Lessons Learned from Guy Kawasaki

Source:
http://sourcesofinsight.com/lessons-learned-from-guy-kawasaki/

Part of “standing on the shoulders of giants”, is finding the heroes to learn and model from.  Starting with the assumption that “everybody has flaws,” you can choose to focus on people’s super skills and insights.  Everybody brings something to the table.

In this post, I’m focusing on Guy Kawasaki.  His super skill is making Entrepreneurs more effective.  He’s also a master at the business of life.  He lives life in a sustainable way, living his mantra of “empower Entrepreneurs,” keeping things real, enjoying the ride, and staying authentic.

As a thought leader and a people leader in the startup space, Guy provides practical advice from being a more effective evangelist to helping Entrepreneurs pitch and test their ideas more effectively.  As a writer, speaker, and consultant, he’s a powerful force of good that you can draw from for insight, inspiration and results.  At a minimum, you can use his advice to improve your slide decks and pitch your ideas more effectively.

25 Lessons Learned from Guy Kawasaki
This collection of insights is based on drawing from Guy’s presentations, blog posts, and books.  I consolidated as much as possible, to paint a map of some of his best contributions.  You can use this as a launch pad for exploring his work.  At the end of this post, I’ve consolidated some resources you can use to continue your exploration.  Here are my 25 lessons learned from Guy Kawasaki:

