenter view if possible. So if you are having two screens, or if you are having— I have got a thing called, this is called Headless. Yeah, some device called Headless which acts as a virtual screen. So if you have got two screens, make best use of your presenter view. And how does that look? Let me share my screen to show you. So like, for example, I have— this is the presenter view I am sharing to you. And you see what is happening here is, uh, for you it will be showing the full PowerPoint because it's on another screen. But I see, okay, after collect thoughts, I'm gonna have a questions here. After question, I'm gonna have a key message. So now I can plan my flow as per the points coming up, and you will be aware. And I can also have a lot of notes inside of that so that I can actually mention about that. When I'm talking about pauses and eye contact, these are the things that I have my internal. My audience will see something like this, which will, which will be like this. They will not be able to see what are the notes is there, what are the next slide coming up. But since I'm having dual screen, I'm using the presenter view. I can see what is coming up, I can see my notes, and then it can help me prepare better in my presentation. So that's a bonus point for you when you're preparing for PowerPoint presentation, that no, always do a dry run and have presenter view if possible for you. And for your audience, use the normal view, which is the presentation mode.

So this is inbuilt, uh, features in the PowerPoint.

This is inbuilt feature in PowerPoint, but you need to have either two screens, which is if you are having a projector connected to your laptop, or you are having an additional screen, or you can get a tool with this called Headless, uh, HDMI, which which acts as a virtual screen. So I got it, this was like £4-5 here in UK, and I found this so effective. So you can get that, uh, otherwise use additional screens, one screen for projecting, another screen for you to view. So based on whatever you— so this is like advanced thing. If you have additional screen, if you have projector, you can use that presentation mode as well.

And this virtual screen you are projecting to a wall, or how you are projecting this virtual screen?

So as I said, I've got this one which is called, uh, this is called Headless, uh, Chicken or something it's called. I put it in the HDMI port and what it does is it acts like a virtual screen connected to my laptop. So I can then use it like an additional screen. So I can put things on that, and I will have one as primary screen, another one as the virtual screen, which is not nowhere, because it will, it will act like it is another screen, but it will not be there in that. But for system, there will be two screens. So now I can use that presentation mode, and I can share with you the virtual screen. So that's how it works.

So after, if No, yes, actually, if— yes, actually, if we connect the projector, then, uh, then it is the feature— that feature will automatically enable. If it is— if the projector is not there, then the Haritosh is showing that, uh, head pin, no? Yeah, so that will act as a projector, something like that. Yeah, that's right.

That's right, absolutely right.

Then the screen will be displayed on your monitor itself. Your monitor will become the multi-screen. So yeah, my question is the same that you cannot project, yeah, on a wall.

Yes, you cannot project.

How do you project?

You need a projector, right?

Projector, yeah, that's why.

Yeah, so it will not project on a wall. It will act like it is, uh, your computer will feel like it is connected to a projector. In the end, there is nothing connected to this. There is no Wi-Fi, there is no wire or anything. So for the laptop, it will act like there's another screen. So this is your presentation accordingly. So your presentation mode is there and your presenter view is here, and you can see and move out. So otherwise, it's not— it, it is not possible in normal PPT that you can either have presenter view or you can have the slide mode. You can't have both simultaneously. So that, that, that's what it makes possible. With this one.

So yes, yes, that you can do the experiment if you have the smart TV. You can connect your smart TV with your laptop.

Yeah, that's true.

Feel you can do that. That's right, that's right.

Okay, great. So those were topics. I think these are again less talk things about PowerPoint because we all talk a lot about communication, speaking, but We all have to do some or other PowerPoint presentation, and these small things of going through, uh, no, I'll share it once again. Having on an average one slide per minute, not having any traffic jam, having appropriate text and showing one bullet at a time or one number at a time, one point at a time, using images, infographics over text, those are some key pointers for you to help in your presentation, and also have always having a dry run and using presenter view if possible, so that you are able to give that amazing presentation. Any questions?

Awesome.

So I hope, uh, you found this useful. We'll continue to have much more this bite-size, uh, mastermind sessions in future as well. And I hope you are coming to the webinar, public speaking webinar this Sunday. I hope to see some of you there. All right, any question before we close?

Sure, Haritosh Srivastav. Thank you. We try to catch you, you're all important session.

Thank you, thank you so much, Navneet. Yeah, all right, thanks everyone, great seeing you all.

Thank you, thanks everybody, thanks Haritosh Srivastav.