In three hours, learn 25 ways you can communicate more effectively when presenting with PowerPoint

You are busy like every professional is.  You’d like to improve your presentations, but you don’t have time to take a two or three day course.  You have to use PowerPoint in your presentations, but no one has given you formal training on the software, you’ve just figured it out on your own.  You’d like some practical tips you can use to be a more effective presenter.

I’m here to offer you an opportunity to invest just three hours and less than a hundred dollars to make a significant impact in the presentations you create and deliver.  My name is Dave Paradi and I am one of North America’s acknowledged experts in this area.  And I am coming to a number of cities with a concentrated learning session that will improve your presentations immediately.

If you aren’t familiar with me, my book, The Visual Slide Revolution, was named as one of the Top 10 Business Books of 2008 by Canada’s leading national business newspaper.  I have presented keynotes at two PowerPoint Live conferences, I have spoken all over North America and I consulted on a presentation used to brief one of President Obama’s cabinet ministers.  You won’t be hearing from a techie who has never walked in your shoes.  I make my living presenting, so you know I’ve tested these ideas in my own presentations and they will work.

The session runs for three hours, so you are out of the office or off the road for only a half-day.  There won’t be piles of work waiting for you when you get back like there would be if you attended a multi-day course.  But how much can we really cover in three hours?  Plenty!  In fact, I’ll cover 25 specific ideas that you can use right away.  How many multi-day courses are packed with that much useable information?

Example of slide makeover
I’ll be covering ideas for both creating and delivering PowerPoint presentations, so it doesn’t matter if you are primarily involved in only one of those two activities.  If you usually just create slides, you’ll better see how what you create impacts the delivery of the slides.  If you primarily just deliver slides, you’ll see what is possible and you can help your colleagues create slides that will make your delivery more effective.  By seeing both perspectives, you will be able to better work with others on your team who are involved in creating and delivering presentations.  You’ll be more valuable with a more strategic perspective.

Here’s a sample of a few of the ideas that we’ll cover:

  • What multi-presenter presentations can learn from the Olympic torch relay
  • Why asking “How many slides should I have?” is the wrong question
  • How to make sure your color and font choices enable your audience to clearly see everything on your slides
  • How to reduce the size of your PowerPoint file so you can e-mail it without blowing up the e-mail server (IT people will appreciate this one!)
  • What you can do to make screen captures readable from the back of the room
  • Involve your audience by capturing their input during the presentation and create documents or calculations that are tailored just to them
  • Why you should stop using a laser pointer
  • How you can draw on the slide to emphasize a point
  • The US government has a large inventory of amazing photos that you can use for free, I’ll show you where to find them

Concerned that we’ll be focusing on high-design big stage presentations that aren’t the type you have to do day in and day out?  Don’t worry.  The focus of my ideas is on helping regular presenters like yourself who deal with the important business messages of every day.  These tips will help presenters who deal with sales, operations, HR, technical, marketing, financial and project presentations - and just about every other type of presentations that business professionals normally deliver.  These are practical ideas that have helped many presenters just like you.  They are proven in the field, not some theory or wild unproven ideas.

You’ll receive a handout that has a summary of every tip we’ll be covering.  That way, you don’t have to spend energy copying down everything I say.  You’ll have space on the handout to take note of how you see these ideas applying to the presentations you are working on.  By the time we are done, you’ll have an action plan to take back to the office with specific ways that you are going to improve your next presentation.

I build in time during the session for your questions and discussion.  You’ll have a chance to ask me how an idea could apply in your specific situation.  Or ask me how to go about implementing an idea in the environment you work in.  You will leave knowing how to apply what you’ve heard to the specific type of presentations you create and deliver.

Here’s what some attendees in previous sessions said about the session:

“Tons of great ideas I can use to make presentations more interesting, effective, and audience oriented.”
Christy, Builders Association
“I am taking actionable strategies back to the office.  I am excited to apply what I have learned, which will in turn, help our clients better understand the concepts we are coaching.”
Shannon, Business Operations Manager, Sales Training Co.
“Reinforces for me the power of visual impressions over text and how important it is to think about presenting a message that is clear, not cool.  I will definitely incorporate all of your tips into my presentations.  Thanks for a very informative and useful session.”
Catharine, Equipment manufacturer
“I have a much greater appreciation for the need to cast a critical gaze on what I put in a presentation, and am equipped with a vast number of tools to make presentations more effective.”
Daniel, Senior Analyst, Strategic Policy & Planning, Law enforcement

If you are wondering whether these ideas will apply in the version of PowerPoint you use, have no concerns.  Everything you see me do and each example is done in plain vanilla PowerPoint 2003.  The ideas apply no matter what version of PowerPoint you are using.  And I don’t use any add-ins or plug-ins.  That’s important because if you see me do something, you know that it isn’t because I have some fancy software plug-in that you need to buy or can’t install.  Whatever I show you, you can do in your own presentations.  

I don’t use any Photoshop or graphics packages to create the visuals you see.  You don’t need to learn graphic design or struggle with some fancy software in order to create the graphs, diagrams and other visuals I’ll demonstrate.  I only use PowerPoint as it comes out of the box since that’s probably all you’ll have time to use in your busy schedule.  Now that means I won’t be showing you mind-blowing graphics and fancy video segments.  But if you wanted that, you’d probably go attend a multi-week graphic artist course.  I’ll be showing you practical ways to get more from the software you already use.

This is not a technical training class, so you don’t need to bring a laptop and we’ll be in a regular meeting room, not a computer training class.  You don’t have to pass a technical test to attend and as long as you are familiar with PowerPoint, you’ll get valuable ideas you can use.  And as I said before, no matter what version of PowerPoint you use, the ideas can be applied to your own presentations.

When I decided on the locations for the sessions, I picked sites that are outside the downtown core of the city so you don’t have to fight traffic to get there in the morning.  The locations are usually very easy to access from a major highway, meaning if you are travelling from out of town, you won’t have trouble finding the building.  Another benefit of the locations I’ve selected is that almost all have free parking, meaning one less expense for you.

I know that many of you are living in the new reality of reduced training budgets.  Employees are paying for their own professional development.  I’ve paid for my own courses and conferences for over ten years, so I know how it feels.  You’ll see other courses listed for many hundreds of dollars per day.  That may have been OK in the past, but not in today’s economy.  So I’m going to give you a great deal on this half-day program packed with practical ideas that you can apply immediately.  

I’m charging just $99 for the session.  That’s right, under a hundred dollars.  Am I nuts?  Maybe.  But you are the one who benefits.  Select the location closest to you and register today.  You can see the list of cities I’ll be coming to below, but if one isn’t close to you, e-mail me and if there is enough interest, I’ll add it to the schedule.