1. Make a mantra, not a mission.  Mission statements are often too long or they don’t resonate.  You need something you can easily remember, easily say, and identify with.  Summarize your cause in 2 or 3 words.  According to Guy, some effective examples might be Nike – “authentic, athletic performance” and Wendy’s – “healthy, fast food.”  The key is to capture the essence in just a few words.  This helps remind you of your cause and reinforce it with your actions.
2. Make meaning over money.  According to Guy, “Evangelism starts with the desire to make meaning.”  When you focus on the money, you focus on the wrong thing.  You have to first make meaning.   You need to mean something to the world and to your customers.  “The root of great companies is make meaning vs. make money.” – Guy Kawasaki.
3. Know what you want your life to be about.  Know what you want your life to be about and live your mantra.  Guy lives his life, actualizing his mantra “empowering Entrepreneurs.”  I like this approach, and I’ve been thinking about refining mine.  It might be closer to “results by design” or “proven practices for results” or “empowering Underdogs.”  Whenever I think about my posts, I’m asking, is it helping lift people up or help them be their best in any situation.
4. Be unique and valuable.  This is the key to effective marketing.  If you’re not unique, you’re competing on price.  Eventually, you’ll be priced out of the market.  If you are unique, but you aren’t valuable, then you have no market.  The sweet spot is valuable to the market and unique.
5. The secret of evangelism is touch things that are gold. Don’t evangelize crap.  Evangelize great things.  “The secret of evangelism is Guy’s golden touch – whatever is gold, Guy touches.  That’s very different than saying whatever Guy touches turns gold.” – Guy Kawasaki
6. Remember DICEE to make great things.  This is how to be great out of the gate.  According to Guy, DICEE is an acronym to help remind you how to make things that are gold.  “D” is for Deep.  It has to have lots of power.  You don’t run out of power and you’re not waiting for a more powerful version.  It anticipated what you need to do.  “I” is for Intelligent.  It’s a smart solution to a problem.  “C” is for Complete.  Great products are complete.  Complete means the totality of what the product means   This means all the stuff around the product (the OEMs, the forums, the plug-ins, service, support … etc.) “E” is for Elegant.  When you look at it, you inherently know what to do.  You can kind of figure out without a manual.  “E” is for Emotive – great products have emotion.
7. Don’t worry, be crappy.   Ship, then test.  Don’t wait for the perfect world, or you’ll never ship.  As long as you are truly making meaning and you have a revolution, the market will accept elements of crap.  Ship something revolutionary with elements of crappiness to it.  You can then prioritize which crap to improve based on real usage and feedback.
8. Version it.  Think in terms of versions.  Ask, “what’s good enough for now?”  It’s not about slicing and dicing value and spreading it out over time.  Instead, it’s about being complete and good enough for now so that you don’t miss the market.  It’s also about continuous improvement over time.  Each version should be a useful, relevant, and marked improvement.  Guy thinks in terms of versions all the time.  In one example, he says, “My wife was in Beta with our second child … Shipped on time and no bugs.”  He also versioned his Alltop project. (see Alltop Version 2.0: The Art of Aggregation)  and he versioned, Entrepreneurship (See Entrepreneurship 2.0.)
9. Don’t let the Bozos grind you down.  Don’t listen to people that tell you that you’ll fail, because if you don’t try, then you definitely will fail.  According to Guy, there are two types of Bozos.  One type of bozo is a loser.  You don’t listen to them anyway, so that’s not the dangerous bozo.  The dangerous bozo is the rich, successful, well-known person.  Remember that rich, successful and well-know does not equal smart.  “Inoculate yourself from dangerous bozos.” – Guy Kawasaki.
10. Smile, it’s contagious.  Guy wears a smile often.  It’s easy to find pictures of him flashing his pearly whites and it’s contagious.  Take yourself seriously, but not too seriously.  “Life is good.” – Guy Kawasaki
11. Ask, “Is it defensible?” This is about evaluating startups against the following:  Proven team?  … Proven management?  … Proven technology?  … Proven business model?  These are some of the early warning flags that you don’t want to get in the way or that you have a good answer for.
12. Follow the 10-20-30 rule for content, length, and font.  Use a maximum of 10 slides.  Your presentation should be no more than 20 minutes, even if it’s an hour presentation.  Use a 30 point font.  It forces you to put the core text.  If you need to use a smaller font it’s because you don’t know your material.  If you start reading your material, your audience will read ahead and stop listening to you.  See The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint and Video: Guy Kawasaki 10-20-30 Presentation Rule.
13. Pitch your ideas in 10 slides.  Pitch your ideas more effectively.  Don’t be a solution looking for a problem, make meaning, and show how you’ll make money.  The idea is to communicate enough, not everything and stimulate interest, not seal the deal.  10 slides forces you to focus on the essentials and the fewer slides you need, the more compelling the idea.  According to Guy, here’s what those 10 slides should be:  1) Title and what you do slide 2) problem slide, 3) solution slide, 4) business model slide, 5) underlying magic (secret sauce) slide, 6) marketing and sales slide, 7) competitive landscape slide, management team slide, 9) financial projects and key metrics slide, 10) current status slide.  See The Art of Pitching MP3.
14. Ask, “So what? … Who gives a shiitake?” This is about asking, why does it matter, and who does it matter for.  According to Guy, you can do this by imagining a little guy on your shoulder that asks you, “so what?”  You can make this very effective by pairing up “so what?” with “for instance.”  After you answer, the “so what?” question, you can then give a real world, concrete example starting off with, “for instance …”
15. Make it personal. Personalize over generalize.   Instead of talking about paradigm shifts, make it real and make it relevant to the person.  What does it mean to them?
16. Success is a numbers game.  It’s a numbers game.  According to Guy, how venture capitalism really works is, that out of 20 – 30 bets, 1 or 2 succeed.  Of course, when your 1 or 2 bets succeed, you tell everybody how you knew it all along, and how it’s your partner that missed the other 18.  Guy readily admits he missed predicting the successes of Yahoo, Google, and YouTube.  See Gnomedex 2007 – Guy Kowasaki.
17. Be a straight shooter.  Keep it human.  Guy speaks in simple terms and keeps it real.  Whether you’re talking about your mantra or benefits of your product for people, don’t speak in lofty terms.  Keep it down to Earth.  Be authentic.  Be true to you.  Don’t be a suck up.  Guy’s a perfect blend of down to Earth, politically incorrect, and authentic, that we can model from.
18. Create very slippery slopes.  This is about creating glide paths for adoption.  Adoption shouldn’t be a pill that’s too big to swallow.  Create very slippery slopes.  This means thinking in terms of incremental buy-in and incremental adoption.
19. It’s a beautiful time for Entrepreneurs.   Now is a perfect time to be an Entrepreneur.  Test your ventures.  Ship something.  Show an adoption curve that’s growing.  Put something out and “prove the dogs are eating the food.”   You can test your ventures without depending on VC funding to start.  For example, instead of a million dollars in development and marketing costs to test an idea, it’s $12k.  This is how much it cost for Guy to spin up Truemors.  See By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09.
20. Align your interests.  This is about “alignment of interest” vs. “conflict of interest.”  Line up with the people, ideas, and things you believe in. See The Short Tale: Much Ado About Not Much.
21. It’s about the experience.   Make the most of every experience and live life to the fullest.  Guy has a way of creating and sharing engaging experiences.  See 26 Hours at Sea: The Longest Posting in the History of Blogging and BlogHer Pictures for examples of experiences.
22. Let 100 flowers blossom.   Find what works for you and your customers, then stand back and let your flowers bloom.  You can’t necessarily predict what will work and what won’t.  Instead, fan the flames of what works and get out of the way.
23. Find a coalition of the willing.   It’s way easier to sell to an existing customer or to somebody who is not already entrenched in a competing product or idea.  Build your raving fans, by building on your existing fan base and by winning over folks that are untainted.   According to Guy, it’s more effective to preach to the choir or focus on the agnostic, than try to convert the atheist.  Another way to put it is, focus on the market you’ve got, versus the one you don’t.
24. Know the real influencers.   Don’t spend all your energy on the CXO level.  Win over the front-lines and people in the trenches.  They’re the ones that will ultimately be your raving fans and will do your word-of-mouth marketing for you.  They will either be your resistance or your champions.  Create a tipping point with opinion leaders, such as the engineer’s engineer.
25. Be creative and productive.  Guy is life imitating art.  Being an Entrepreneur is all about creating something bigger than yourself.  To be effective, you need to be productive.  Guy regularly shares his life hacks on his blog, and Alltop is a great example of a creativity and productivity.

