How do you know when someone needs PowerPoint training? It’s when the lights dim, the screen drops from the ceiling, and before you know it, you’re subject to a barrage of clashing, cramped, poorly designed slides. The monotonous voice overpowers you. You cower in your chair and can’t decide whether to cry or power nap. Either way, the presenter and his PowerPoint presentation make this experience cringeworthy. I mean, he’s really bad. But even worse: he’s not the only one who does this. Could this be you?
How does your audience take your presentation?
A rampant epidemic of shoddy presentation skills convulses our society. At best, many PowerPoint presentations leave their audiences bored, detached, and unengaged.
Here’s the problem: very few of us are paid to get in front of a room and just talk. The whole point of public speaking, especially to a captured audience, is to get them to do something…or do you really believe you’re just there to “provide information” or “create awareness”?
Yet, when you put together your presentations, you’re probably much more concerned with creating the easiest, safest presentation than giving the participants what they really want and what would move them to take action. How do I know? Let’s take a look at your results (take it from a coach, results are always the first place to check). Are you consistently getting an emotional response from your audience? Does your presentation deliver a call to action? Is your audience moved to act after your performance? How many take action? The answers to these questions gauge your effective presentation skills, whether or not you’re using PowerPoint.
What’s the solution?
Presentation Zen, a Garr Reynolds PowerPoint training handbook that far exceeds its humble goal of teaching people how to design effective slide decks. It’s for those looking to take their performance and their performance to the next level, which includes and is not limited to: establishing rapport with your audience, being emotionally engaging, communicating your message clearly, getting a buy-in, and conveying a call to action.
…Yes. All that out of a book on slide design.
And yet, why is a book on PowerPoint slide design so valuable? Because in its simple yet advanced PowerPoint training, Presentation Zen taps into basic principles of human emotional behavior. How do we find the balance between “not enough” and “too much”? How do we present ourselves and our message in a way that has people really listen to us? How do we instill a sense of inner peace in our work? That’s what this book is really about.
Bottom line: while Presentation Zen is ostensibly PowerPoint training material, it’s really a principled look at how to deliver your communication effectively, how to know when you’re done, and how to move your audience. If you depend on your communication and presentation skills to produce results, get this book! Doubly so if you use or think you will use slide presentation software.
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