Key Management Skills: PowerPoint Presentation Skills and How to Learn Them

Posted on 07/01/2019 by Niko Venev

The uses for PowerPoint presentations are limitless, and they can cover all manner of topics, from business financials to management skills. PowerPoint presentation effectiveness can often hinge on your ability to deliver clear and beneficial information to your audience. It can also depend on using PowerPoint in innovative and intuitive ways that instantly connect with viewers.


       

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How Do You Do a PowerPoint Presentation for a Business?

There are several ways to do a PowerPoint presentation, but many of the skills taught in a PowerPoint presentation skills course focus on creating a winning structure and meeting the goal of your presentation. Typically, you’ll want to plan out your presentation so that the structure flows and is easy to follow. A PowerPoint presentation skills course will teach you how to choose the right design and organize information using PowerPoint’s tools.

When designing your presentation, underscore the benefit of your information to the audience. In some ways, a PowerPoint presentation is like a sales tool: The ultimate goal can be to convert the audience to your way of thinking or manner of doing things. It’s important to remind the audience why they should listen to you and assimilate the information that you’re presenting. Create your presentation to inspire discussion: Get people talking and excited. To ensure that your presentation connects with your audience, include a call to action at the end.

Remember that if you don’t have advanced PowerPoint skills, you can find effective presentations and study them for ideas. Basic skills don’t have to translate to a boring presentation!

 

How Do I Create an Effective PowerPoint Presentation?

It’s often effective to start your presentation with a summary of the bottom line. Beginning your presentation with the point of your whole presentation can allow the audience to better focus on and understand the details that follow. This can give your entire presentation context and better keep an audience’s attention.

Focus your presentation around one major concept or idea. PowerPoint presentations are by nature succinct. Avoid trying to cover several different topics at once. For example, if you’re involved in management, you can center your presentation around relevant issues like employee productivity, team-building, or management skills. PowerPoint presentation effectiveness is often tied to how clearly a presenter focuses the presentation and ties in the details.

Use visuals to your advantage. Without eye-catching images, your presentation may be little more than a speech. Pique interest with an interesting cover slide, use relevant images, and incorporate graphs and charts that showcase relevant data. Making your own detailed images can require some advanced Microsoft PowerPoint skills, but it can be well worth it if they help your presentations connect with more audience members.

When in doubt, use a clean design. A clean business PowerPoint presentation design will force you to choose your words and images carefully, and it will also train your audience’s eyes to focus on important concepts and images. “Clean” doesn’t have to be boring, however: Experiment with font colors other than black and different text orientations to make your presentation more visually appealing. Remember to choose colors that contrast with each other for easy readability.

 

How Can I Improve My PowerPoint Skills?

One of the easiest ways to improve PowerPoint skills is to start by understanding your audience, including who they are and what they want to learn. Find out who you will be speaking to and talk to them in their own language, building upon the knowledge that they already have.

Practice your presentation. Rehearse it so that you know it backward and forward. Keep your points short, concise, and evidence-based.

Take advantage of the tools that the program offers. For instance, the Presenter View is a convenient tool that streamlines your tasks while doing a live presentation. When you use it, you’ll be able to orient yourself during a presentation by accessing personal notes, watching timers, or viewing the next slides.

Of course, it’s hard to create an effective PowerPoint presentation if you’re not comfortable using the software. If you need PowerPoint training to get your skills up to par, we can help: At Certstaffix Training, we offer live, hands-on courses that can help you create and deliver a winning presentation. Whether you plan on presenting in front of a small-business owner or a corporate board, our classes will give you the tools that you need to make your point with power!

 

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Related Microsoft PowerPoint Posts:

Public instructor-led Microsoft PowerPoint course prices start at $295 per student. Group training discounts are available.

Self-Paced Microsoft PowerPoint eLearning courses cost $150 at the starting point per student. Group purchase discounts are available.







Related Presentation Skills Posts:

Self-Paced Presentation Skills eLearning courses cost $475 at the starting point per student. Group purchase discounts are available.







 

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