Top 10 Quotes
Between his books, blog, articles, and presentations, Guy is a flowing fountain of words of wisdom.  Here are my 10 favorite quotes from Guy:

1. A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.
2. Don’t worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test… Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap – but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.
3. Evangelism is selling a dream.
4. Evangelism starts with the desire to make meaning.
5. It’s a beautiful time for Entrepreneurs … Life is good.
6. Leverage your brand, … You shouldn’t let two guys in a garage eat your shorts.
7. Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.
8. Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.
9. You have to start with the basic premise that you need to know what your competition is doing,
10. Shut up, take notes, summarize, regurgitate, and follow up.

I really like Guy’s point about making meaning.  I also like his focus on simple and to the point.

How to Create a Great PowerPoint Presentation

By Eric Markowitz
Source:
http://www.inc.com/guides/201102/how-to-create-a-great-powerpoint-presentation.html

Are you guilty of information overload? Do you abuse Clip Art? Here, the experts weigh in on how to create a pitch-perfect PowerPoint presentation.

Getty: Steve Jobs speaking at a Press Conference On Apples iPhone 4

“There’s something in the air.” With these five words, Steve Jobs opened the 2008 Macworld conference.  Jobs is often cited as one of corporate America’s greatest presenters, and that’s simply because he understands one thing: how to tell a story. Like any great sales pitch, an effective PowerPoint offers a compelling narrative; it elicits an emotional response from the audience, even if the subject is, say, debt consolidation, or finance derivatives. The trick is to understand how to engage your listeners, keep them focused, and use the right visual imagery to convey your message. So whether you’re pitching an idea to investors, introducing a new product to your clients, or simply reviewing your company’s quarterly results, a great PowerPoint presentation will leave your audience feeling inspired.

Creating a great PowerPoint is simpler than you might think. More often than not, you don’t need to be a great designer, writer or orator to come up with an attention-grabbing presentation. What you do need, however, is an understanding of how to capture an audience’s focus—and perhaps a bit of their imagination.  Here are a few tips on how to create a PowerPoint that your audience won’t forget.

Dig Deeper: 10 Ways to Make a PowerPoint Presentations Powerful

Creating a Great PowerPoint: Create a narrative.

“One thing I like to do is make sure there’s a logical story,” says Janet Bornemann, the creative director of PowerPoint Studio, based in Acton, Massachusetts. Bornemann, who designs PowerPoint presentations for corporate clients, says that just like any piece of good writing, there needs to be a beginning, middle, and an end to your presentation. Traditionally, in the beginning of the presentation you tell the audience what you plan to cover, in the middle of the presentation you tell them, and in the end, you tell them what you’ve told them.  One clever tip Bornemann recommends is to use five words per line, and five lines per slide.

Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist and Inc. contributor, has his own technique for creating a storyline for an entrepreneur’s PowerPoint presentation to investors. His method, which he calls the 10/20/30 rule, is a great way to structure your presentation’s story. “It’s quite simple,” Kawasaki wrote on his blog, How to Change the World. “A PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.”

