We've got to talk about PowerPoint and visual aids during presentations and speeches. But folks, I like PowerPoint. I use PowerPoint all the time. So my best friends are PowerPoint. But let's get real here. Most PowerPoint presentations are really dull.

They're boring. They're excuses to put people to sleep, or to encourage them to check their Facebook feed because it's so darn boring. Now there are more than 6000 books about PowerPoint on Amazon. I've done entire courses on PowerPoint. I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about PowerPoint in just a few minutes, right here. For starters, if you're thinking of giving a PowerPoint presentation timeout right there.

You're not giving a PowerPoint presentation, you're giving your presentation, your ideas that you have to make come alive for your audience. The PowerPoint slides are just An extra. It's just an enhancement. The second you tell yourself, I'm giving a PowerPoint presentation for most people, it flips a switch, and they become boring robotic, incompetent speakers and presenter. Don't let that happen. My advice don't create the first slide until you've done some of the things we've already talked about in this course you've really identified in one sentence, the one thing you want your audience to do.

You've identified your five key ideas, messages to resonate with the audience. You have a story for each one of your message points, then only then should you think about having slides to back it up. Now here are the rules you need to follow. If you really want to be successful using PowerPoint rule number one, one idea per slide when you see three bullet points 10 bullet points. It just doesn't work. Folks.

I understand. That's how it's done your organization. You've seen other people do it. But there's no evidence that that helps people. Remember your ideas If you want notes. Remember, I gave you a solution on notes already have a single sheet of paper.

The PowerPoint slides are not for your notes. The next big rule is images, not text. Now, I love text. I've written half a dozen books, I like to read. I don't have any evidence that putting text on slides that you are projecting actually helps your audience remember it, and guess what? You don't have any audience.

Evidence that that works either. It's just got it's just that's how it's been done before. But you don't really have evidence of putting text up on the slide while you speak to the slide works. So if you want to be effective, put one Image per slide that doesn't have text on it. I know I know this sounds crazy isn't how you normally do it. You won't have lots of text, email that to people in advance, give it as a handout, but don't project it during your presentation.

Next, when you're speaking, let people look at you don't have a slide up. If you want people to look at the slide, put the slide up and close your mouth and let them look at it. One solution to that is if you hit the letter B on your keyboard, it will black out the screen if you want people to listen to you. Let them just look at you don't have anything up there. Any key whatsoever brings back the PowerPoint to where it was so you can be in complete control. Even if it's someone's bad PowerPoint, your boss just gave you a horrible PowerPoint.

So deliver this in five minutes. You can still control what people look at and when they look at it by using the letter B hitting it once blacks out the screen, hit any key whatsoever, it goes back and you can advance to the next screen. Here are the two rules you need to apply to every PowerPoint slide. Two questions need to ask, does this slide actually make my idea more understandable than me just saying it? And does this slide make my idea more memorable than me just saying, You can't say yes to both of those things. It is a horrible slide.

Do yourself a favor, do your audience a favor and throw it in the trashcan. I know that sounds harsh. But you know what else is harsh? Being in the middle of your presentation and you look around and everyone in the audience is doing this. I'm trying to help you avoid that harsh reality. And just because you can use PowerPoint doesn't mean that's always the most effective.

Give visual aid. Someone like Steve Jobs had unlimited budgets for presentations known as a great presenter. He used the apple version of PowerPoint, keynote. But he didn't rely on that exclusively when he wanted to unveil a brand new laptop that was extraordinarily thin. He didn't just put up a slide and put the statistics of how wide it was. He did what he did.

He walked over to a table, picked up an envelope. He said, how thin is this new laptop, he picked up an envelope, reached in and pulled the laptop out of the envelope. It was such a powerful message, because it was a powerful image. Wow, this laptop is so thin it goes right into an envelope. That's much more powerful than just writing the facts and the specs on a slide and quickly going through the numbers. So remember You can use props.

What does this cost Steve Jobs 20 cents. So, look around you and ask yourself, What tools do you have? What images do you have? What things in real life do you have that will make your ideas come alive for your audience? If you're just looking for the poor man's the poor woman's teleprompter, you are not looking in the right place. There's nothing like a good old fashioned piece of paper if you just need notes for what you want to say.