How to Prepare PowerPoint Presentations – 10 top tips

Do you know how to prepare PowerPoint presentations? Do you know how to make a great PowerPoint presentation? What PowerPoint presentation skills do you need?

Meet the Author: Benjamin Ball

Ben is the founder of Benjamin Ball Associates and leads the presentation coaching and pitch deck creation teams. Formerly a corporate financier in the City of London, for 20+ years he’s helped businesses win with better pitches and presentations, particularly investor pitches. He is a regular speaker and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and UCL London.  Follow Ben on LinkedIn or visit the contact page. 

PowerPoint presentations can be great. 

Or they can be awful. We all know what Death by PowerPoint feels like. But, how do you prepare PowerPoint presentations and make a great presentation?

If you want outstanding PowerPoint presentations, you may need to re-think how you prepare them.

If your presentations starts something like:

• “Hello, my name is John Smith and I am here today to talk about…..”
• If you find yourself wasting hours playing with PowerPoint….
• If you are continually editing and re-editing your presentations….
• If you feel you struggle narrating slides….
• If you don’t feel confident giving presentations…

…then follow these simple rules for better PowerPoint presentations.  You’ll learn how to make much more effective presentations and you will build your presentation making skills. You can learn how we help create a PowerPoint presentation pitch decks for investors.

If you really want to prepare a great presentation, you need to start your journey in the right way.  That means…..

1. Do NOT open PowerPoint

How do you prepare PowerPoint presentations now?  

This what most people do to create a presentation in PowerPoint:

1.     Switch on their computer
2.     Open up PowerPoint
3.     Search out other presentations given recently
4.     Start making changes to PowerPoint slides
5.     Print out the first batch of slides
6.     Scribble all over them
7.     Re-edit these slides
8.     Keep on at the slides until late at night
9. Save your presentation
10.     Work at it over the weekend
11.     Give it to a colleague to look at
12.     Incorporate those comments
13.     Work until late at night again
14.     Rehearse in the taxi on the way to the meeting

That is why so many presentations are deathly boring.  Today you will learn the steps to create a PowerPoint presentation.

PowerPoint is NOT a planning tool.  You should only use PowerPoint at the end of your presentation planning process.  Resist the temptation to open your PPT programme until you know exactly what you are writing.

2. Be clear on who your audience is and what you want to achieve.

Before you write anything, think about your presentation audience.  Why are they coming?  What do they want to hear? What’s the most important thing they want from your presentation? How busy are they?  What will get them excited?  What will bore them? 

Next write down exactly what you want to achieve with your presentation.  A presentation is never ‘to tell people about…’. That’s not a goal.  Your goal might be something like:

• My presentation will reassure that we are on track
• My presentation will convince them to increase my budget
• My presentation will make me look like a potential head of department

The key issue here is that if you clearly understand your audience and you have a clear goal, that means you have been thinking hard about your presentation, and you haven’t wasted any time playing with PowerPoint.

3.  Have a single message that summarises your presentation

Imagine your boss has missed your presentation.  He asks his colleague, who was there, ‘What did she say?’  If the answer is ‘She updated us on quarterly results’, then your presentation failed The TakeAway Test.  If they answer “She said we were on budget and everything is fine for next year” then you have passed The TakeAway Test. 

Working out the single message you want your presentation to get across is one of the hardest parts of preparing a good PowerPoint presentation.  In some cases, you can use this single message as the title of your presentation.

---

Why Pick Benjamin Ball Associates for Your Coaching

At Benjamin Ball Associates, we’ve been coaching business people to improve their business communication skills for over 15 years.  Our coaching is fast and effective.  We work with individuals and with companies, one-to-one and in groups.  Call us today to learn more.

“I honestly thought it was the most valuable 3 hours I’ve spent with anyone in a long time.”

Mick May, CEO, Blue Sky

Our most popular training courses include:

• Presentation Coaching
• Public Speaking Coaching
• Investor Pitch Support and Coaching

Trusted by some of the most successful companies globally

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email info@benjaminball.com to transform your speeches, pitches and presentations.

Speak to an expert. Get a free consultation

---

4.  Break your presentation into clear parts

A bad presentation is like a shopping list. A good presentation is like a recipe.

A bad presentation looks like:

• Table of contents
• Topic1
• Topic 2
• Topic 3
• Topic 4
• Topic 5
• Thank you

A good presentation is completely different:

A good PowerPoint presentation has a clear structure and each part of the presentation has a role to play to help your audience.  The structure that people learn when we coach them in our presentation coaching sessions looks like:

• Introduction
• Main message
• Key messages summary
• Message 1
• Message 2
• Message 3
• Recap
• Conclusion

This is probably one of the most powerful and common business presentation structures.  It is highly effective and easy to implement. 

