Hey Reader,

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Worried your slide deck is letting your presentation down?

When I speak to my presentation coaching clients, the main thing they worry about are their slides.

• Too much text
• Too many slides
• They look boring

Here are 10 dead-simple ways to improve your slides today:

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1. Don’t start your prep with slide creation.

Make your slides the very LAST stage of your preparation.

That doesn't mean leave them till the last minute.

It means do them after you've prepped the rest of your talk.

Instead, start with:

• Understanding your audience
• Crafting your story arc
• Developing your content

Once that’s done, THEN think about where slides add value.

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2. Use less slides.

If you have 50 slides for a 30-minute talk, you’ve gone overboard.

Less than one slide per minute is a good guide to follow.

But if you’ve prepped your content well, and left your slide for the last bit of prep...you’ll probably find you only need a few.

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3. Keep a check on the text size.

Help keep your words to a minimum.

Nobody benefits from you reading off your slides. Nobody enjoys looking at a slide packed with text.

• Use max 30-point font
• Use max 20 words per slide

Restrict yourself in this way to help improve your communication with your audience.

Instead of reading your slides, you can focus on being connected.

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4. Get quality images.

There are so many online resources to choose from. There's no excuse for using pixelated, grainy, watermarked images.

Follow these 4 rules for your images:

• Never use clip art
• Make sure you have high resolution images
• Use max one image per slide
• Ensure you have the licensing right to use them

Some good options: Unsplash; Pexels; Pixabay.

Check them out.

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5: Only one idea per slide.

Where most presenters go wrong is they try to cram too many thoughts into one slide.

Stick to one idea per slide and you’ll keep your audience on board.

But if you find that gives you 60 slides, it’s time to rework the content.

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6. Choose one font.

Consistency gives a much better visual feel.

If you understand design, you can pick a couple of fonts that work together.

But if you aren't a graphic designer, it's simplest to be safe and stick with one font throughout.

I always choose a sans serif font - cleaner and easier to read.

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7. Don’t over-animate.

If you’re an expert designer - go for it with creative animations.

Otherwise, leave animations and transitions out.

No talk got better because of spinning text.

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8. Less is more.

Your slide deck IS NOT your presentation.

YOU are your presentation.

This is the single biggest mistake people make.

Each slide should only be there if it adds value. It's an addition to your content only but it's not the main event.

Make every single slide count.

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9. Remember accessibility.

Don’t get confused by thinking your slides equal accessibility.

They don’t.

Accessibility is in:

• notes
• handouts
• recordings
• audio loops
• ive transcripts

Don’t use accessibility to excuse terrible slides.

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10. Go slide free.

I know it can be scary.

We rely on our slides for comfort and reassurance.

But once you’ve mastered the true value of slides, you might actually find you don’t need them at all.

Be bold and try it.

It’s liberating.

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See you next week.

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 2 things I can do for you.

1. If you are an entrepreneur, founder, or CEO and you want to get to your next 10k Twitter followers and grow your network, then check this out.
2. If you give presentations and feel like you KNOW you could do a better job but are just boring the audience...I run a presentation coaching programme that will make you an engaging and effective communicator in just 4 weeks. If you're interested, jump on a call and we can see if we are a good fit.

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