Kawasaki’s recommended structure for any entrepreneurial presentation is as follows:

1.    Problem
2.    Your solution
3.    Business model
4.    Underlying magic/technology
5.    Marketing and sales
6.    Competition
7.    Team
8.    Projections and milestones
9.    Status and timeline
10.   Summary and call to action

Regardless of a specific structure you choose for your presentation, your story needs to accomplish three goals: frame the issue, present the challenge, and explain how you will solve the problem.

Dig Deeper: Pump Up Your PowerPoint Presentations

Creating a Great PowerPoint: Less is more.

At some point or another, we’ve all sat through a PowerPoint presentation flooded with an endless stream of bullet points, sentences, or even full paragraphs. It may seem obvious, but according to Bornemann, this is one of the biggest—and most common—mistakes made by presenters. And when the presenter lists too much detail on the slides, few people will be able to retain any of it.

A great presentation “should really just give the highlights,” says Bornemann. Steve Jobs, for example, is famous for using virtually no text at all— an icon of a new product or two or three “big picture” words will suffice. “People are afraid to use a slide with one word, but it has merit, because we have to process information before we go on to the next idea,” Bornemann says. It’s also good to segment presentations in places where your audience’s mind can sum up—and process—the information, so that they’re actually able to think about what you’re telling them.

“It’s very important for the mind to be able to rest on an idea or a thought, so if it’s a constant flow of words, people will grow tired,” she adds.

Jim Confalone, the founder and creative director of ProPoint Graphics, a graphic design studio based in New York City, says that people simply stop paying attention to slides with too much text on them. “It becomes like wallpaper,” he says. In other words, it becomes easy to tune out.

Your audience needs to digest information. Don’t be afraid to linger on a slide or create a slide with just one picture and nothing else. Taking risks like these will help sell your presentation to your audience, and keep them from getting that “glazed over” look of boredom.

Dig Deeper: 4 Great PowerPoint Tools

Creating a Great PowerPoint: Branding is key.

Clip Art: the enemy of any great PowerPoint presentation. When assembling slides for a presentation, Clip Art, slide transitions, and other tacky animations are an easy way to pollute your brand’s message. While they’re easy to use, they make your brand seem generic and outdated. After all, anyone with Microsoft has access to the same catalogue of images, and more than likely has seen it all before.

“You don’t want to have a circus of effects,” says Bornemann. “Be consistent with colors and fonts. Focus on the message—everything has to have a reason.” And, she adds, “effects ‘on steroids’ don’t have a reason.”

It’s also easy to fall into the trap of overusing charts and graphs to illustrate a point. However, if the graphic doesn’t support the information or push the presentation forward, it’s not necessary to the ‘story.’ “As soon as it turns into an arbitrary thing, we throw it out,” says Confalone. “If the content is not there, nothing you do is going to work. “

Dig Deeper: Making Your (Power) Point

Creating a Great PowerPoint: Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse once more.

The presentation on the screen is just as important as the speaker’s presentation off the screen. When giving the PowerPoint Presentation, it’s essential to add a little flavor to the speech.

“Most speakers get into presentation mode and feel as though they have to strip the talk of any fun,” Carmine Gallo, a communication coach, wrote in his Business Week column recently. “If you are not enthusiastic about your own products or services, how do you expect your audience to be?”

According to Confalone, there are two ways a speaker can fail in his or her presentation: a lack confidence, or a misconception about what the audience will retain from the speech.

The only real way to boost confidence is to practice. If you spend 15 hours putting together the presentation, spend another 15 practicing it. Don’t rely too much on notes, since the audience will be looking at you to engage with them—not your script.

Confalone also stresses to his clients that most viewers will walk away from a presentation with only the very key points. Therefore, it’s essential not to confuse your audience with the minutia or details that are best left for a handout.

All PowerPoint presentations are trying to sell you something, even if it’s just an idea, product, or the presenter himself. A “boring” topic is no excuse for a “boring” presentation. “Sexy or not, you need to distill the key points in the conversation,” Confalone says. “That element of persuasion is the key to it.”

Dig Deeper: Grist: More Power Than Point

Read more:

• The 60-Second Sales Pitch
• How to Maintain Brand Consistency Across Product Lines
• How to Manage Client Expectations After You Close a Sale
• Liven Up PowerPoint with Interactivity, Touchscreens, and an iPad
• A Great Tool for Making Presentations

Eric Markowitz reports on start-ups, entrepreneurs, and issues that affect small businesses. Previously, he worked at Vanity Fair. He lives in New York City. @EricMarkowitz

Guy Kawasaki: Creating Enchantment [Entire Talk]

A great video on being enchanting. I believe you could put these principles into practice both in business and in life. It’s about an hour long and so worth the watch!

