What research tells us about the making of better business presentations. Visit our website (www.whatzyourpoint.com) and Facebook page to learn more about this valuable skill.

1. # 1
Boring Presentations
How to make your presentations captivating!

2. Sender Receiver
Message
Let’s start with a simple communication
model in which the sender
sends out a message
to the receiver.

3. Here’s our assumption:
What we send = What they receive

4. The reality is often
because
(1) Low motivation
(2) Distraction
(3) Overloading
(4) Ineffective channel
(5) Lack of guidance
the opposite

5. How can you make sure
the other side gets
what you intended to say?

6. # 6
Motivation
1

7. # 7
We are all different!

8. What should you do?

9. # 9
Know your audience

10. # 10
Let’s say you are proposing a relocation
to a group of senior management.
Do you know how to influence them?
CFO COO CEO CTO

11. Resist the temptation
to turn to next page.
Think for a moment!

12. # 12
Practice the principle:
“Some like it hot” and focus on the
following key benefits
CFO
Cost savings as
a result of the
relocation
COO
Improved
operation
efficiency
CEO
Market
penetration and
development
opportunities
CTO
Opportunity to
upgrade existing
systems and
networks

13. General Principles of Persuasion
 Authority  Quotes / Research to support your
recommendations
 Consistency  Align recommendations with the strategy and
practice that are already in place
 Social Proof  Select appropriate references, show what similar
organizations are doing
 Scarcity (the language of loss) is a more powerful tactics than
selling the benefits  Create a sense of urgency in your
presentation
Robert Cialdini
- Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University
- International authority on the psychology of Persuasion
Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice (4th ed.). Boston:Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 978-
0205609994

14. # 14
Distraction
2

15. # 15
Source: InFocus Worst PPT Slide Contest
Don’t show this!

16. # 16
What’s wrong with this slide?
1. Irrelevant background photograph
2. Excessive animations
3. Absence of a slide title
4. Use of jargon (M.A.N.O.K*)
5. Too much emphasis
* Mysterious Acronym that No One Knows

17. What should you do?

18. Practice “Minimalism”

19. # 19
Can I get my
message across
without this?
Ask yourself this question

20. # 20
Overloading
3

21. # 21
Don’t
overload
your
audience

22. # 22
Source: InFocus Worst PPT Slide Contest
Don’t show this!

23. # 23
What’s wrong with this slide?
1. Sorry it is a project plan, not a
slide
2. Should be distributed at the end as
a handout or reference
3. Too much details, not designed for
our brain!

24. Our brain is mighty?

25. Our working memory can only
process limited amount of
information at a time
Sensory Working
(bottleneck)
Long-term

26. Miller’s Magical Number 7 ± 2
 Our working memory has very limited capacity, we can only hold 7 ±
2 items for processing
 Recent studies have demonstrated that the correct number is
probably around 3 or 4
 Retention of information paves the path for learning and therefore,
we should avoid cognitive load at all costs  practice the principle,
“Less is More”
George A. Miller
- PhD from Harvard in 1946 and founded Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard in 1960
- Professor, Department of Psychology, Princeton University
George A. Miller,“The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity
for Processing Information,” Psychological Review 63, 81-97 (1956).

27. What should you do?

28. Present “Bite-sized Information”

29. One slide, one idea

30. # 30
Ineffective Channel
4

31. # 31
Source: Computerworld UK
Don’t show this!

32. # 32
What’s wrong with this slide?
1. Too much information presented in
text
2. Font size too small

33. Paivio’s Concept of Dual Channels
 Visual and verbal information are processed differently and along
distinct channels.
 Memory for verbal information is enhanced if a relevant visual is also
presented. Likewise visual information can often be enhanced when
paired with relevant verbal information (Anderson and Bower, 1973)
 practice the principle, “Seamless Integration”
Allan Paivio
- PhD from McGill in 1959
- Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Western Ontario (retired)
Allan Paivio,A Mental representations: A dual coding approach. (Oxford University Press, 1986)

34. Mayer’s Multimedia Learning Principles
 We learn better from word and pictures than from words alone
 Irrelevant graphic elements lower retention by 41%
 We learn better from words and pictures when words are spoken
rather than printed
 We learn better when corresponding words and pictures are
presented near rather than far from each other in time and space
Richard E. Mayer
- Professor, Department of Psychology & Brain Sciences, UC Santa Barbara
- 25 books and 375 other publications on educational psychology
Richard E. Mayer, Ed.,The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge University
Press, 2005)

35. Info is delivered via 2 channels
VISUAL
VERBAL

36. Visual & verbal channel

37. What should you do?

38. Dual-coding for better results
“This project is divided into 5 phrases,
and we have successfully completed
the first 3 as scheduled.”
“We are now working on Phase 4 and
we have encountered TWO major
challenges, namely the impact of the
deregulation and the unexpected
shortage of raw material…”
VISUAL
VERBAL

39. Learn from the BEST!

40. # 40
Steve Jobs is perhaps one of those people
who really understand the true meaning of VISUAL AID.
He uses VISUALS (props, PowerPoint slides, real products) to augment his
VERBAL communication. Both Channels work seamlessly together, one
supporting the other without OVERLAPPING, which is usually found in less
effective presenters. Jobs understands the concept of DUAL-CODING.

41. # 41
Guidance
5

42. Our brains are actively engaged
in communication and if it is not
guided, it will go off tangent!

43. What should you do?

44. How to engage your brain?
 Use “Message Title” to avoid misinterpretations
 Know your audience and start with something they know, using their
LTM to facilitate the introduction of new information, practice the
principle, “Similarity”
 Use well-known structures (something your audience already know)
to lead new information in
Michael Alley
- Associate Professor of Engineering Communication, Penn State University
-Technical writing and presentation expert
Michael Alley,The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors
to Avoid (Springer , 2002)

45. Use “Message Title”

46. Similarity aids adoption
OldNew
Analogy

47. Logic improves Comprehension

48. # 48
Great Presenters…
Take into account of the needs of key audiences
Avoid unnecessary and irrelevant information
Consider the limited capacity of STM
Practice “dual-coding” principle
Provide guidelines

49. Thank You

50. # 50
50 fully-editable PowerPoint
templates are yours for FREE.
Simply visit our website and
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www.whatzyourpoint.com

51. # 51

52. # 52

53. # 53