Another word about PowerPoint and team presentations in my experience a far too much energy is spent
on having the consistent work and the branding just right at the bottom and everyone having the exact
same number of bullet points that is the wrong approach.
The only reason you're using PowerPoint is to make your ideas more understandable to the audience so
I'd much rather you use different styles of PowerPoint and yet images you use actually resonate with
your audience.
They're understandable they're memorable.
And then if each one of the speakers has a whole lot of data put that together in a document a word
document it could be a Powerpoint document.
E-mail it in advance hand to that e-mail and afterwards.
But I'm telling you right now if you want your team presentation to follow a script and the script is
the PowerPoint and you're basically kind of half talk into it kind of referring to it kind of always
looking at notes back up here.
Your group presentation is going to be awful it be boring.
People don't like to read bullet points on a screen 20 30 feet away and people are talking to them.
So I'm sorry I do realize that most corporations that is the status quo of lots of bullet points for
the group presentation and we have this following pattern the way everyone sticks to the script.
I tell you nobody in your audience cares about your script.
All they care about is to hear something interesting useful and relevant to say to them.
And are you saying it in a way that's memorable.
Are you showing them something that's memorable that's the only thing your audience cares about.
You want to be a great group presenter or a solo presenter.
You've got to focus on what your audience wants not what you want not what your corporate mandate tradition
is.
You've got to focus on your audience so if you're going to have a PowerPoint to get I would recommend
you have two separate power points one that's lots and lots and lots of notes words text bullet points
e-mail that people handed out.
Another one that has images and you could all work from the same deck.
But if you're going to use the images that all of you need to be on the same page it looks odd for one
person every interesting visuals that are fascinating and then the next person comes up and it's a white
screen and a whole bunch of black text with bullet points.
That's a bit jarring.
It's not that you all have to have the same styles but if someone has a really good interesting memorable
visual style and someone else is presenting in a way that reminds everyone in the audience is the worst
possible Daily down being droning speaker.
That's a real downer.
Now you can say Well T.J. we're a team and different people have different styles and wants and needs
and Smithers over here.
He's more comfortable with all of his notes on the PowerPoint attack.
I don't care about Smithers sorry if that sounds cold or cruel.
You know I care about the audience who has to listen to Smithers that prospective client.
They get to hear pitches from five other firms and Smithers is going to bore them if he sort of stands
up and reads bullet points so my recommendation has a Powerpoint document that you email that people
hand out but the PowerPoint that you're projecting use images and have everyone on the team use it because
if even one person insists on boring text it's going to really leave a sad sour taste in the mouth of
your audience.