The organization of training materials in PowerPoint

16. May 202317. May 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

5 Tips for Organizing Training Materials in PowerPoint

How to centrally manage presentations for training, seminars and courses with an asset library

Reading time 6 minutes

Employee training and development are more important today than ever before. Companies have their own training departments or use educational institutes to build up knowledge about new products or new technologies among employees as well as customers and partners. The material that is used for this is usually available in PowerPoint. PowerPoint is the most common presentation format and much of the content required by other departments, for example product information from product marketing, is already available in PowerPoint and can be easily reused for training purposes.

Even though Learn Management Systems are increasingly being used in companies, which enable new interactive learning experiences, especially in the area of e-learning, the question arises as to where the content comes from. And here, too, PowerPoint as a content platform provides good services. Provided you have the ability to professionally organize and manage content for training. In this article, we’ll give you 5 tips to keep in mind when managing training material in PowerPoint and show you how an Asset Library can help.

Update training material
Build good slides easily with templates
Branding training material
Customize training content efficiently
Organize training material

1. Update training material

Anyone responsible for managing training materials in a company or educational institute knows how time-consuming it is to keep all slides, content and illustrations up to date. When technical details, product views or legal guidelines change, this usually affects a great many slides, presentations and elements. Keeping track of this and carefully incorporating changes at all points is time-consuming and nerve-racking, and also very error-prone. However, up-to-dateness is one of the most important quality criteria of training courses, seminars and training sessions.

An asset library is a professional and efficient way to maintain and update training materials. An Asset Library is a central platform for all assets used in PowerPoint. These can be entire presentations, individual slides and templates, or graphic elements such as icons, logos, and so on. An asset library offers the great advantage that everything is centrally located in one place and can also be centrally maintained there. This means that everyone who creates presentations is always working with the latest version. An Asset Library, such as QuickSlide offers, also informs users when old presentations need to be updated and with just one click, outdated assets and slides can be replaced.

2. Build good slides easily with templates

The didactic quality of slides and presentations plays a decisive role in the training sector and wherever knowledge is to be imparted. Content should be presented clearly and in a way that is easy to understand. Text-heavy slides usually do not achieve this. However, the visual presentation of content, e.g. with the help of icons or diagrams, requires PowerPoint expert knowledge, which not everyone who creates presentations has comprehensively. Here, too, an asset library can help. In addition to ready-made slides and presentations, it also offers the possibility of providing templates for various presentation formats. These can be, for example, templates for argumentative presentations, diagrams, infographics, process representations, project plans, etc. Templates are usually sample slides that can be individually filled with content. In this way, anyone can easily and quickly create vivid and varied slides. This has a direct effect on the transfer of knowledge and thus on the success of training courses and seminars.

In another blog article, we will give you suggestions for the different types of templates that are needed for presentation creation.

3. Branding training material

Another important aspect of creating training materials is maintaining a consistent design. Make sure your training materials are consistent with your brand identity. That way, you’ll convey a professional and authoritative impression. A presentation where every slide looks different, where fonts change and spacing jumps doesn’t look credible. An asset library can help with this challenge, too. This is because it can ensure that all the training material available is in the corporate design. We recommend paying attention to this aspect as well when selecting an asset library. There are special add-ins that combine the advantages of content organization in PowerPoint with special functions for brand management. In this case, a PowerPoint master with your corporate design specifications is stored in the system and fonts, colors and graphic specifications are preset. The advantage of such a solution is that everyone who creates new slides and presentations automatically works in the correct design. Some add-ins, such as QuickSlide, also offer check functions that display deviations from the corporate design and can be corrected with just one click. For users, i.e. anyone who creates training materials, this means that they can focus on the content and that corporate design compliance works for them automatically.

In another blog article, we’ll give you an overview of PowerPoint add-ins and helpful tips for choosing them.

Strategy Compass regularly provides you with useful information and helpful tips about PowerPoint.

With QuickSlide, our PowerPoint add-in, we offer you a comprehensive solution for efficient, brand-compliant PowerPoint use at your company.

Get to know QuickSlide

4. Customize training content efficiently

In the training sector, documents not only have to be constantly updated, they also have to be adapted to the learning levels and learning requirements of different target groups.

