TJ Walker says presenters should use one image per slide during live talks, then send text-heavy handouts separately. He tests effectiveness by asking audiences what they remember, not what they think. He offers coaching through an online course, monthly NYC workshops, or private workshops worldwide.
Chapters
Here's a question I received from a recent client of mine, tj. I followed your techniques of just having images on my PowerPoint slides, not putting the traditional lots of bullet points, text, lots of content. And when I asked my colleagues what they thought of it, they thought that the presentation seemed superficial. What do I do about that? Well, here's the real challenge I have for you. Rather than asking people what do they think of your presentation, I'm much more interested in you asking them what do they remember? Because people have all sorts of judgments about what works, what doesn't work that's different from what actually works. I mean, if you ask people across the board, does advertising affect you? Everyone will say, well, no, I don't. I don't fall for advertising. I'm too sophisticated. Yet advertising works. We know it works. That's why corporations spend billions of dollars on advertising. So that's my first challenge to you, is don't ask people what they think of your presentation. Ask them what ideas they remember. If they remember your ideas, it did work. Second thing to think about is people often misinterpret my message on PowerPoint. My message is not that you should not have lots of bullet points and text and content. My point is the traditional PowerPoint that you have with lots of bullet points, lots of text, rows, columns, text, still create that PowerPoint slide, but hand it out to people, email it, email it in advance of the presentation, email it afterwards. Give them a URL where they can find it. At any point, make sure you have twice as much content as usual. But, and this is the big but, when you're standing up and presenting to them, that's when I believe it's most effective to put up one image per slide, one idea per slide, regardless of what people say, they think about it. Because I test audiences all over the world, you can, too. When you put up a slide with lots of text and lots of bullet points, nobody remembers anything. That's the ultimate test. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak more effectively. If you'd like to become a better presenter, I've got three main options for you. Number one, we have an online course with live components. You can access that starting right now from anywhere in the world. Number two, we have live public workshops every month in New York City. And number three, there are private workshops available, one on one or for groups at any point, anywhere in the world. If you'd like to improve your speaking, give me a call today. Thanks a lot.
