powerpoint presentations have long been a double-edged sword. Good sales presentations using decent Powerpoint design can be a massive asset to a company. A poor presentation, put together by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, can be a liability.

One of the problems with Powerpoint, as well as its advantage, is that it is so easy to use. Without any training, someone with basic computer literacy can cobble together a slideshow without too much trouble. It’s extremely powerful, allowing you to embed all kinds of different graphics, movies, audio and other effects. So much is built in that a speaker hoping to make a good impression can really go to town, incorporating as many as possible of its capabilities.

This, however, is often a serious mistake. Powerpoint design is a fairly subtle art. Like any audio-visual medium, doing it well is difficult. Just because you can put together a flier with desktop publishing software, or a home movie with a video camera, doesn’t mean that the outcome will convince the audience.

Worse, Powerpoint is so ubiquitous in the business world that there is often the expectation that it will be used – both on the part of the audience and the speaker. That means that presentations can be thrown together simply to fulfil that expectation. Whilst well-designed powerpoint presentations can add a whole new dimension to a speech, giving complementary information and appealing to listeners for whom the spoken word isn’t a natural medium, a poor presentation will switch people off. Put another way, not having a Powerpoint presentation is better than having a bad one. This can hamstring otherwise competent speakers, because they find that the slideshow actually detracts from what they are saying. This is never more the case when it simply duplicates the material verbatim – a mistake that is all too common.

The purpose of sales presentations is to close a deal. Good Powerpoint design can help you with this; bad Powerpoint design can end up losing you the bid. If you are in any doubt, compare a few successful presentations – yours or other companies’ – with ones that haven’t gone so well. What has been the difference? Where Powerpoint adds to clear and effective communication, it is an asset. Where is makes things more complicated and distracting, it’s best left out. The trick is finding out how to do it right, every time.

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