The Mantra to Successful PowerPoint Slides

Your PowerPoint slides are only as good as the message you have to deliver. Without a strong message, slides are excess baggage.

One has to remember that a PowerPoint presentation is a visual aid for your message. To craft powerful PPT slides, first work on your message. 

Thanks to the ever so famous TED Talks where hundreds of speakers come together to deliver their best speech, the mantra of a successful talk is out in the open. Presenters from all fields are sharing valuable tips that can help other people to grow. The power of knowledge is being realized like never before.

Afterall “Power Is gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.”

So why are the speakers of these TED Talks considered to be an inspiration? What is the secret behind their successful presentation? Well according to the curator of TED talks Chris Anderson there are three main points that make or break a presentation- the vision behind the idea, the narrative and how passionate the speaker is.

Let's dive into the mantras of successful PowerPoint slides one by one:

1. Novelty-

Novelty aka uniqueness. 

“The novelty, and originality, in all senses, has its character, status, and own worth; it is unique.” 

Human Brain has been hard-wired to accept and respond to that information that is new, original and sort of unusual. According to a recent study on novelty, researchers found that novelty has a huge impact on one’s cognition, perception, action, motivation, exploratory behavior, and learning. 

Since the implications of novelty are many, every presenter should aim at delivering that kind of information which is new to their audience. Also, to create a successful presentation that is appreciated by the audience, the following questions should be aimed for- Why is your presentation different from that of others? Does your presentation contain enough novel information? In the case of no novel information, can the presenter state a fact or narrate a story to add novelty to the presentation? The accompanying PPT slides should reinforce this novel message in a large font so that the message is hard to miss. Keep 1 novel message per slide. 

2. Conviction- 

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”     

Conviction is a firm belief or persuasion. It is also referred to as the degree of your commitment to a particular thing. If the presenter is not firmly convicted to what he is presenting then neither it will be comprehended well by the audience nor it will be useful. It will actually fail at delivering the message what it aims to deliver.

Conviction is probably one of the many reasons that make some of the TED talks so popular such as that of Julian Treasure, Amy Cuddy etc. 

Therefore, a presenter should always be firmly convinced about what he is presenting to leave a powerful impact on his/ her audience's minds. The presentation slides should also be a strong assertion, not a weak hotch-potch of text upon text.

3. Communication- 

“Communication - the human connection - is the key to personal  and career success”  - Paul J. Meyer

Conviction is nothing if you don’t know how to communicate with your audience. A good orator is one who knows how to translate his thoughts into words so that his audience can understand them. Every speaker has their unique style of speaking which is basically USP of his presentation. You may have heard a highly energetic speaker who motivates you so much that you want to do what he is saying there and then. However, one should not confuse passion with energy. 

A conviction can be communicated in numerous ways. Some use their body language to communicate. Others stand upright while delivering their speech and use only their words to communicate not their actions. Whatever may be the style of the speaker he has to be convinced as well as be able to communicate his thoughts to his audience. PowerPoint slides are a communication tool. Create visual slides to communicate better as images resonate more with audiences than text. 

4. Perpetuity-

The oldest and perhaps the best way to make your content impactful is to tap into the recent trends. A presenter should be well aware of the recent trends. This technique is especially followed by marketing experts because they cannot advertise their company’s products without having a knowledge of what is trending in the industry. 

A good presenter should catch up with the recent trends and explain how his presentation is in line with those trends. So one should spend time in analyzing these trends before delivering a presentation. While designing PowerPoint slides, follow the latest design trends such as the use of icons, minimalism, bold colors, and so on.

5. Defined Perspective-

Every person perceives this world in his own way which is unique from that of others. So it is the speaker’s responsibility to help his audience see the topic, product, world from a particular perspective. 

Every person sitting in the audience comes to the presentation with a different perspective. Therefore, the speaker should be fully equipped to bring the audience in line with his own motives and thinking which he can accomplish using strong impactful imagery, sayings, emotions etc. If the presentation does not have a defined perspective then it can become very boring and somewhat confusing for the audience. 

Also Read: How To Make Your Images Pop Using 3D Effect in PowerPoint

Conclusion-

So the next time you are asked to deliver a presentation definitely opt for the three points mentioned by Chris Anderson. Analyze how worthy your idea is, use a powerful narrative and deliver a presentation with conviction. If one follows all these points then he is bound to make his presentation a huge success. 

SlideTeam being the largest provider of PowerPoint templates follow all these rules and before uploading any product on their site it gets reviewed multiple times by experts to deliver the best to its users. Visit SlideTeam to get roadmap PPT, timelines PPT, business PPT templates and many more.