Let’s take the following example: if a new product is introduced in a company and the different departments are trained on this product, then part of the training content is probably the same for everyone, e.g. the introduction with the brief presentation of the new product. But then the information varies. This is because the technical service department is primarily trained on the technical features of the new product. Marketing, on the other hand, mainly needs information on the benefits of the new product for the customer and how to differentiate it from the competition. The sales team is also interested in margins, pricing strategy, and so on. Content is therefore compiled individually for each target group.

An asset library is ideal for modular work when creating presentations. Trainers and instructors can compile presentations for different training groups from a set of slides and add new slides as needed. In other words, the asset library also functions like a construction kit that can be used to customize each training session. Click by click, new training materials are created with little effort. This makes the work of trainers and seminar leaders much easier.

5. Organize training material

Managing training materials usually involves high volumes of slides. Presentations on different topics and for different target groups quickly add up, and it’s hard to keep track of them all. In an asset library, you can create an organization system that meets your individual requirements. You can organize by seminar formats, seminar topics, target groups, trainers or training cycles. Most asset libraries also allow you to define user groups and access rights. In this way, you can also grant semi-participants direct access to the training materials. All of these organizing principles help users find exactly what they’re looking for in the asset library and see only what they need. When selecting an asset library, also look for an elaborate search function that ideally searches not only by slide title, but also at least by keywords or specific tags.

If you have any questions about choosing an asset library to manage your training materials or want to learn more about QuickSlide, we’re here to help. Feel free to contact us.

The 3 parts of a presentation: introduction, main part, conclusion

8. May 202310. May 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

The 3 parts of a presentation: introduction, main part, closing part

The task of each part for the presentation structure

Reading time 6 minutes

A successful business presentation requires careful planning and structuring. In this article, we will look at presentation structure, focusing on the three parts: Introduction, main body, and conclusion of a presentation. We will explore what each part does and specific tips to help structure these parts of the presentation in the best possible way.

The Agenda

Part 1: The introduction of a presentation

Part 2: The main part of a presentation

Part 3: The conclusion of a presentation

The Agenda

A successful presentation needs a well-structured agenda. It helps your audience to keep track and follow the content of the presentation. The agenda ensures that all important aspects of a topic are covered in the presentation.

An attractively designed and worded agenda can also help to capture the audience’s attention right from the start and get them excited about the presentation. For example, the agenda can be designed using images, language, or terminology that is specific to the audience’s goals and interests. In this way, the presenter signals that they value the audience’s time and interest and are tailoring their presentation to meet their needs.
Read more about the importance of the agenda in presentations and learn how to use action titles profitably as well.

Part 1: the introduction of a presentation

The introduction is the first part of your presentation. The introduction has a special significance, because the introduction has the task of captivating your audience from the very beginning. The very first slides determine whether you will succeed in arousing your audience’s interest. To do this, it is crucial to strike the right tone, convey the relevance of your topic and motivate the audience to follow your presentation. A poor or unmotivated introduction is difficult to compensate for, even with a perfect main part. This is because once your audience’s attention is gone, it is very difficult to get it back. The introduction should account for about 10% to 15% of the total duration of the presentation. These are our tips for the introduction:

1. Greeting:

With a friendly greeting, you create a positive atmosphere right from the start. You give the audience the opportunity to arrive, get quiet and collect themselves and signal that it’s about to start. This phase is important to establish the audience’s concentration.

2. Introduction:

Briefly introduce yourself and your organization. Give an overview of who you are and what your role is in your organization. By doing this, you will give your audience direction and reinforce your expertise and credibility at the very beginning of the presentation.

3. Objective:

Briefly outline the topic of your presentation and explain what you hope to accomplish with the presentation. Make sure the goal of the presentation is clear and concise.

4. Context:

Explain the context in which the presentation will take place. Why is the topic important? Why is it relevant to the audience? Here you should also make sure that you connect with the audience and tailor your presentation to their needs and interests.

After the introduction, you should have achieved the following with your audience:

The audience is focused
They know who you are and that you bring expertise to the topic
It knows what the presentation is about and why it is worth paying attention.

Part 2: the main part of a presentation

The main part is the most important part of your presentation from a content point of view. Here you present your information, argue for your position, try to convince the target audience or bring them to a decision. In short, the middle section is the heart of your presentation. It should be structured in a logical and comprehensible way and should be consistently oriented towards your presentation objective. The biggest challenge is to make the main part compact and not to ramble too much, but still not to make any jumps in content where you might lose your audience. Ideally, when building the main body, you follow the thought processes your audience might have and answer any questions that might pop into your target audience’s head. Of course, this requires a good knowledge of your target audience and also some experience. If you have given similar presentations before, you should take into account insights you can derive from audience reactions or questions, for example, when building your next presentation.

