
Making a presentation? Don’t fall into these 3 common traps.
1. “I’ll just start in PowerPoint.”
The biggest trap of all.
PowerPoint is not a thinking tool, it’s a design tool. If you start there, you’ll be searching for looks before you’ve figured out meaning.
Smarter:
- Grab a notebook. Go for a walk. Think in concepts, not slides.
- What do you want your audience to feel, remember, do?
2. “I’ll reuse my old deck.”
Familiar, fast, tempting… and often the quickest route to a messy story.
That old deck had holes back then. Why would it work now?
Smarter:
- Use it (at most) as raw input – not as your structure.
- Ask yourself: “What should they still remember tomorrow?”
That’s your new starting point.
3. “I need to tell them everything. So they really get it.”
The classic. Give too much = nothing sticks. Your audience isn’t a hard drive – they’re human.
Listening, looking and remembering? That’s topsport.
Smarter:
- Choose your essence. Repeat it a few times.
- Use the golden rule:
- Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
- Tell it.
- Tell them what you told them.
Works. Always. Steve Jobs nailed it