On the ninth day of Christmas…
…my true love gave to me nine ninja tips.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me nine ninja tips. I did a little post on these a long time ago so I thought a few more would be useful. It is often by paying attention to marginal gains that we make big improvements. So here are nine (new) ninja tips.
- Plan analogue. Take yourself somewhere different than where you usually work, take a notepad and pen and set aside 30 minutes simply to plan. The reward will be huge.
- Write an elevator pitch out at the top of your notes. Refer to it regularly during planning.
- Add a STAR moment or concept to unify the talk. What will make this talk memorable amongst all the others?
- Left (or right) justify a title slide. Centre justify doesn’t work and design does.
- Have a consistent style in images perhaps all black and white, background clipped or icons. Don’t mix and match
- Use fewer slides. Initially the change from many bullet points leaves many presenters wanting slides. Use restraint.
- Place a coin at each point on the stage you wish to move to. Move to it and stop.
- Between practice sessions, visualise each slide in order. If you can’t, you probably have too many. If everything fails on the day, you can run the slides in your head.
- Add more drama to your presentation by adding pauses, inflection, and changes in volume to the delivery.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me nine ninja tips. You are probably already giving good presentations. Perhaps adding one of these might take you to the next level and give your best presentation, ever.