The main part should make up about 75% to 80% of the total duration of the presentation. These are our tips for the main body:

1. Precise headings:

Make sure the main body is clear and logical and use precise headings. They will ensure that your audience can follow your arguments. Headings that are to the point also help the speaker, for example, when you want to jump back and forth within the presentation.

2. Key messages:

Present your core messages and arguments in a logical order. Make sure to support your arguments with examples and facts to strengthen your position. Report from the field to show that you understand the needs of your target audience.

3. Visualization:

Make sure you make your information easy to grasp quickly. Whenever possible, you should make use of visualizations. Diagrams, icons, and images are quicker to grasp than columns of scrubs, and you’ll stick in their minds. Your audience is more likely to remember a good picture than the text on your slides.

After the main part, you should have achieved the following with your audience:

The audience has understood your information and your arguments
You have answered or anticipated your audience’s most important questions and objections
The audience has recognized the relevance of the topic for their own needs and requirements
The audience is ready to take the next step toward your goal.

Part 3: The conclusion of a presentation

The closing section is the last part of your presentation and gives you the opportunity to emphasize your message once again. It’s not just about leaving a strong impression. The conclusion of your presentation determines whether you have achieved your presentation goal. Were you able to find supporters for your topic? Were you able to bring about a decision? Were you able to win a new customer? In order to be able to measure the achievement of your objectives, it is important to be specific at the end of your presentation. Depending on the goal, you can give an outlook here, agree on next steps or deadlines, or already distribute tasks. Use all possibilities for a binding exit and a concrete connection. Make sure that your topic is thought about further, a project is pursued or a collaboration is started. Otherwise, unfortunately, your presentation will be forgotten very quickly or other topics will push in front of it.

The conclusion of your presentation should be about 10% to 15% of the total duration of the presentation and include the following elements:

1. Summary

Summarize the most important points of your presentation again in a short and concise way. This will remind the audience of the key messages and strengthen your overall impression.

2. Call-to-action

Conclude your presentation with a call-to-action that fits your presentation objective. Ask the audience to make a decision, buy a product, or schedule a follow-up appointment with you. This will create commitment and ensure that your presentation objective is achieved.

3. Outlook

Give an outlook on future developments or projects. Show the next steps or point out follow-up topics. By doing so, you show that you know the processes and are also an expert for the next steps and implementation.

4. Thank you

Conclude your presentation by thanking the audience. Show your appreciation for the interest and time the audience invested in your presentation. You can also include your contact information and offer to answer questions or provide further information. The thank you note should come from you in person; you don’t need a slide for that. Also read our tips for PowerPoint closing slides.

After the main part, you should have achieved the following with your audience:

The audience follows your recommendation.
It acts in the sense of your presentation goal.
Your presentation is remembered and you are set with the audience as an expert on the presentation topic.

You can find many more very helpful tips on presentation structure in our blog articles on the golden thread of your presentation and presentation structure.

Storytelling in presentations

1. May 20235. May 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

Using Storytelling in Presentations to Excite Audiences

Communicating content through stories

Reading time 5 minutes

Even back in the day, our ancestors would sit around campfires telling stories to share experiences, pass on knowledge, and set standards. Storytelling was their method of choice. Because people love stories. Stories are emotive, they provide excitement, and they enthrall listeners. Content wrapped up as stories is attention-grabbing and memorable.

Storytelling has already been hugely popular in marketing, advertising, and corporate communications for many years now. Because it’s also a good way of standing out from competitors and adding an emotional charge to products and services.

You can utilize this effect in presentations too. Adding a storytelling element to your presentations will allow you to create an emotional link with your audience. Use this method to attract your listeners’ attention, enthrall them, and convince them.

The impact of storytelling

Storytelling in presentations

What makes a good presentation story

The hero’s journey: An example of a classic storyline

Applying the hero’s journey to a presentation

The impact of storytelling

Our brain is not solely programmed for logic. With every learning process, it also absorbs emotional information. Studies have shown that this additional information is actually what enables us to remember knowledge in the first place. So we learn better when we have emotional context. Fairytales, myths, and legends passed down over centuries have used this precise principle, applying fantasy-filled narratives to communicate often very profound topics.

