Would you ever do this with a Tuesday Tip…?
Gather your team in a room, and make them sit there, while you read it out loud to them?
Nope.
That’d just be weird.
And something even weirder…
Imagine that – before you gathered them in the room – you printed this Tip on a big piece of paper. And then you forced them to watch you read it out loud to them.
That would clearly be ridiculous. Firstly, the communication should have been an email, not a gather-round.
And now it’s got worse – because they’re watching you read to them. They’re good at reading – they don’t need you to do it!
One final one…
Imagine that, instead of printing it on a piece of paper, you copied it onto a PowerPoint slide. And then they had to watch you read it out loud.
Same idea. Equally ridiculous. Why would anyone want to watch you read stuff to them from a slide?
And that previous paragraph is the critical learning in this Tip!
- When you use slides…
- … do NOT put all your words on there
- Because, if you do, you’re forcing people to watch you read something they could read themselves
- Which means they’ll think “I can read”, “Why isn’t this an email?” or “Why am I watching you read this?”
Instead:
- When you have word-filled slides
- Identify the very important, very few words
- Retain them
- Delete everything else
- You’re now visually reinforcing your key messages
- And all the other wording that was on the slides now comes out of your mouth instead. So your audience still gets the same message – it’s just more fun now
And if you want speaker notes?
Print out your word-filled slides before you start deleting. These become your notes.
But do NOT put these wordy speaker notes on the shiny screen that your audience is looking at!
Action Point
For your next PowerPoint presentation:
- Be crystal clear it must be a presentation! Often, it could just be an email/chat
- If you must present it, minimise the words on the slide