Presentation Masala Book is out now!

The book Presentation Masala is out now! You can check out the book here.

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Presentation Masala is a step-by-step guide to help you prepare your message, design your slides and deliver your presentation with confidence. Ideal for anyone who makes business presentations and wants to grow in their career.

In this book you will learn how to:

• Start a presentation
• Grab audience’s attention
• Tell a story
• Design great slides
• Use images and charts
• Overcome nervousness
• Engage your audience

Do check out the book and let me know your feedback.

Presentation Masala is coming soon! (Sign up to get it first)

Dear friends.
My book is getting published very soon.

Start-up Investor Pitch Guide (Free E-book)

If you are a start-up founder looking to pitch to investors, here is a great resource for you. Download this free e-book. It will help you develop, design and deliver a great pitch to investors.

Download by clicking here

Present a keynote like Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella delivered a keynote at the Mobile World Congress 2019.

How to present a keynote like Satya Nadella?

• Tell your story and use slides only as visual aids. Your story is more important.
• Keep your slides clean and use very few words per slide
• Use large visuals which help you tell your story
• Use 3 icons instead of 3 bullet points
• Avoid using too many colours. Notice the simplicity of the slides.

What slides does Sundar Pichai use? Here are 7 from his Stadia Launch

If you are organising a sales conference or a press conference, here is something worth replicating. Google launched Stadia recently and Sundar Pichai started the event with a good presentation. His slides were bold, clean and powerful. Completely devoid of clutter and supported what he talked about.

His slides were similar to slides used by other CEOs like Tim Cook and Elon Musk. They all use a similar slide design style. Look at the screen behind too. A large screen which mesmerises the audience and gives a larger-than-life feel to the event.

Here are 7 slides Sundar Pichai used.

Takeaways:

• Big fonts
• Very less text on slides (you should do all the talking)
• Lots of white space (empty space enhances the power of what is there on the slide)
• Few colours, but consistent use of the same colours. You only see white, black and pinkish-red in this entire presentation
• Use lots of images

Liked what you read? Here are some more articles like this:

10 slides that Tim Cook used in his keynote address
17 Impressive Slides from 'Google for India' Keynote 2017
5 Tips to use Colours in presentations [Design secret #1]

How crucial is the start of your presentation? [Sequoia's graph inside] (Post 4 of 30)

We have all heard the adage, "Well begun is half done". While it may be true, does it apply to PowerPoint presentations? How crucial is the start to any presentation?

It turns out, the start is a make or break opportunity. Let me show you a graph from Sequoia's blog. For those of you who might not know Sequoia, it is one of the biggest venture capital firms in the world and it has made significant investments in some of the biggest start-ups.

In his blog post 'How to present to investors' Aaref Hilaly (of Sequoia) shares an attention graph.

The above attention graph is for a 60-minute long presentation. The graph indicates how the attention of the audience changes during your presentation. There are a few important implications:

1. Everyone pays attention to you at the start
2. Attention falls sharply after about a minute or two (because the start was bad and not exciting)
3. Attention rises at the end (we usually focus back on the presenter when the talk is ending)

What does this mean for you as a presenter?

The start of your presentation is a huge opportunity. You start well and you earn the interest (and attention) of your audience. You start with generic stuff (which bores) and you lose everyone.

• Start with something which is critical to the entire presentation
• Start with something remarkable or shocking
• Start with a story, example or anecdote (or whatever helps you grab attention quickly)

How to end a presentation? Tips from Daniel Kahneman (Post 3 of 30)

Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Laureate and a renowned figure in the field of behavioural psychology. In his classic book, Thinking Fast and Slow he has shared insights about how humans think and act and the predictable mistakes we tend to make. He has one great tip to offer to you as a presenter.

Your audience, as per Daniel Kahneman, has two selves

1. The Experiencing Self, and
2. The Remembering Self

The experiencing self lives in the moment and answers the question, "How is the presentation now?" Whereas the remembering self answers the question, "How was the presentation, overall?"

Now the psychological insight is - Our memory is controlled by our remembering self. The duration of the presentation is neglected. What matters is how we remember the overall experience of your presentation.

The two things that affect this are:

1. How did the presentation end?
2. How were the peak moments in the presentation?

As per Daniel Kahneman, the way your presentation ends matters a lot. A great presentation which ends badly will forever remain a 'bad presentation' for your audience. Think about bad movies for a moment. If a movie ends badly, even if the rest of it was good, will be treated by you as a bad movie. The reality is, not everything was that bad. Or think about a vacation. It might have ended very badly but the entire vacation was great. How do you feel about the vacation today?

As a presenter, it is important to start well but it is more important to end well. A presentation which ends badly will always be remembered as a totally bad presentation by your audience. So plan your ending. End on a high.