Everyone (or almost everyone) uses PowerPoint to develop and deliver a story, and many do it poorly.

So many well-intended presenters go about this task in the wrong way. They use the capabilities of the tools – fonts, images, formats, animations… to create an attractive presentation. They spend hours of time honing the appearance to get it perfectly. They pack the slides with tons of useful information. They develop slides to cover every topic and counter every objection. And yet so often their presentation lacks the impact they were hoping for.

Why? Here are a couple of reasons:

• The presentation is too inwardly focused and not about the customer, their situation, and their desired future state.
• There are too many themes or concepts presented, and the overall message gets muddled.
• There is too much content packed into too many slides. As a result, there isn’t adequate time for discussion and interaction.
• There is too much content on the slides, and the customer is forced to read the slides instead of listening to the presenter. 

A better way to develop a presentation is to think about the presentation as an outline. Remember writing term papers? We would come up with our premise, then write an outline with the key points we want to share, and finally, write the paper. Think about a presentation as the outline and use your delivery to bring the story to life.

This is advantageous for several reasons:

• It allows the presenter to shine by adding value and delivering a compelling story
• It frees the audience up from reading slides so they can actually listen to the message
• It helps manage timing, so there is time for a roundtable discussion.

Sometimes less is more, and we really can deliver more impactful presentations with fewer slides and streamlined content.