Awesome PowerPoint Hack (for Non-Pro Speakers)

SUPER easy and powerful way to use PowerPoint!

Is that an oxymoron?  The words “Powerpoint” and “creatively” in the same sentence?  For most presentations that I’ve seen it absolutely is.  And as a motivational speaker that goes to a lot of conferences all over the US every year, I’ve seen a lot of speakers who use Powerpoint during their talks.

We’ve all been there, sitting in rows, or at desks, or at a round table for lunch, during a conference of some sort, business or otherwise, and then the speaker comes to the podium.  They turn on their computer and up comes the first Powerpoint or Keynote slide, full of paragraphs and bullet points, and tiny black words on a white background.  Sometimes they throw up a comic that is the amusing introduction to their presentation and then they put up the bullet points and tiny type.   This is after they’ve already handed out a packet of material that turns out to be a copy of all the slides they’re getting ready to go through.  The audience settles in for their nap.

Ok, I might be exaggerating, but not by much, right.  You may have even been one of those presenters who uses slides with way too much information on them.  You don’t want to miss anything, right?

Well, I’m here to offer you another way!  Yes, people, there is another way to use Powerpoint or Keynote or whatever you use to bore—I mean present people with valuable information that they absolutely need.  Absolutely.  I mean, yeah.  (Too harsh? I am a humorist and comedic motivational speaker, so I’m allowed to poke fun at people.)

So I give you Santiago Hernandez of Arch Re, a reinsurance company out of Massachusetts.  I worked for Arch a little while back, and Santiago, who’s the President of the company, went on right before I did, so of course I watched him present, because in my profession you always want to watch and learn from expert presenters, no matter what their job title.  And Santi Hernandez is an expert presenter.

What was so cool about his speech was his use of Powerpoint.  Instead of the usual way, with multiple slides of graphs, charts and bullet points, he used graphics.  One (yes, I said ONE) slide with maybe 12-15 graphics.  Each graphic represented something that Santiago wanted to talk about.  If you click on the video, you’ll see the slide.  So for example, when he wanted to talk about the company financials, he pointed at the graphic of a dollar sign.  When he was ready to thank  people, he referenced the emoji graphic of prayerful hands.  Get it?

The graphics enabled Santiago to speak without notes, to flow through his presentation without clicking through dense slides, and to really connect with his people by sharing some of his whimsy and humor with the simple, colorful images.  He knew that the information he was imparting was important, and he still provided the detailed financial or legal information he needed to by using handouts, but he avoided being a sterile, bland speaker by using Powerpoint in such an unusual way.  I wish I’d thought of it!

That’s what we as speakers and presenters and really want to do, isn’t it?  We want to connect with our audiences in a warm, authentic, animated way, no matter what the content.  Audiences want speakers they can trust to deliver important information in a professional yet entertaining format that will help them to remember.  Too many Powerpoint-type presentations are not like that.  So up your game.  Be creative.  Find a way to connect with your audiences that is new and different.  Santiago Hernandez of Arch Re did.  You can too.  If you need some help, bring me in and I’ll show you how to get your meeting or conference to the next level.   I’m an expert presenter with more than 30 years of connecting with audiences under my belt.  No boring Powerpoint here.