In strategic storytelling, the method is used to allow business ideas and visions to be experienced and understood at an emotional level. Steve Jobs was an exceptionally gifted storyteller who used exciting stories in his presentations to present new products as life-changing technologies. He didn’t focus on the technical facts, but rather on the emotional user experience. He conveyed an attitude toward life that each listener could interpret in their own subjective way. And that is another great advantage of storytelling: stories provide space for our own realizations. People see themselves in the stories and develop their own personal takes.

Storytelling in presentations

So storytelling is a powerful way of communicating messages in an emotive, attention-grabbing manner, making it ideal for presentations:

Through storytelling, you will attract your target audience’s attention
You will add an emotional charge to your arguments
You will give your listeners space for their own realizations and personal takes
You will enhance learning

To many people, it may sound odd that a presentation needs a story, particularly as the term “story” implies something fictional. That’s why it’s important to ensure your presentation story is authentic.

But how do you find the right story for your presentation? Firstly: The storytelling should always revolve around people. In other words, storytelling often requires a pivot in thinking. So, in a product presentation, don’t focus on the product, but rather on the people who use the product. Don’t list the product’s features; show what users can do with the product and how they benefit from this. This simple shift in perspective will already elevate your presentation story to the next level.
In another blog article, you can read how to use visual metaphors to support the storytelling element of your presentation.

What makes a good presentation

A good story generates images in the listener’s mind. It sparks feelings and memories. To do this, it needs a clear storyline. So a good story also needs to reduce things to the absolutely essential, without overloading on data and facts. This is precisely what distinguishes it from classic presentations that often have overfilled slides.

The ingredients for a good story are generally a person, a problematic situation, and the desire or urgent need to get out of it. The plot consists of three parts: An initial situation, a complication, and the resolution. The core message of your presentation will lie somewhere between the complication and resolution. This is where you describe the path that takes the person out of their problematic situation. It’s where you show the impact of your proposal, idea, or product.
You can find out what else you need to take into account when structuring a presentation by reading our blog article on important steps for creating successful presentations and our insight on structuring presentations.

The hero’s journey: An example of a classic storyline

The hero’s journey is a universal story found in many myths and fairytales, and which always has a similar structure. It describes the path of a hero faced with challenges, who has to pass certain tests, and who eventually emerges from the journey stronger. Homer’s Odyssey is the archetypical hero’s journey in literature. It follows a prototypical 12-step pattern.

The hero living in their normal world.
An adventure/challenge that tears the hero away from their normal world.
The hero initially rejecting the challenge.
Faced with no other option, they decide to take on the challenge.
They need to pass various tests.
The hero recognizing that they are capable of tackling these tests.
A final challenge that once again requires the hero to give everything they have.
The hero returning to their normal world as a new, experienced person

Applying the hero’s journey to a business presentation

The hero’s journey provides a good framework for a presentation story. It can be further simplified depending on what’s required. In our example, we tell the story of the hero’s journey in five phases. Using a marketing presentation to roll out a new corporate design in PowerPoint, we’ll show you how to structure the script.

The initial situation

A company’s strategic refocus is being reflecting in new branding. Its website, ads, and trade-fair presentations will be featuring a new corporate design.

The challenge

But what about the business communications? The Marketing department must ensure all documents used at the company comply with the new design specifications, which is why new masters and templates have been introduced.

The complications that arise

But old documents continue to circulate around the company—especially presentations. The time and effort involved with recording and converting all the slides seems to be almost endless. The company-wide roll-out of the new corporate design in 1-to-1 communications cannot be achieved with the Marketing department’s resources alone.

The breakthrough with the solution

There is software that automates the process of converting to the new corporate design in PowerPoint. QuickSlide automatically creates presentations in the right corporate design, enabling old presentations to be converted with a single click. A Corporate Design Check verifies that all slides comply with branding specifications, and rectifies any discrepancies

A better target situation

Thanks to QuickSlide, all employees are able to create presentations complying with branding specifications. This elevates the quality of both visuals and content, because everyone has access to a wide range of templates. PowerPoint is easier and better to work with in general.

Strategy Compass regularly provides you with useful information and helpful tips about PowerPoint.

With QuickSlide, our PowerPoint add-in, we offer you a comprehensive solution for efficient, brand-compliant PowerPoint use at your company.

Get to know QuickSlide

When structuring your presentation story, there’s a method originating in the film industry that can help you: storyboarding. Read our blog article to find out how storyboards for creating presentations can help you.