Click to go to Stanfords E-Corner

 

Source:
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

What Not To Do When Starting Your Own Business

This was written by a very inspiring friend of mine.  We went to school together ages ago and I can’t help but be amazed and inspired by her.  Thank you Monise Seward for Existing

———————————————————————————————————————–

Just finished reading ‘Birthing The Elephant‘ and wanted to share the valuable information in Chapter 9: Avoid The Ten Biggest Pitfalls, a quick list of what not to do when striking out on your own as an entrepreneur. I usually share book tidbits on Twitter but decided to do a quick blog instead! So, here goes…..

Which path will you choose?

PITFALL #1: Romanticizing Being Your Own Boss

Sure, its great that you won’t have to ‘officially’ punch a clock or answer to someone you think/know is less qualified, educated, or what-have-you, but you really aren’t going to be your own boss-as least not in the manner you’re thinking. You still have to ‘answer’ to customers, clients, and employees (when you decide to hire some). Romanticizing being your own boss can set you up for disappointment and failure.

PITFALL #2: Not Getting the Right Help Early

Building your ‘dream team’ is one of those recommended steps in launching a business. For me, I have plenty of contacts for people with legal, business, and marketing expertise; however, I do not expect any of them to quit their day jobs to assist with putting my dream in motion. I have, however, given thought to the individuals I’d like to join me as the business grows because I can only make so many cakes in a day! I have learned the valuable lesson of asking help and seeking out advice from those who have already traveled this road.

PITFALL #3: Not Understanding How To Network

For a long time, I thought ‘networking’ was a dirty word; I cringed every time I heard it. Why? I guess you could say that the networking I saw wasn’t really networking; it bordered on arse-kissing. Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not come from a family of arse-kissers, nor did I minor in that ‘art’ during undergrad. I believe that my hard-work, dedication, and knowledge should speak for themselves. But again, I was defiant about networking because of what I had seen in previous ‘professional’ environments. #InterpretAsYouWish

The true intent of networking is to build relationships, more specifically: Mutually beneficial relationships. Networking should not be about trying to sell or promote your product or service. Duly noted.

PITFALL #4: Running Yourself Ragged

Yes, when preparing to launch your own business there are a ton of things you will have to do on your own-for free, but do not equate your myriad of responsibilities with sacrificing all of yourself and time. Although I have not opened for business, I have already decided on the hours I will work because I still want need to have a balanced and fulfilling personal life. Besides, my kids wouldn’t appreciate being left to their own devices 7 days a week.

PITFALL #5: Spending Money For The Wrong Reasons

If you don’t have it to spend, don’t spend it. If your customers care about from where you purchased your office furniture or supplies, then they are coming to you for the wrong reason. Why would I spend $1,000 on a web site when I can get an equally functional and attractive one (if not the exact same one) for $500? People are not buying my web site; they are buying my cakes.

PITFALL #6: Not Valuing Your Time Highly

Entrepreneurs are cautioned that they will probably work 60-80 hours a week, without pay for the first year of business. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…not me! I did not leave one plantation workplace only to go to another one with more hours and fewer (intrinsic and extrinsic) rewards. Furthermore, I consider all the time I have spent researching and planning as an investment. I WILL ensure that I reap the (intrinsic and extrinsic) rewards of my labor sooner than the 1-year mark. And I certainly have learned the value of ‘highly valuing my time.’ I decided that I will not spend 10-12 hours in front of a computer reading or researching business-related information. Instead, I will spend my time reading books on entrepreneurship, reviewing business documents, blogging, refining recipes, watching tv, and sleeping. I am trying to remain balanced (whatever that means); I will not allow this business to consume all of my time. I still have a family and obligations to them. I still have friends whom I would like to see. Basically, I refuse to trade my personal life for a business. And you should too!

PITFALL #7: Not Pricing Properly

This is an area where a lot of women entrepreneurs, self included, struggle. Even though we have a higher success rate at running businesses due to our service-oriented natures, we still undervalue our time, talent, and expertise. Personally, I think this has a lot to do with the fact that when we work for others, they pretty much determine the ‘value’ of our services by setting our salaries. One could argue that we all have the power to negotiate our salaries, but in reality we all know that women still make less than men, even when they have more formal education, training, and experience. Knowing and demanding your worth can be challenging aspects for newly-minted entrepreneurs. Luckily for me, I am taking some of Guy Kawasaki’s advice (in The Art of The Start) to heart: I will ‘test’ my products with some volunteer ‘Cake Crusaders’ and then get feedback on what they think is a fair, yet competitive, price for the product.

