PowerPoint is the most misused tool since the television remote control. Sure, you can flip through 200 channels in under a minute, but should you? And while you can show 50 PowerPoint slides, should you? This article tells you how to prepare a great presentation without misusing PowerPoint (and losing your audience).

Script

In my experience working with presenters in Fortune 100 companies, I have found that most speakers are putting the entire speech on slides and reading it to audiences. One look at the faces in the audiences tells me that they are reading ahead of the presenter, or simply tuning out.

Writing the script is not a step anyone should skip. Create your slides after you write your script, not instead of writing your script. A script can be complete sentences or detailed talking points.

Begin by determining the objective of your presentation. Are you there to persuade the audience to buy your product, to inform them of a new policy, or to introduce your company? If you dont have a clear objective, your presentation will not be effective.

Next, outline your key points. Studies show that audiences remember only 3% of presentations. Increase your odds of audience retention by eliminating unnecessary detail. For example, if your objective is to introduce your company, stick with the most important points that you want your audience to remember, such as:

What you make/sell
Why they should want to work with you
How to contact you

Avoid distracting details such as:

Number of employees
Detailed price lists
Detailed organizational charts
Financial statements

Finally, flesh out your key points into complete thoughts or sentences, with transitions between points. Later, these transitions will become your cues to change slides.

Its best to use a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word to write your script. PowerPoint can contain your script in the speakers notes section, but you should cut and paste your script into PowerPoint after it is written.

After you have written your script, then its time to build the slides.

Slides

Remember Show and Tell? Ill bet you never held up a written report for Show and Tell. Think of your script as the tell and your slides as the show. Your slides are visual aids that support and reinforce what you are saying. They are the backup band, not the lead singer. To paraphrase, a slide is worth a thousand words, it shouldnt be a thousand words.

And while were on the subject of visual aids, heres a radical idea do part of your presentation without any slides! PowerPoint has a feature that will go to black screen on demand (or you can simply turn off your projector for a moment). This will provide a break from the screen for the audience, and redirect the attention to you.

During this slide-free time, you can either go without a visual or use a prop. I once presented a new health care savings account program to a large group of employees. The big advantage of this account was that the employee could pay for purchases with a debit card. Instead of putting a picture of the debit card on a slide, I went to black screen, and moved through the audience holding up one of the debit cards. It was a very effective visual. I then resumed the presentation with slides.

Number of Slides

Whats worse than 10 bad slides? 50 bad slides! Some people advocate strict formulas for the number of slides to use, such as one slide for every three minutes of your presentation. Thus, if you are given one hour, you should show 20 slides. I dont believe in a one-size-fits-all solution.

When deciding on the final number of slides to present, consider:

Your objective - remember the 3% rule for detail
Your allotted time - plan your presentation to move at a comfortable pace for your audience and you
The attention span of your audience think about how you would respond if you were in the audience

There is only one instance where it is a good idea to bring dozens of slides. If you are leading an interactive discussion allowing the audience to ask questions, you should have backup slides available with detail that will address the topics that arise. Then you can show the relevant slide when appropriate. Make sure you can quickly access each slide on demand.

Handouts

Are handouts a good idea? Some things, like an agenda, should definitely be handed out. An agenda makes a better handout than a slide because the audience can refer to it during the meeting.

Its never a good idea to hand out copies of your presentation before you present. Your audience will be reading the material instead of listening to you. If your intent is to give them the presentation for note-taking, give them blank paper instead.

Always hand out paper copies of your presentation with your speakers notes, reference information such as price lists, and backup slides to the audience as they leave. Or you could email all of this after the meeting, post it on a web page, or give audience members your presentation on a flash drive (engineers and techies love this, and this guarantees that they will open your presentation at least once).

Follow these tips and knock em dead at your next presentation.