Managing sales presentations

18. April 202328. April 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

More active selling time, less effort spent on preparing pitches

Professional presentation management for more client time

Reading time 5 minutes

You work in sales and know how important sales-pitch time is. It’s active selling time, and determines whether the sale is successful or not. So your goal is to invest as many of your precious resources as possible into establishing personal contact with your clients. Unfortunately, however, everyday sales work also involves administrative tasks that equally require your attention. We want to help you save time when it comes to preparing your sales pitches. Professional presentation management is the faster, easier and indeed better way to create sales presentations.

Stop falling into the time trap when using PowerPoint

Step one: Create accountability

Clarification: Who’s delivering what?

Content: Defining standards

Pro tools: The sales kit

QuickSlide, the ideal software solution

Stop falling into the time trap when using PowerPoint

In sales, half the battle is won with good PowerPoint presentations. They give the salesperson confidence, ensure arguments are well structured, provide visual backing for messaging, and get audiences more involved. So it’s no wonder PowerPoint is the tool of choice when it comes to supporting sales pitches. But there’s unfortunately another side to PowerPoint too: the time invested in creating the sales documentation. Looking for existing presentations and latest standings, formatting slides, and upholding corporate design are all challenges that have exasperated many an experienced sales pro. But PowerPoint isn’t a time trap per se. The problems tend to arise when the processes associated with PowerPoint have little to no structure—which is sadly the case at many companies. Why? The answer is very simple: There is no main person in charge for PowerPoint, and hence nobody to tackle the problem. PowerPoint sits somewhere between marketing, sales, and corporate communications.
This is particularly detrimental to sales, because it’s an area where presentations are used prevalently, and where standards for quality and relevance are suitably high.

We recommend professional presentation management, ideally at a company-wide level. But a team-specific solution is of course also particularly worthwhile for sales, with its very specific presentation requirements.

Step one: Create accountability

Our very first recommendation for anyone wanting to improve the way they use PowerPoint in sales is simple but crucial. Find someone to take charge of the matter, or take charge of it yourself. It will be the PowerPoint officer’s job to collate the sales team’s requirements for PowerPoint and presentation management and make contact with other departments involved, such as marketing and IT. Don’t worry; once the process for optimizing PowerPoint use is underway, not much further effort is necessary. There will, however, still need to be someone who acts as the driving force and contact person.

Since responsibility for presentations is a key problem, we’ve dedicated a separate blog post to it.

Clarification: Who’s delivering what?

Even though the sales department will be the one getting most benefit from presentation management, there are other departments for which this is also relevant, and which you should liaise with early on—especially if you want to opt for the ideal solution of using a software tool. This will definitely affect your marketing team and IT department. The marketing department is responsible for the PowerPoint master. This .potx file provides users with the most important design specifications, such as colors, fonts, text levels, and type area. The PowerPoint master is also very important in cases where software is used. It ensures your sales presentations all look consistent and uniform. Your IT department, meanwhile, will be the port of call when it comes to choosing a software-solution provider, and of course for any technical queries or issues relating to IT infrastructure. Involve these staff members in your considerations and work with them to explore the company-wide benefit of central presentation and slide management. Perhaps the sales department can be the pilot for a subsequent roll-out.

Content: Defining standards

Sales presentations generally consist of basic information that always stays the same and customized information relevant to specific clients, client groups, or industries.
Consult your coworkers and collectively consider which parts of the presentation you can standardize. Adopt a modular approach here, so think in terms of individual slides rather than finished presentations. Which of these are used constantly, which get adjusted, and which are so specific that only the display format is the same and the content itself changes with each presentation. It can be helpful to gear your approach around sales phases: Which slides do you need for the initial sales talks, and which are necessary for the product demo or final talks? If you look at your presentation content with a modular mindset, you’ll probably find lots of recurring content and display formats. And that’s good, because all these slides can be prepared in advance and thus save you time when creating your presentation. If you go with a software partner that offers good advice and a holistic approach, they will assist you with this step, and you’ll benefit from best sales practices.

These Are The PowerPoint Templates Your Employees Need – Read more about templates and setting up a slide set in this blog post.

Pro tools: A sales kit as a slide library

The standards you define will result in a set of slides and templates that can be used to create almost every sales presentation in a modular fashion. The aim is to prevent presentations from ever having to be created from scratch again, instead enabling every salesperson to access existing slides and content. This saves time when creating presentations. And, thanks to the modular system, client-specific adjustments can be made at any time.

