A TO Z PRESENTATION

OF
POWERPOINT ALPHABET
 ANIMATION

• Even though PowerPoint supplies a huge variety of

animation for you to use in your presentation, it doesn’t
men you should use all of them. Sticking with 2 or 3 subtle
and smooth animations throughout your presentation will
look much more professional ad less cheesy. Remember
your audience will read faster than you can speak. Use
animation to help focus their attention.
 AUDIENCE

• Your audience are key to your presentation,

know who they are, know motivates. Them;
make the presentation relevant to them as
individuals. What does this informations
mean to them personally?
 ASK

• Ask questions, they don’t have to be

directed at individuals but make your
audience think, don’t just speak at
them.
 BODY LANGUAGE

• Be confident in what you re saying, if you’re

not, how do you expect your audience to
believe in what you’re saying? Stand up
straight, move around and engage your
audience with eye contact.
5 CATEGORIES OF BODY LANGUAGE

1. FACIAL EXPRESSION
2. EYE CONTACT
3. POSTURE
4. HAND GESTURE/GESTURE
5. POSITION AND MOVEMENT
 BULLET POINTS

• Can be overused, asses if they are really

necessary. You can use bullet points to focus
your messages. But remember your audience
will read faster than you can speak so build
your bullet points as you go.
 BASICS

• Remember the basics of presenting. When

speaking be clear, pronounce everything, task the
person at the back of the room, arrive early, make
sure your presentation is correct and your
microphone works, and familiarize yourself with
the stage and set up.
 CREATIVITY

• Remember this is a presentation not a hand-out;

you can use creativity to find alternative ways of
displaying your messages without them losing
impact or importance. Making a more creative
presentation will make the audience remember
you and your presentation.
 CONCISE

• Be clear and concise with your messages.

Audience’s attention spans are not great so
you want to make sure they leave with all the
key messages and aren’t bogged down with
too much detail.
 CAPTIVATE

• Try finding an alternative way to approach

subject maybe used current news story an
sports situation to help explain your points.
The presentation told in this way so it will
captivate their imagination move.
 DESIGN
• Think about the layout of design. Is it readable
from the back at the room does it make an
impact, is it memorable and does it do justice to
your messages? But also think about the design of
your presentation as a whole, does it flow correctly
does it have a beginning, middle, end?
 DATA

• Most presentations will contain some from of data

and whilst the data is important, most audiences
do not need to know every piece of it. Use the
data to give an overview of progress simplify the
data and pull out key figures rather than every
figure.
 DEBATE

• Try to create within your presentation. Talking

points and discussions for your audience to reflect
on once your presentation is finished. This way
hopefully your massage and presentation will still
be being discussed long after the
conference/meeting.
 EMOTION

• Connect with your audience’s emotions. People

may forget what you said during your presentation
but not how you made them feel. Bring your
presentation’s key message down to an individual
level, make people feel you are talking to them a
individuals not as a whole company.
 ENTHUSIASM AND ENERGY

• If you are enthusiastic about what you’re

presenting then the audience will follow.
Unfortunately people have seen a lot of
presentation. You need to be full of energy about
your topic and make the audience think this is
really something to get enthusiastic about.
 EFFORT

• Putting the effort into your presentation will pay

dividends. The audience will be able to tell if
you’ve really thought and worked at your
presentation, your delivery will be so much better
as you’ll know your slides so well and be able to
flow through them with ease and confidence.
 FEAR

• Most people are fearful of public speaking, but

remember that most of the audience will have the
same fear us you. The best way to combat fear is
to practice and be prepared , you’ll have
confidence in knowing you are ready to speak and
know exactly what you’re going to say.
 FONTS

• Being creative with your presentation is

great but careful with fonts, use legible
fonts and stay clear of handwritten. Type
try to choose a font that has variations, so
you can bold key words.
 FACTS AND FIGURE