Use a good presentation structure and you’ll make it easier for you and easier for your audience.

5. Work out what questions you could be asked

Ask yourself early on, what questions will the audience have? What answers do they want?  If you understand your audience properly (Step 2) then you can give them the information they want from your presentation. 

In which case, you can then make sure that all these questions are answered in your presentation. 

6. Decide whether you need visual aids, handouts or none of these

When you work in PowerPoint, are you clear what you are producing?  Is it a handout, visual aids or your speaker’s notes? These three documents are as different as a book, a film and a film script. Too often, we see handouts projected on a screen, or what should be speaker notes printed and distributed.

• If you are creating visual aids to accompany your talk, make sure they really are Visual Aids – something that reinforces what you say and helps the listener understand.

If Your job as a presenter is to make it easy for your audience. A good slide is simple to interpret. That means using a clear hierarchy of information on the page. Lay out your messages, headings, evidence and facts in a logical way. Don’t make your audience think.  Don’t make them read too much.  If you can make it simpler, then do so

• If you are creating a handout with your PowerPoint presentation, then make it self-sufficient.  It should be like a newspaper.  Strong headlines; strong subheading. Simple charts that are easy to interpret.
• Here’s an example of a good visual aid.

Speak to an expert. Get a free consultation

7. Write a powerful headline on every page

Whether you are creating Visual Aids or a handout, the quality of your headlines will distinguish a weak presentation from a great presentation.  When you make your presentation, write down the headlines of each slide.

A bad set of headlines will look like:

• Introduction
• Contents
• The Problem
• Our Solution
• What we do next

A good set of headlines will look like:

• How to make a powerful PowerPoint presentation
• Avoid the mistakes that others make
• Use strong headlines on every page
• The add strong sub- headlines on every page
• Flick through your headlines and check you are telling the full story

By taking this message-first approach, you’ll create more powerful and more commanding presentations.  And you will look more impressive because you have made life easier for your audience.

And to make it easy for you, start these headlines in a Word document, not in PowerPoint.  In that way, you can see the full narrative and edit it easily until you are sure your presentation is telling the story that you want.

Once complete, you can open PowerPoint and transfer the titles to each page.

8. Minimise the text and the bullet points on your visual aids

The default PowerPoint approach, with lines of text and bullet points, usually means you are making your audience work too hard.  Instead, you should be making visual aids that always make it easier for your audience.

Never create slides like this:

This means, writing each page so that it has a 3-part structure

1. Your headline, with the message in it
2. Sub-headlines, which add more useful information
3. Proof points, extra information that back up your headlines

Remember how the human brain works. People cannot both read and listen at the same time. If given a choice, they will read, not listen.  Then, when they tune in, they will hear you saying things they have just read. This means you, as the presenter, thinking through how you should help the audience absorb information.

A bad presentation looks like:

A good presentation looks like

9. Use clear simple language throughout

The real art of presenting is to talk about complex thing in simple ways. 

This means you should use the simplest language possible so that it’s easy for your audience to interpret.  One little-understood fact is that the most sophisticated presenters who speak about the most complex subjects, do so using the simplest possible words.

As Einstein said:

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

10. Practise, practise, practise

How to prepare PowerPoint presentations? All the things discussed here need hard work to get right.  You’ll find it hard to make great PowerPoint presentations just by reading a blog article.  You now need to implement these ideas.  After all, nobody becomes a great chef just by reading cookery books.

The good news we can help.  We’ve been coaching presentation skills for business leaders for over 15 years.  We help with messaging, writing and designing compelling PowerPoint presentations. We’d be delighted to help you too.

For more information and a free consultation, contact our customer services director Louise Angus today on 020 7018 0922 or click the link below. 

Speak to an expert. Get a free consultation

Why Choose Us:
Transform your pitches and presentations with tailored coaching

We can help you present brilliantly. Thousands of people have benefitted from our tailored in-house coaching and advice – and we can help you too.

“I honestly thought it was the most valuable 3 hours I’ve spent with anyone in a long time.”

Mick May, CEO, Blue Sky

For 15+ years we’ve been the trusted choice for leading businesses and executives throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East. We’ll help you improve corporate presentations through presentation coaching, public speaking training and expert advice on pitching to investors.

Some recent clients

Unlock your full potential and take your presentations to the next level.

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email info@benjaminball.com to transform your speeches, pitches and presentations.

Speak to an expert. Get a free consultation

Read our Ultimate Guide to Business Presentations