PITFALL #8: Spending Too Much On Advertising

If your start-ups’s opening balance is $2,000, then it does not make sense to spend half of that on advertising. This one is pretty easy: Do your research on your target market and how to best reach them. Don’t waste valuable capital on glossy magazine ads unless you are 100% certain you have or will have the business to support such an expense. I have already started compiling a list of online blogs and e-zines with whom I would like to advertise. The weeding-out process is fairly easy: Those whose price-tags I cannot afford (in the beginning phase), will be placed on the ‘Contact Later’ list. So easy, even a caveman could do it! Remember, “Waste not, want not.”

PITFALL #9: Not Trusting Your Gut

The Internet, Social Media, and blog sites are full of resources. Some may be helpful, others not so much. As an entrepreneur, you need to determine what information ‘speaks’ to you during this journey because not every opinion or suggestion will work for your business. The authors of Birthing The Elephant said it best:

“Remember, no expert you hire is ever going to have the emotional or financial stake in your business that you and your family have….So don’t disempower yourself…in the end, you are the single best judge of what your business has to offer and how it should run.” (Abarbanel & Freeman, 2008)

Translation: Trust yourself. If something doesn’t sound right (for you and your business) or makes you feel uncomfortable, then it probably IS NOT the right fit. This applies to things you may read in a book or hear from ‘experts.’ Don’t be strong-armed into making changes that do not align with your business’ mission.

PITFALL #10: Not Thinking Enough About The Big Picture

I have set clear short and long-term goals for the business, as well as for myself. As I stated earlier, I plan to maintain some sort of balance between the business and my personal life. Having a plan and set hours will definitely help with me achieve that goal. As the business grows, I will be able to hire someone to help where and when needed.

Well, if you made it to the end- Thank you! I tried to keep this one brief but sometimes it’s just not possible!

Source: http://www.moniselseward.com/2012/01/chronicles-in-entrepreneurship-10-what-not-to-do-when-starting-your-own-business/

Go Big or Go Home (5 Presenting Rules You Should Never Break)

by Manage Better Now

I think this is just my week to sit through bad presentations. Earlier in the week I sat in on a presentation where the presenter committed what I would consider a presentation atrocity. We were in a large rectangular room, and the presenter was at one end, and the audience ran the length of the room. In total the room had about 30 people in it. Not an auditorium, but certainly a large boardroom. I was fairly close to the presenter and I cringed when I saw his second slide. On his second slide, he had to have had about a dozen bullet points in size 12 font. Maybe I am getting old, but I am not sure that I could have read that slide if I were standing a directly in front of the screen. When I saw the slide I was certainly concerned about the presenter’s ability to keep my interest, but his words absolutely horrified me:

“I’m sorry, I know you can’t read but I will tell you what it says.”

I am truly not sure what he said after that as I started pondering why someone would have a slide that they know the audience would not be able to see or gather any information from. What was the value of that slide? Why would you do that to your audience?

Please do not write complete sentences on your slides. Please do not bullet point your complete sentences. Please do not use size 12 font in a presentation ever. Size 24 is about as small as you can go, and that has to be in a small room. Bigger the room, the bigger the font generally as a rule. I am slowly evolving away from bullet points all together. I still use them occasionally, but not very frequently. I find that images have a much bigger impact and keep the audience engaged. If you use compelling images, and perhaps even a little bit of humor then the audience is literally on the edge of their seat waiting for the next slide.

To recap, here are the presentation lessons I have had reinforced upon me this week:

Try not to use bullet points and use images instead. On your next presentation replace one slide of bulleted information with an image that conveys your message. Trust me it works.

Limit each slide to one major point. Don’t try to cram 12 points on one slide.

Never go below size 24 font. If you can’t fit your message on the page then you have too much text. Cut it down.

Don’t read the text from your slide to your audience, ever. It gives the appearance that you don’t know the material.

Put yourself in the place of your audience. What is the major point that you want them to get from your presentation? Respect them, respect their time, and grab their attention.

via Go Big or Go Home (5 Presenting Rules You Should Never Break) « Manage Better Now.