• Bold facts and figures can really make an impact

and make the audience sit up and listen. They are
a great way to back up what are you saying. Be
careful not to make your whole presentations fact
based, the audience will respond well to your
opinions too.
 GRAPHICS OPERATOR

• If you’re at a large event there will probably be

graphics operator running your presentation,
make sure you have your latest version before the
events starts, this way you will both be confident
the correct version is going live.
 GOALS

• A good idea to outline some goals for

yourself with your presentation to achieve.
This will help you structure your
presentation and make sure leave the
audience with the correct lasting thoughts.
 GRAPHS

• Can be a great way to outline the progress of a

product or company, but too complicated or too
detailed graphs will miss the point entirely. Focus
on the key figures and strip graphs down to the
essentials, this way everyone in the room will
understand your point exactly.
 HAND OUTS

• They are not hand outs; that contain everything you are
going to say.
• If you feel audience needs to have some more detail to
take forward with them then hand outs are perfect but
do not give them out before hand this will distract your
audience and they will never listen to you
 HEADLINES

• A good way to increase impact is to use

headlines. You can make a bold statement and
then break them down, this way your message
will be really clear to the audience. Sometimes
the message can get lost in the detail.
 HOLDING SLIDE

• When there is no presenter you can use

them to direct to audience’s attention.
 INTRODUCTION

• This is one of the most important parts of

your presentation, it set the tone for the
whole speech. Your introduction will
captivate the audience for the duration and
make them eager to hear your messages.
 IMAGES

• The right images can intensify your message

tenfold. Pictures are much more evocative and
powerful than statements by themselves. Try using
audience wouldn’t have seen before, and that add
a new twist to your slides.
 INTEREST

• Keeping the audience’s attention is vital to making

presentation memorable. Think about hoe much
information you’re telling them are your main points
being overshadowed by too much additional content?
Make sure there is structure to your presentation, and
think about alternation ways to communication your
points that will make an impact.
 JABBER

• This is a common fault among speakers and

one that can be easily involved with plenty of
rehearsal. The more chatter you surround
you’re messages with the less they are going
to get though and stick with people.
 JARGON

• Everyday term that you use may not be as widely

used within the whole company. Be sure not to
use anything that the whole audience won’t know.
Be careful with marketing speak, audience
members can find this of putting and see it as you
not being entirely straight with them.
 JUSTIFY

• Don’t justify every point you make but make

sure you can message or statements that may
have consequences should explained and
given reasoning to help your audience
understand.
 KNOWLEDGEABLE

• To be effective with your presentation, you should be

able to do your presentation without your slides.
• Knowing your subject and presentation thoroughly will
incite confidence and will be convincing to the audience
and you’ll be ready for any questions they may have.
 KEEPING TIME

• Keeping to the timing of your presentation is crucial to

making sure you have enough time left to summarize
and end with strong and memorable finish.
• If you rush your ending because you’ve run out of time
you lose all the hard work you’ve just put in, the end is
lasting message so you need to make it good.
 LAYOUT

• Consider the layout of your whole presentation as

well as individual slides. Make sure you only have
necessary information on your slides; consider the
hierarchy of your elements. Make sure everything
 LECTERNS

• Is restrictive for presenter. Nearly all professionals

speakers do not use them. They make you look
nervous and make the audience feel you are
talking at them, not to them. You can move
around the stage and engage with the whole
audience.
 LANGUAGE
• The tone of your presentation are crucial to your audience
engaging with them. You want to have a friendly tone towards
your peers so they are being lectured not more informed and
educated. Keep the language simple, don’t use complicated
words or phrases that some people don’t understand, this way
you can be sure everyone will leave the room with the same
understanding.
 METAPHORS

• Are a great way of explaining a point in a fresh way.

