• Project your image. Keep your voice naturally paced, conversational and soft, yet "big" enough to embrace a room-sized audience.
• Productive pauses. Transitional slides can give you valuable pauses. You get to compose your thoughts, and the audience considers what you've said so far. PowerPoint's transition effects let you build "space" into your presentation, automatically. And the more you practice, the more confident you'll feel.

Once your purpose is clear in your own head and you're focused on your audience, you're halfway there. To further assure success, plan how your presentation will look, too.

• Think visually.
  Many people think best with pictures.
  Use pie charts, flow charts, bar graphs and visual depictions of data whenever possible, keeping them simple and uncluttered. Microsoft PowerPoint can help you create your own visuals or give you a choice of ready-made graphics from its Clip Art Gallery.
  You can also import tables, graphs, or spreadsheet data from other applications in Microsoft Office, such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel, simply by dragging the information over and dropping it into a PowerPoint slide.
  
• Keep text brief.
  Don't drown the audience in dense sentences - save heavy data as a handout. A good guideline is the "4 x 4" rule: no more than four bullets per slide, no more than 4 words per bullet.
  The PowerPoint "Hide Slide" feature also allows you to temporarily hide slides from your audience to use if needed as support during your presentation.
  
• Make it readable. Make sure text is large, at least 18 points. Use color for impact, to help organize information, and consistently identify and link related topics. Use light backgrounds and color contrasts to boost readability. PowerPoint comes with a selection of templates and formats that follow effective design rules.

• Don't overdo. Keep the number of slides manageable so your audience has time to comprehend each one. Ten slides with focused, supportive text and visuals can be more effective than 100 slides flying by your audience.
• Pace Yourself. Give yourself 3 to 5 minutes minimum to deliver each slide. You can use the PowerPoint Slide Meter feature to actually time how long it takes you to talk through each slide. You can then decide if you're cramming too many slides into your allotted time and overwhelming your audience.
• Leave Your Message Behind! Even the best presentation can benefit from audience leave-behinds that reinforce and summarize your message. PowerPoint's Notes feature automatically creates handouts based on your slides.

Microsoft PowerPoint makes it easy to create professional-looking slides that support your image. AutoLayouts, Pick-a-Look Wizards, a Clip Art Gallery, and more than 100 artist-created templates ensure a consistent, professional look throughout your presentation, even if you're not a graphic artist. A helpful Answer Wizard takes you through each process, using understandable language and logical steps.

Use PowerPoint to brainstorm your ideas, build a slide show, or create speaker notes and handouts too. The outlining feature lets you see your ideas in an orderly procession, and Slide Meter lets you rehearse and fine-tune. The new, free Internet Assistant for Microsoft PowerPoint even lets you translate your presentations to a Web format (HTML code) so you can post them to your Web site.

Using these tips and Microsoft PowerPoint will help you sell with more confident presentations!

Microsoft PowerPoint Demo

If you would like to see how Microsoft PowerPoint can help you create professional presentations, download (1.7m) the free Powerpoint Viewer and Marjorie Brody's PowerPoint slide presentation. If you already have Microsoft PowerPoint and would like to see Brody's slide presentation click here (400kb) to get it.

About the Author:

Marjorie Brody, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) is president of Brody Communications Ltd., a communication skills training company located in Elkins Park, PA.