Power Point do's & don'ts

      I have heard all kinds of things about power point and the wright or wrong way to do things. From my experience the power point isn't the emphasis or focal point in you're training it's you, the trainer. Now, Im not saying scrap your power point and stand up there and throw up information on your audience.  What I am saying is use your power point to complement what you training on. The power point is great visual to assist you to drive home a particular point. The power point can also be used to captivate your audience with a video or picture but should never be the training itself. A few other bits of advices when creating a power point for a training. Less is more, what I mean by this is if you have a power point slide crammed with pictures, text and animation all in different colors, sizes & fonts you will automatically help your audience turn on the Zzzzzzzzzz and at that point let the bobble heads begin. So, to avoid this from happening be consistent with your power point and use the same fonts colors and sizes. I also mentioned animations when describing less is more. Animations are cool but to many animations can really create problems for trainers. Imagine this, you have 3 hours to get through 400 slides and effectively train your retailer to help move the needle but you have added animations to EVER SLIDE. By doing this you have added 5 clicks on ever slide which increased your presentation time by 45mins. So your 3hr training just turned into a 3hr 45min training and you won't have the time to get to the entire training which will affect you're training trough put. NOT GOOD!


      Another thing that will lose an audience quicker than anything is for you to stand in front of your audience and read every power point slide word for word. You're not a parrot and Im sure your audience didn't come to see you read for 3hrs. By not reading the slides and understanding your material will allow you to interact with your audience and not turn your back on them to read the slides. I will leave you with this, the slides are there to compliment what you're saying. So, be confident, stand up there and tell the story, be animated and use your power point to help drive your points home!