You will ideally manage all presentations, slides, and templates in one central location that everyone in the team can access. A software-supported slide library offers crucial advantages here, as all the assets you need to create and edit presentations can be managed and updated centrally. This hugely reduces the administrative time and effort required, and also gives every employee the certainty of knowing they’re always working with the latest versions.

For more info on slide libraries and tips on how to choose them, read our blog post entitled Slide Libraries Are the Perfect Solution For Working Efficiently With PowerPoint.

QuickSlide, the ideal software solution

QuickSlide is our PowerPoint add-in that perfectly caters to sales teams’ requirements. QuickSlide provides an asset library for distributing and managing all the assets required when it comes to creating presentations, such as slides, templates, images, icons, logos etc. It also ensures consistent, uniform branding in PowerPoint, including a Corporate Design Check for your sales presentations. QuickSlide makes working with PowerPoint easier and more convenient in general. It will also allow you to benefit from our comprehensive service and consultancy when setting up your sales kit. In close consultation with your sales team, we’ll develop templates and adapt the content system to your sales processes.
Contact us if you’d like to know more about QuickSlide and our services.

4 steps for creating successful presentations

3. April 20234. May 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

4 steps for creating successful presentations

A guide for anyone wanting to score with compelling PowerPoint presentations.

Reading time 6 minutes

Presentations are often created under tight time constraints. We tend to start designing slides without giving proper thought to the presentation. But a good presentation is about more than just content and design. When creating presentations, it is important to keep your own goal in mind, ensure your arguments are well structured and scripted, not lose sight of the target group, and be adequately prepared for discussions and counter-arguments.

Use our steps to help you prepare your presentation. They contain all the important points to consider in the creation process. Make these steps a standard practice when creating presentations. What may seem like more effort at first glance will help you find the common thread for your presentation and make a convincing argument. It will also give you confidence when delivering the presentation

Step 1: Define your presentation objective

Step 2: Understand your target audience

Step 3: Develop the core message of your presentation

Step 4: Find the common thread/story of your presentation

Our expert tip: The OSCAR principle

Step 1: Define your presentation goal

Be aware of what the goal of your presentation is and when the presentation is a success from your point of view. What needs to occur in order for this to be achieved? Do you want to convince certain people? Are there decisions that need to be made? Do you want to clarify certain facts? Formulate this goal clearly for yourself, and liaise with your coworkers if you are creating presentations together. The entire argument should be geared around this goal. Clearly formulated objectives also help to distinguish important from incidental content, and to keep the focus.

Below are three typical presentation goals:

Transfer of information and knowledge.

This is the goal of presentations used for training purposes. But project updates and regular reporting also primarily serve the goal of conveying knowledge and insights. A good didactic structure is important here. You should also have an idea of the level of knowledge you expect your audience to have and what you want to achieve at the end of the presentation.

Convince

Examples of presentations aiming to convince people include project proposals, presentations of ideas, and presentations on topics such as process optimization. You have a proposal and want to win over supporters for your cause. Your presentation needs to have well structured arguments and, ideally, anticipate and refute objections. If it is not possible to convince the entire audience, define which people are most important for you, and address your topic accordingly to the target group.

Call to action

Want your presentation to spark an action? For example, a management decision, a budget approval, or a deal closure in a client presentation. Then structure your presentation to consistently steer toward this goal. Focus on the information your audience needs in order to produce the reaction you want. Avoid anything that distracts from your goal or topic. Articulate your expectations, e.g. by being as specific as possible about the next steps.

Strategy Compass regularly provides you with useful information and helpful tips about PowerPoint.

With QuickSlide, our PowerPoint add-in, we offer you a comprehensive solution for efficient, brand-compliant PowerPoint use at your company.

Get to know QuickSlide

Step 2: Understand your target audience

Once you have defined your specific goal, you need to start thinking about your presentation’s audience. Who is your target audience and what makes them “tick”? How relevant is your topic to this target group? What level of knowledge do the participants have and how does the information need to be prepared in order to keep your audience’s attention?

If you don’t know your audience, try and find out in advance what positions they hold in the company and what topics they are interested in. You can find answers to these questions in business networks, or talk to coworkers who may know more about your target audience. Use sources like this to ensure your audience is not a mystery to you.

