PowerPoint will do some really cool types of animation, but remember that if you animate something, it should help you clarify your point. Bullet points that fly in, spin around, make sounds, and blink are just a distraction from your message. For the most part, the animation called “appear” should be your most frequently used. If you want your audience to follow you step-by-step, you can reveal your bullets one at a time. However, you’ll have more energy as a presenter if you just make your slide appear and physically move to your screen and point to your bullet point when you talk about it. You become the animation versus using the slideshow.
Don’t Eliminate Animation Entirely
Keep in mind that we are not suggesting that you eliminate animation entirely. If you do, you’ll be missing out on a great advantage of PowerPoint. A good graphic that is short and eye-catching (and that helps clarify your point) at the appropriate time can be very helpful and add some fun to the presentation. But if you rely heavily on animation to make your point for you, the PowerPoint Presentation will become the presentation, not the presenter.
Avoid overuse of animation in your PowerPoint Presentations.
Fearless Presentations class in Seattle transforms participants into confident, anxiety-free presenters. The Leader’s Institute® didn’t let the overcast weather bring down the mood for its Fearless Presentations® class in Seattle, Washington February 14-15.
A few of the participants were so nervous when they had to speak that they had the shaky hands, sweaty palms, and other physical symptoms of nervousness. By the end of the two-day Fearless Presentations® class, they had gotten rid of their nervousness and couldn’t wait to deliver their final presentations. One of the participants literally told the class to “watch out” for her final presentation. Now that’s confidence! In addition to overcoming the fear of public speaking, participants were able to incorporate stories and examples into their presentations to make them more compelling and memorable.
In addition to traveling back to Seattle, Washington in August for its Fearless Presentations® public speaking class, the Leader’s Institute® offers the class year round throughout the United States. It is simply the best way to become a better, more engaging public speaker.
Too Much Data on Your PowerPoint Slides: Your PowerPoint slide deck should be a visual aid to help you explain your point, so if you put too much data on a slide (too much text, too many numbers, or charts and graphs – gasp – Is he saying we can’t use charts and graphs?) you will overwhelm you audience and cause them to attempt to draw their own conclusions about the data.
A good rule is what we call 6X6, which means to limit your number of words per line to six and limit your number of lines to about six as well. That way, no matter how big or small your room is, your audience will be able to read your data, and it will be easy for the audience to instantly understand the concept you are communicating.
The Super Bowl wasn’t the only important event in Indianapolis, Indiana. 
The Leaders Institute held another Public Speaking Workshop right after the historic game. The people attending the workshop realized that they had a lot in common with the football players. They learned that it takes practice to be great at anything involving skill. Just as football players practice non-stop to be great at their sport, so do great public speakers. The only way to have confidence in your skills as a great presenter is to practice those skills very regularly until you have the boldness and confidence that those players did as they stepped on the field for the most important game of their career. Many times people are assigned an important presentation that will make or break their career. In those situations, you need two important things, a good coach and a whole lot of practice. The Leaders Institute Instructors have conducted hundreds of workshops and had thousands of people successfully develop the skills and confidence to deliver a game winning touchdown of a presentation. With the help of a professional instructor, participants learn to overcome anxiety and design a highly impactful and engaging presentation.
So, get off the bench and get in the game and attend one of Fearless Presentation Workshops held all over the country. You can find a location near you by going to FearlessPresentations.com .
Public Speaking class in San Francisco allows participants to overcome the fear of public speaking through. The Leader’s Institute® conducted its Fearless Presentations® public speaking class to a small but mighty group of people who started off shy and ended up bold and engaging public speakers.
The participants in this class wanted to overcome the fear of public speaking and all the problems that come with it: the shaky voice, butterflies in the stomach, and shallow breathing that happens as a result of nervousness. By repeatedly getting up in front of the class under the coaching of a certified instructor with The Leader’s Institute®, the participants were able to get rid of their nervous jitters and become confident speakers.
The Leader’s Institute® regularly comes to San Francisco, California for its public speaking class, in addition to cities across the U.S. year round.
Eliminate Death by PowerPoint is a new public speaking tip video in our PowerPoint Tip series. This is video #2.
Too many PowerPoint slides cause the audience to be bored and lose interest, so remember that in public speaking visual aids, less is more. Reduce the number of slides in your slide deck and create more of a conversation with your audience. Give more examples and analogies, and better explain the content of your main bullet points for a better presentation.
Creating too many slides and using them as a crutch to make sure that we don’t forget anything in our presentation sounds like a good idea when we start designing, our presentation, but in reality, it is a really, really big mistake. Oddly enough, this mistake most often occurs because we make the first mistake. (See PowerPoint Mistake #1 Designing the Slideshow First) Slide… Click… Slide… Click… Slide… Click… is a very boring way to deliver a presentation and makes the presenter look unprepared and uninformed about his/her topic. Only add a slide if the slide helps you better clarify your point.
