There is no denying that PowerPoint has been around for decades and has positioned itself at the epicenter of business operations of organizations of all scales. It doesn’t matter if you’re a potential administrative assistant or executive manager, possessing the right PowerPoint skills have become a must for professionals to cast a lasting impression, connect with the audience well and achieve corporate success.
Now, whether you’re looking to change your career or advance the corporate ladder in your present role, PowerPoint has the potential to be a driving factor in your career’s success. In this post, we will talk about four essential PowerPoint skills that can help you transition your career towards success.
1. Use Excellent Templates
What sets apart a winning PowerPoint deck from the ordinary ones is the ability to cast a lasting impression on the audience. Gone are the days when PowerPoint was only about presenting quarterly numbers to the management. Today, companies of all scales are leveraging PowerPoint to connect with the audience across multiple touchpoints as well as educate, influence, and motivate the audience, all at the same time. Hence, your presentation must have bold, well-designed, and captivating slides that transfer the knowledge just right without overwhelming the audience.
Rather than worrying about creating that perfect deck, presenters can download a corporate-friendly, ready-to-use PowerPoint template and create presentations like never before. For instance, if you’re launching a new project, using a ready-made timeline PowerPoint template can help you capture all the project elements and deliverables in the most engaging manner. Not just that, using a ready-to-use template allows you to focus on content and not worry about design or layout. Further, you can 100% customize the templates, let your inner artist churn out a great presentation deck, and hence impress the C-level audience.
2. Intuitive Graphics and Design
Another leading PowerPoint skill that presenters must master is leveraging the graphics for their presentations. When it comes to spreading your message across the board room, well-thought graphics are not only effective but are super engaging, save time, extend the audience’s grasp of the subject matter, and eventually help your career too. Often it’s challenging for presenters to make the audience understand the subject, especially if the audience is not engaged or keen.
Using 3D vector graphics, charts, and diagrams such as Histograms, Heatmaps, Bar charts, Scatterplot, and much more can help you explain the real gist of the data to the audience while making the information memorable. Making the information easy to understand is an imperative skill for presenters, and graphics is your go-to destination to make it happen. If done right, visuals bundled with quality content can influence your audience, inspire action and make your presentation a success.
3. Master the Typography
It doesn’t matter how exciting your new presentation idea or subject matter is if you don’t present it right! Typography is another critical skill that helps you position and arrange information throughout the presentation such that it boosts integrity, and audience engagement and makes the information easy to digest. Slide elements such as whitespace, alignment, hierarchy, consistency, case, and color play a significant role in connecting your audience with the slides.
In simpler terms, typography acts as a medium of instruction, attracts the audience, gets a hold of their attention, and conveys a certain feeling or mood. For instance, if your slide’s fonts are too cramped, cluttered, or small, it can almost immediately deteriorate a presentation when it starts. The key to presentation success is to enable your audience to comprehend and understand the information without hassle while providing a memorable presentation experience.
4. Ability to Keep Things Simple
We all have heard that perfection isn’t achieved when there’s nothing more to add but when there’s nothing left to take away. The same is applicable for presentations as well! Presenters can master the art of keeping things simple or minimalist in their presentations, remove unnecessary slide clutter, and make information much more engaging. Creating a minimalist presentation doesn’t mean fewer hours of designing or planning. It means keeping the deck simple and objective, stripping slide elements to the barest essentials to deliver maximum engagement.
An ideal minimalistic presentation features a consistent yet instinctive design, fewer UI elements, dramatic typography, right usage of negative spacing and limited exposure to color schemes. Mastering the minimalism skill for your presentations can help you make the audience focus on the subject matter like never before. Creating a minimalistic presentation still requires careful thought about the design, choosing the right slide elements, and placement. If done right, a minimal presentation can do more for you with less and make a powerful impact on your audience.
Wrapping It Up
Great presentations, apart from fostering collaboration between people and casting a striking visual impact, also draws a line between a closed deal or a missed opportunity. The points discussed above in the article can help you showcase your professional expertise, accelerate your profile, command attention, and sell your ideas to potential stakeholders.