Presentation Skills for

Business Managers
The New Rules of Presentations

Presentation
A

visual and aural event intended to

communicate, for the purposes of providing
information, helping to understand, gaining
agreement, and/or motivating to act.

Content, Design, and Delivery

Design is the architecture of the slides and the

graphic-cal enhancements.
Delivery is how you voice your message.
Content includes the research and organization of

materials
To make the presentation great, there must be

synergy of these three elements.

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The Process
First, you must create your content.
Then, you must design for that content.
Finally, you must develop your delivery strategy

and style.

The Situation
Purpose

People
Point
Place

Using Humor
HELPS YOU CONNECT WITH THE AUDIENCE.

MAKES YOU MORE LIKEABLE.

AROUSES INTEREST.
KEEPS ATTENTION.

Using Humor
HELPS EMPHASIZE POINTS AND IDEAS.

DISARMS HOSTILITY.

OVERCOMES OVERLY FLATTERING

INTRODUCTIONS.
GETS YOUR POINT ACROSS WITHOUT
CREATING HOSTILITY.
HELPS RELATE FACTS AND FIGURES.

Using Humor
MAKES A POSITIVE IMPRESSION.

SHOWS THAT YOU DON'T TAKE YOURSELF

TOO SERIOUSLY.
HELPS PAINT PICTURES IN THE AUDIENCE'S
MIND.

MAKES INFORMATION MORE MEMORABLE.

LIGHTENS UP HEAVY MATERIAL.

Be Funny

Image by Kathy Sierra, via Creating Passionate Users Blog

Using Humor
YOU WILL BE ASKED BACK.
YOU WILL GET HIGHER EVALUATIONS OR
MORE SALES.
YOU WILL MAKE MORE MONEY.
YOU WILL MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY

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Timing
Timing is one of the most important aspects of

humor and NOZZZZZs presenting. Not only is

timing involved in an individual piece of humor, it
is also involved in the placement of that piece of
humor in the overall presentation.
Timing is also involved in spontaneous reactions
to "expected unexpected developments during
the presentation.

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Timing
Jack Benny said, "Timing is not so much knowing

when to speak, but knowing when to pause.

In joke telling, a pause just before and just after
your punch line gives the audience a chance to
laugh.
Absolutely do not continue to talk when laughter
is expected. Laughter is hard to
get and easy to discourage.

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Timing
Hold eye contact a little bit longer than you think

you should when delivering punch lines because

time is hard to judge when you are pumped-up for
a presentation.

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Time of day and Humor

The first speaker of the day for an early morning

(7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) program should not

expect hearty laughter. People are
not conditioned to laugh a great deal in the early
morning.
Many won't even be awake yet. Use more
information and less humor

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Time of day and Humor

It's important for you to know when NOT to

expect hearty laughter. It would be a waste of

time to use your best material at a time when
laughter normally wouldn't be expected.

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A Sound, Sound System

A humorous presentation demands a better

sound system than a serious talk. In a serious

talk, words can be missed and the main
message can still be very clear. In humor it
doesn't work that way. If key words are missed in
a joke or story, it will ruin the
humor. No one will laugh and you will look like a
giant goober.

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Closings
You must put as much time into selecting and

practicing your closing as you put into any other

part of your presentation. Just like your
opening, your closing does not have to be
humorous.
It could be motivational, challenging, thoughtful,
respectful of the length
of the presentation, or it could restate your point
in a different way.

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Closings
you could end with a touching story or quotation

that leaves the audience thoughtful and quiet.

Even the most serious subjects can
benefit from humor, but the humor should be
sprinkled throughout the body of the presentation.
Don't put it at the end because closings are

powerful and the audience will think your overall

attitude toward the subject is flippant.

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Know More than

You Show
Its not hard to know a lot of stuff; whats hard is

to know what stuff to share.

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Rating Presentations
Heres how Rick Altman rates presentations (The Tyranny

of Presentation Software)
Best Presentation: Truly excellent speaker, great ideas, and
slides that amplify on the points made, instead of repeating
them.

Very Good: Truly excellent speaker, great ideas, and no

slides.

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Rating Presentations
Still OK: Excellent speaker, redundant slides that dont add

anything.
Not So Good: Bad speaker, good slides.
Pretty Bad: Bad speaker, no slides.
The Worst: Bad speaker, redundant slides.
As you prepare a presentation, imagine your audience

rating you by this scale. How would you score?

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ISSUES IN POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS

1) What is your past training using PowerPoint (or

Apple Keynote)?

2) Based on your experience at work or school, what

are the traditional rules for using PPT?

Slide Design
Bullets
Remember!
PowerPoint is an on-line medium.

Fonts
Colors

Hierarchy and contrast

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Golden Rules of PowerPoint

Presentations
A good PowerPoint presentation aims to

change behavior.
PowerPoint is on-line, highly visual,
multimedia.

Golden Rules for PowerPoint Presentations

February 6, 2003

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Golden Rules of PowerPoint

Presentations
Fit content to goal,

objectives, audience,
timeframe
Strong opening and
closing
Distribute content well
across slides
Consistent, visually
pleasing design
Fit font(s), color scheme
to subject, audience

No more than 1 serif and

1 sans serif font

Complementary colors,
good contrast
Graphics to enhance text,
add eye candy
Animation to convey flow,
dynamics
Multimedia sparingly, to
add pizazz
February 6, 2003

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New Rules of
Presentations
1) Design Right-Brained Slides.

2) Tell Stories.
3) Use Pictures.
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Great
Book!

Rule #1
Design Right-Brain Slides

NOT TEXT BASED

GOOD IN DESIGN

Read Me!

Photo: Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette

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Rule #2 Tell Stories

Rule #3
Use Pictures

Vision
trumps all
other
senses.

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Rule #10: Vision trumps all other

senses.

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Show Faces

Find Beauty

Dramatize

Downsized

Use Surprise

Use a
Metaphorical
of the
Image
world

2%

owns

50% of the wealth.

The
The poorest
poorest

50%
50% ofof the
the world
world

owns
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1% of the wealth.

Understanding
Titles -Write informative titles that tell your

audience the importance of the slide within three

seconds.
Illustrate information with charts, comparison
tables, and/or pictures.
Call Attention Use arrows or symbols that draw
attention to the important part of the chart or
diagram.

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