The first thing to remember when you're giving a PowerPoint presentation is remember, this is your presentation and your audience's presentation. It's not the PowerPoint presentation. And again, the sooner you can get away from thinking of this as a PowerPoint presentation, the better. Yes, you're going to use PowerPoint. But you know what? I'm using electricity today in my presentation.
It's not an electricity presentation. I have a video camera that I'm using today, but it's not a video camera presentation. These are simply tools. So, so much of what makes someone a great PowerPoint presenter is understanding that fundamental relationship. This is your presentation. It's your ideas.
You're going to make these ideas come alive and yes, you will have PowerPoint slides that will augment your message and make your messages more understandable to your audience but you're in charge Not the PowerPoint, too many people have that backwards. They think of themselves as sort of the Butler, the Assistant, the gopher, to the slides. So they sort of are standing off the corner like they're the little Wizard of Oz, hiding behind the curtains, meekly, just turning the pages. That's not the most effective way to use PowerPoint. It's still your presentation. In fact, this is how I want you to start every single so called PowerPoint presentation you get, I want you to stand up or sit down.
If you're sitting. I want you to start your presentation. And I want you to talk for the first two minutes without a single slide up. You don't need to put your name you don't need to put the title of the presentation. It's in the agenda or you've been introduced that way. Here's why I want you to do that.
I want you to train your audience. into respecting you and to seeing that you are the expert. You're not just some low level lackey sent here to read a bunch of stuff that a corporate marketing department wrote six months ago. You are establishing your authority, your legitimacy when you can simply look at people and talk to them, and give them some ideas that are useful and interesting. Now, you may still have 120 slides. Don't take this as some indication that I'm anti slider, anti PowerPoint.
I'm not. But I want to establish right from the beginning, your authority if you're not seen as the authority in this presentation, why did people gather in the room, you could have just emailed them text? So that's the first rule, you're starting a PowerPoint presentation. Start without any slides up or start with it blacked out. And that way, people can see that you're the expert and you are the authority.