Customers Can't Buy If They're Dodging Bullets
Bob and I love a good presentation. The topic doesn't matter; for us an expertly executed presentation is a loveable thing.
Unfortunately there hasn't been much for us to love recently. And the ratio of lousy to loveable seems to be increasing, especially for presentations designed to get an audience to take action.
After all ... The Presentation Makes The Sale; The Presenter Just Takes The Order.
Where is the love? It's in the rules for creating an effective presentation. And a rule in need of a lot more lovin' is "Get rid of the bullet slide."
Bullet slides are certainly popular but that doesn't make them effective. As author Karol Newlin says, "Popularity comes from allowing yourself to be bored by people while pretending to enjoy it."
Bullet slides require the audience to read. No audience reads deeper than 15 words into a slide. The only time an audience will read deep is when the presenter reads to them and no presenter can speak more than 15 words as fast as an audience can read them.
If an audience member does read deep without the presenter reading out loud than the presenter had better be silent. Because a person can either read or listen; not both. Meaning deep reading folks are either ignoring what the presenter is saying, ignoring what they are reading, or both.
Bullet slides give away the contents of the presentation removing the opportunity to provide narration, analogy, metaphor, juxtaposition, and importantly flow from start to finish. With bullet slides there can be no flow from start to finish because there is no start to finish.
Our clients often defend bullet slides by saying they decrease the number of slides in a presentation.
There is no connection between slide count and presentation effectiveness. Presentation effectiveness is connected to the number of theses presented, not slide count.
Bullets are appropriate for a shooting range not audience members ... after all audiences deserve a little love.