They will add difference to your presentation, and make
the audience think about the same point in a new way.
You can use a metaphor theme throughout your
presentation if it works, but don’t add too many different
ones as your messages will become lost.
 METHODS

• Power point is a tool not a method, if your

information is not engaging on it’s own adding
animations and colors will not help. Storyboard
your presentation first then use power point to
make it into digital format. The way you design
your slides will be your method.
 MIXED MESSAGES

• The objective of any presentation is to make sure the

audience will leave clear information. Make sure all your
statements are clear and support each other, even if it’s
not great news be honest with your audience. If you are
giving your presentation with colleagues make sure you
are all saying the same thing, otherwise the audience will
be left confused and deflated.
 NUMBERS
• Most presentations will contain numbers in some form, normally
to shoe profit loss or growth. The key with using numbers is to
make them relevant to the audience as individuals for example
they don’t need to know every weeks profit margin, give them a
yearly figure to work with and bring to the forefront some key
figures with that year and an explanation as to why those
numbers are important to them.
 NATURAL

• Being natural with your presentation is key to

your delivery and reception. Natural gestures,
pauses and flow will show the audience you
are confident in your presentation and
statement, and they should be too.
 NAVIGATION
• Remember, not all presentations have to be linear. Hyper-linking
allows you to navigate to relevant sections within a presentation.
This can be particularly useful when your presentation contains a
large amount of content. It allows you to tailor your presentation
to your audience without the need for carrying around a different
presentation versions or switching between different
presentations.
 OBJECTIVE

• This is the reason your presenting, what do you want the

audience to leave thinking about after they’ve seen you
presentation? It’s good to pick one or two objectives, be
careful you don’t get side-tracked within your
presentation, going of on tangents is a common mistake,
to avoid this make sure each slide is relevant to your
objective.
 ORDER

• The order or your presentation should make

logical sense, don’t go back and forth between
points, this will be confusing to your audience.
You can split your presentation into sections to
help you keep order; this will also help you to
write an introduction and summary.
 OVERKILL
• Less is often more. Cluttering your slides with too
much content is overkill. Think about the most
important points that you want to make and focus
the slide on this. Don’t be afraid to split if it is
over-splitting. A slide which is too busy detracts
from the information you are presenting and can
end up confusing your audience.
 PERFORM

• Any presentation you give should be considered a

performance. Delivering your presentation with
the enthusiasm, attention to detail and practice
that a stage play requires will show the audience
how importance this is to you and therefore them.
• That’s not to say you have to be reciting
Shakespeare, but treating your presentation
with the same importance will strengthen
your delivery and make it much more
memorable.
 POINTERS

• Using laser pointers are a distraction, the audience can

never see where you are actually pointing creating a huge
disruption in the flow of your presentation. Instead you
are much better off using animation and great slide
design to highlight a specific point on a chart or diagram.
You will look much more professional and prepared.
 PAUSES

• Don’t be afraid of silence, by rushing through

your presentation you are not giving the audience
time to digest anything you’ve said as you’re
moving onto the next point so quickly.
Unfortunately the audience are not going to
remember everything you say.
• use pauses to allow the main points to
sink in, by pausing you are adding weight
to your content and increasing it’s
significance.
 QUALITY
• The saying goes quality and this is very true for
presentations. Think about your content from the
audience perspective. You may like to know every detail
about a situation but do the audience’s? Do they need to
know the main outcomes? The audience are not going
to remember everything you will tell them so focus on
the main three points you want them to walk away with.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
• This is not about the audience asking you questions. I am
talking about the way of structuring your presentation. By
thinking about what questions your presentation is going to
answer, you can give an objective to your presentation; this
help you to understand if you have the right content. If you
have content that doesn’t answer your questions, you should
consider why it is included.
 QUOTATIONS
• Using quotes in your presentation can be a great way to establish
a theme or story for you to build around. As with any content
you need to make it relevant to your audience. Just because it’s a
good quote that you like doesn’t make it appropriate to use.
Using a quote as a starting point for how you could do things in
your company will add weight and real life application to your
message.
 REHEARSE

