| ******************************************************************* Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip Issue #153 February 19, 2008 Published & Copyright by Dave Paradi of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com Circulation 8,533 ******************************************************************* Please forward this newsletter to executives and professionals who want to create PowerPoint presentations that sell their ideas, products or services more effectively. If this newsletter has been sent to you by a friend, sign up to get your own copy at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/newsletter.htm . ******************************************************************* In this issue: Web based presentation recommendation PowerPoint Tip - Radio station WIMTT Best of the Blog - Skipping ahead Dave's Travel Schedule ******************************************************************* Web based presentation recommendation Recently I delivered web based training for the local chapter treasurers of a national association. It was a combination of some slides and a tour of a form on a web site. None of us were in the same city but it was just as effective as if we had spent a ton of money to fly everyone in for the session. I used my subscription to the GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar service. If you have to deliver presentations to people who are scattered geographically and you want to cut down on the time and expense of travel, look into this option. Check it out at http://snipurl.com/webinarhost . ------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerPoint Tip: Radio station WIMTT Have you been listening to radio station WIMTT lately? What? You aren't familiar with that station? Worried that it doesn't broadcast in your local area? Well it is available in every local radio market in the world and it is the single most important station for presenters to listen to. The programming is key to effective presentations, but far too many presenters ignore the valuable content it provides. What is station WIMTT? It is a radio station you don't listen to with a traditional or satellite radio. It is a station you listen to with the radio in your head. The call letters WIMTT stand for "What It Means To Them". The focus of your presentation is the audience, and if you aren't listening to their needs and desires, your presentations will fail. Don't spend your time thinking of what you want to say, spend your energy thinking of what your points mean to the audience. Look at things from their point of view, not your own. Excited about a feature of your product? They don't care. What they want to know is what benefit they will get from that feature. Jazzed to tell the audience all the background data you've worked so hard to prepare? Sorry, they don't care. They want to know what it means to them and the key decisions they will need to make. Too often presenters fall into the trap of thinking that just because they feel the data or information is important, so will the audience. This leads to presentations that end up being nothing more than a deluge of data that the audience has no hope in figuring out. And if you are presenting to decision makers, they certainly won't be making the decision you are hoping for. Next time you sit down to create a presentation, tune your mental radio to station WIMTT. You'll end up with a presentation that is far more effective and your audience will appreciate it. If you are relatively new to presenting, this tip is one that will cause you to rethink the approaches you might have observed from others. Once you have developed your key messages based on what the audience will want to hear, the next step is to create PowerPoint slides for your presentation. My book "Guide to PowerPoint" will help you create effective slides with both design and "how to" guidance. Check it out at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/guidetoppt.htm . ------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of the Blog - Skipping ahead I was on the road last week presenting and am heading to the airport again this morning, but thought I'd share a tip that helped me last week. I was doing a new custom program for a client and wasn't sure of the amount of material that I needed. It really depended on how much discussion the group wanted to get in to. So I added an exercise close to the end that I could use if we looked like we were going to end too early. But on my speaking notes, I wrote down that if I wanted to skip the exercise, I needed to go to slide 96. Sure enough, we didn't need that exercise, so on the previous slide, I typed "9", "6", and hit the "Enter" key on my keyboard. Skipped right over the exercise without the audience even knowing it. This is a technique that all presenters should know about. To advance to any slide in your file, type in the slide number and press the Enter key. It instantly jumps to that slide. Use this to skip sections or jump to a special slide you have prepared to answer a question that you anticipated would come up. It is so much better than advancing through slides you want to skip as the audience watches information they are missing whip by. Make sure you have the slide numbers written down to do this and you will look like a pro every time. Other recent blog posts at http://pptideas.blogspot.com : ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave's Travel Schedule I work with business people who struggle with the effectiveness of the PowerPoint presentations they use to sell ideas, products and services to other business people. My research based PowerPoint Presentation Effectiveness System helps my clients achieve greater productivity and deliver presentations that close more sales. You can save money by booking me to speak to your organization or conference when I am close to your area for other clients. Here's where I will be in the next few months: February 23 - Las Vegas, NV February 25 - Chicago, IL February 29 - West Palm Beach, FL March 1 - Jacksonville/Sawgrass, FL March 3 - Orlando, FL March 4 - Tampa, FL March 13-14 - Sandusky, OH March 29 - Grand Rapids, MI April 4 - Toronto, ON (tentative) May 9 - Ottawa, ON August 1-5 - New York City September 26 - Cincinnati, OH E-mail me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com to discuss how my Think Outside The Slide(tm) sessions can help your organization be more productive and improve communication throughout the organization. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy Policy: I will never sell or distribute your e-mail or information to anyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Need articles for your newsletter? 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