I’ve ranted about PowerPoint presentations before. A good few other folk bang on about them as well. But the message still isn’t getting through to many presenters. PowerPoint is the most effective tool ever invented to kill a performance stone dead. Note the use of the word ‘performance’. I have seen communication defined as ‘the transfer of emotion’. So just think about your next presentation. How will you transfer the emotion, the passion you have for your subject, to the audience? By the way, if you aren’t passionate about your subject, why are you going to talk about it? Get someone else to do it. Or just don’t bother.

What are you trying to achieve? Are you selling something? A product, service or an idea? Perhaps you are trying to recruit people to your cause. Or trying to persuade the Dragons in their den to invest in your business. Or perhaps you want to tell people about your solo voyage around the world. Whatever it is, surely you want to excite them not send them to sleep? Of course, if you are trying to sell something or are seeking investment or permission to do something, it is likely that you’ll want to present some facts. But these should be to help the audience to rationalize their decision. Facts alone won’t be sufficient. Or if they are, why do you need to make the presentation?

OK, so we need to put on a passionate performance that arouses the emotions of the listeners so that they are persuaded to our point of view in their hearts and we are going to appeal to their heads with a few powerfully presented facts. That is, the really, really important facts; the ones that will make them sit up and take notice.

There are five times more bacteria on the average desk than on the average toilet seat.

There, I bet that got your attention … especially if you happened to be eating your sandwiches off your desk at the time!

The reason for this startling fact is that we tend to clean our toilets rather more frequently than our desks. So it would be a great one-liner for someone pitching for an office cleaning contract. Just imagine two companies pitching for the business. One has dozens of PowerPoint slides and goes on for ages about how they started in a garden shed and now have a multi-branch operation in half a dozen towns around the West Midlands … and on and on. Are you asleep yet? The other business says nothing but puts up one slide with that single sentence. And then waits for the questions to start. Which do you think is more likely to get the business, all other aspects being equal?

I hope you noted that the presenter said nothing when the slide went up. It is a reasonable bet the audience will be able to read it, so let them do so. Never, ever read what is on a slide. If you want to talk, put up images that are relevant to what you are saying, that add to the impact or the understanding of your point.

You are trying to make an impact, to communicate your passion for what you do. Keep it simple and allow the emotion to come through.