• By rehearsing your presentation both alone and in front

of someone will help to iron out a few of the things we
discussed previously. By really getting to know your
presentation, your confidence will improved and you will
naturally start performing your delivery and improved
audience retention and interest.
 ROOM LAYOUT

• You may be presenting at large conference or a

small meeting room, where ever it is make sure
you are familiar with the room layout before your
presentation. Knowing where everything is and
where you will be starting will make you feel at
ease and perform a lot better.
• If possible try and rehearse in the room
beforehand, this way you’ll know how
you much need to project your voice,
where to stand and not to be intimidated
by the space.
 RELYING ON YOUR SLIDE

• You should be able to give your presentation

without your slides. The onscreen content what
ever format it is in there to enhance your speech
not to remind you what to say. Relying on your
slides to deliver you presentation imparts that you
are not confident of what you are saying.
• If the audience have an impression you
are not an expert on your subject what
would they take your messages away with
them.
 SLIDE DESIGN

• This normally comes low on the list of things to

focus on when creating a presentation. But great
slide design can make a difference between a
lifeless mundane presentation and one that
inspires and provokes the audience into new
thinking or behavior.
• Take time, think about your speech
and slides work together they should
be treated as a partnership and
created at the same time.
 SIGNIFICANCE

• You should question everything you talk about or

show in your presentation and ask yourself what’s
the significance? It it’s not immediately clear ask
yourself should you keep it in? if the audience are
not going to find it significant or relevant it’s
possibly not worth talking about.
 STORY

• We’ve spoken in depth about using a story to

build your presentation around, you can read
it here. The basics of a story, the start,
middle, and end provide structure to focus
your presentation around.
 TECHNOLOGY

• This is especially important if you are speaking at

a conference or exhibition. Make sure you have
familiarized yourself with the technology and how
everything will work. Make sure if technology does
fail you, you are well prepared enough to deliver
your presentation without any technology.
 TIMING

• The last thing you want is to seem that you are

rushing the end of your presentation. By
practicing, you can accurately work out how long
you presentation is. Knowing your timings will
allow you to relax and present better as you won’t
be afraid of running over your allotted time.
 THEME

• A theme can be thought in the same way as using a story

of your presentation. If a story doesn’t work for your
presentation, a theme might work better. By revolving
your presentation around a theme the whole delivery will
have a more cohesive and contemplated finish to it, as
each key your message will reference back to the theme.
• Some examples could be overcoming
obstacles, a sports such as the
decathlon or famous journeys.
 UNDERSTANDING

• Your audience’s understanding of your subject

both before and after your presentation will be
crucial to how suzccessful your presentation is.
Knowing the audience’s level of knowledge will
enable you to pitch your messages correctly.
• Your understanding of your audience needs
to know and walk away with will enable you
to present the correct information, not go of
track but not tell them material they already
know and lose their attention.
 UNDERLINING

• It’s not the way to highlight a point. If a word or

sentence is that important to highlight, think of a
really nice way to do it, something that will stick in
the audience mind, try a clever piece of animation
or a change of imagery to focus the audience’s
attention.
 UNIQUE SELLING POINT {USP}

• What’s your unique selling point? Even though

you may not be a salesman you are selling your
messages and ideas to your audience. This doesn’t
need to be an elaborate performance, it could just
mean explaining your messages that the audience
may have heard before in a complete new way.
 VIDEOS
• Using videos in your presentation can be really beneficial
if like the rest of your content they are relevant and
thought provoking. A key thing to remember a video
content is that it must be good quality, showing poor
quality footage will cheapen your presentation and reflect
badly to your hard work with the rest of your
presentation.
• Using videos in your presentation can be really beneficial
if like the rest of your content they are relevant and
thought provoking. A key thing to remember a video
content is that it must be good quality, showing poor
quality footage will cheapen your presentation and reflect
badly to your hard work with the rest of your
presentation.
 VISUAL PROPS
• Sometimes presenters especially in groups can become
side-tracked with the theatre of a presentation and not
the clarity of messages for the audience to walk away
with. Using props can work but must be well thought out
and not used for laughs or as a crutch for the presenter
to hide behind due to lack of confidence in the actual
presentation.
 VALUE
• This encompasses pretty much everything we have
mentioned un this series of blogs. Question the value to
the audience of everything you say and show in your
presentation. Your presentation is not for you it’s for
your audience, make sure your content is valuable to
them, what do they want to know, keep this at the
forefront when creating a presentation.
 WAFFLE

