Your Presentation Best

  People often say to me:  "I Know presentation is important, but I just don't have the time to prepare it like I should." I always say, "Well, it's your choice.  But if the presentation is important enough to do, it's important enough to do right." Often times, we don't have enough time because we let our time be stolen by non-core stuff or poeple. If you think of your typical work day, how much time do you spend doing non-core stuff  or meeting with non-core people?  Useless meetings or e-mails, etc. seem to be common problems at all of the organisations where I work.  And we're talking about world-class organisations.   That this problem is so common means that it is a human problem.   But the solution is staightforward:  spend your time doing the things and meeting with the people that are essential for you and your core tasks and priorities.   Only you can do this.  No one is going to do it for you. The sooner you gain contr

     The More You Sweat in Training, The Less You Bleed in Battle This is the motto of the Navy SEALS.   And it is relevant to ANY skill.   Presentation is a skill like any other.   If you invest the time and energy and do the hard work it takes to get better,  you will get better.  If you don't, you won't.  That's it.  It's your choice.

The PowerPoint Slide from Hell Wanna Kill Your Audience?  Make Your Slides Complex Almost every time I do a presentation workshop or one-to-one coaching, I am amazed how stressed-out presenting complex and/or very detailed PowerPoint slides make my clients. Actually, I'm not really amazed, because complex and/or very detailed slides would make just about any presenter stressed-out.  What amazes me is how often presenters use PowerPoint in a way that makes it basically impossible to use in an easy, comfortable way--for themselves and the audience. The more stuff you have on your slides, the more difficult and stressful it is to present.   The less stuff on your slide, the easier and less stressful. It's that simple. So, the take-away is:  if you want to lower your presentation stress, make sure your slides are as simple as possible.  Use visually oriented slides and minimal text.   A headline is often enough. Your job as the presenter is to then tell the sto