Pacing your Presentation

What do you hate most about sitting through a PowerPoint Presentation? Most presenters do something like this:

"Good morning. My name is Joe Soap. Today I will tell you about Acme Corporation and how wonderful we are". Then Joe Soap goes on to read his 200 slides to you which all are so heavily laden with text that you are surprised the projector screen does not come crashing down with the weight of all that text being displayed.

How can you drastically change this atmosphere? With two strategies that my clients learn during my coaching sessions:
1. The Pow'Rful Opening. Have your title slide on show while your audience enters the room, and settles in. Your title slide tells the audience that we are in the right room, and Joe Soap is the presenter. Then your next slide is a black slide. This is where you build rapport with the audience, without the distraction of a slide. You use this time to deliver your opening story, and determine the audience's level of knowledge about your topic, if appropriate. Then you move onto your slide show.
2. Then, pace your slideshow with questions and reviews after you have covered every major topic. This is where I see many presenters fall flat - they just keep on going, irrespective of audience engagement. You need to stop and pace your presentation. It is not a lecture, this is a presentation. Stop speaking and stop presenting. Have a slide stating "Questions?", and then wait a moment for questions. If you don't get any questions, then initiate conversation by stating "At this point I often get asked...". Then have two questions ready, with answers to stimulate audience engagement.

Pace your presentation with the Pow'Rful Opening, and stopping after each major topic, to interact with your audience.