• Don’t waffle, the confidence and tone in which

you deliver your speech is almost the single most
important part of your presentation. Showing you
have conviction in your messages instills an instant
respect and responsiveness from the audience.
• People waffle when they are nervous and
unsure; the best way to avoid waffling is
by rehearsing to really know your content
and that you believe in it.
 WALKING ABOUT

• Walking about depends a lot on where you are

presenting, being stuck to a lectern on a big
conference stage like you’re scared to the
audience and you need to hide behind something.
But you don’t want to go wandering and walk in
front of the screen and your content.
• Being able to walk and talk at the same
time shows you are confident for your
content and messages.
 WORK
• Unfortunately most people see presentations not as high on the
agenda as their daily work load. It’s almost more important, you
will be standing in front of tour peers which is a great
opportunity to make an impact for your career. You cannot hide
or brush over a poor presentation due to lack of time and
commitment, so make sure you’ve put the work in beforehand
and it will pay off.
 EXAMPLES

• Showing real world examples of what you are presenting

will only add weight and significance to your messages.
Displaying to the audience that your ideas have worked
before and been successful will instill confidence in you.
If it’s a new idea and hasn’t been proved previously, try
looking to an alternative industry, for example sport or
culture to show the potential of your messages.
 TEXT

• We have mentioned previously about your slide content

being there to support you and your delivery not to
remind you what to say. So many times we see a bundles
of text on screen, it’s not helpful for you in the long run,
and your audience are now reading that text and not
listening to you.
• Planning, storyboarding and creating your
presentation carefully will enable you to
deliver it without using the screen content as
a reminder and instead as a speaker support
to provide more impact for you.
 EXTRA HELP

• We have talk a lot about you working hard on

your presentation, but we all must know when we
need extra help. Here at pure presentations we do
just that. We are presentation specialists and can
help with every aspect of creating and delivery
your next presentation.
 YOU

• Your presentation and how good it can be is done

to one person, you. Take responsibility for it. If
time is short or your not sure how to create your
presentation, use professionals, they can see your
presentation from a different perspective but
ultimately you will be directing them.
 YODA
• The only person who is allowed to talk in riddles, when
presenting, it’s not a good idea. Make sure your
audience are completely clear on what your messages
are, if this is bad news to approach, do it with clarity and
honesty, this will be much more appreciated and
respected than if you try to avoid the issue and talk in
riddles.
 YES

• When asked to give a presentation, a lot of people

wince and think no, don’t. think yes! See it as an
opportunity to show a different set of skills, to
those you would use in your daily workload. By
talking a more positive approach from the start
you are sure to make a much better presentation.
 ZOOM

• We at pure presentation think of zoom we

think of Prezi, An alternative piece of
software to create presentations. We have
written a few bits about prezi and how it can
be used. Read them here.
 ZIP

• Think about the pace of your presentation, it’s not

best to labor on a single point. Allow enough time
for you to explain each messages and time for the
audience to follow. It’s a fine balance that if you
rehearse and practice in front of other you should
be able to judge correctly.
 ZING

• Being enthusiastic and passionate is crucial to

success of your presentation. Think of all the
people in music fashion and sport that are zealous
about their field and look how inspiring they and
how much people wan to listen to what they have
to say.