Also consider whether there are different interests within your target group, and who the opinion leaders are. In addition, factor in the positions of those from whom you expect the greatest resistance. Be prepared for questions and counterarguments. In the event of a very diverse panel, it may be useful to create a flexible presentation structure that allows you to give preference to certain topics or to use slides containing background information if necessary.

Step 3: Develop the core message of your presentation

Every presentation needs a core message. This is the central idea you want to convey. It is derived from your presentation objective. All content builds on this central idea. Every slide, every diagram, every example, and every image you use is based on it. So the core message is also a gauge for deciding what belongs in the presentation and what doesn’t.

Formulate your core message precisely, clearly, and concisely—in just one sentence, if possible. Keep the following points in mind:

The core message should be relevant to your target audience, i.e. address a topic of major interest and importance.
It should be topical, e.g. offering a solution to an existing problem.
It should include added value for your target audience.
It should be inspiring.

Only once your core message is established should you start working out the structure of your presentation.

Step 4: Find the thread/story of your presentation

Once you know your presentation objective and have developed the core message, it’s time to start building your presentation. How can you develop your topic so that your audience follows you and stays attentive until the last slide?

There are two classic methods for structure: The pyramid and the funnel.

The pyramid structure starts with the key message in the introduction and initially provides the most important arguments in the main body, followed by further details. The advantage of this structure is that your audience knows from the beginning what you are about and can better map and evaluate the arguments. If you are pressed for time during the presentation, this structure also allows you to skip slides and omit the detailed information.

The funnel structure, meanwhile, saves the core statement for the end, e.g. as the conclusion of an analysis chain. You start, for example, by describing the problem, which is followed by various proposed solutions. You evaluate these solutions, highlight the advantages and disadvantages, and finally arrive at a proposal that provides maximum benefit. This approach requires more script editing to ensure your audience does not drop out in between. The funnel structure is very well suited for controversial topics, because it offers the possibility of eliminating objections and reservations in advance.

Read more about the pyramid and funnel structure in our blog article on the Common Thread and how it helps your presentation.

Our expert tip: The OSCAR principle

We have developed a clear and simple working basis for creating presentations using the OSCAR principle. It clearly summarizes the essential criteria for a good presentation. If you take the OSCAR principle into account when creating presentations, you will be on the right path to success.

OSCAR means

Organized = well structured
Simple = easy to understand
Concise = short and to the point
Appealing = attractively designed
Relevant = appropriate to the target group

Download the OSCAR principle overview chart here and incorporate it into your routine for creating presentations.

We wish you all the best with your next presentation.

The PowerPoint templates you need

27. March 202317. April 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

These Are The PowerPoint Templates Your Employees Need

How to build a professional template set

Reading time 7 minutes

More and more companies are recognizing the value of professional PowerPoint templates. They help employees create presentations and play an important role in ensuring a consistently branded corporate presence in PowerPoint. While the PowerPoint master offers basic slides with placeholders for texts and images, templates go a good step further. They set graphic and content standards. A professional set of PowerPoint templates covers just about every slide an employee needs. From structural slides, to slides for specific presentations, to themed slides. This means employees basically no longer have to build slides from scratch, thereby reducing workload, saving time, ensuring consistent branding, and adding a sense of variety to presentations. Because templates also inspire your employees to think more visually than just through the lens of text, increasing the overall quality of the presentations.

When we develop templates for our customers, a slide set includes up to 200 slides. To prevent employees from losing track of so many templates, it is important for slides to be properly structured accordingly to type. Read what matters when it comes to creating and using PowerPoint templates.

What you should keep in mind when creating PowerPoint templates

What are the different types of PowerPoint templates?

Storyboards: A special type of PowerPoint templates

How to distribute PowerPoint templates company-wide with slide libraries

What to remember when creating PowerPoint templates

When it comes to PowerPoint templates, it’s not mass that counts, but class. Having many templates barely distinguishable from each other is not very helpful. You need to offer your employees real, useful alternatives, especially if you have different templates for one type of presentation.

In general, it is important to consider exactly which templates are the right ones for your company and your employees. And the best way to clarify this question is to involve your employees in the template-creation process. Look at presentations from different departments. Take note of recurring slides and special features. Talk to staff about the challenges and problems you face in creating presentations. Use this information to ascertain your for PowerPoint templates. Consider what creative freedom you want to give your staff in using the templates and where you want to set firm standards. There are usually some sensitive issues, such as the amount of text on slides. Employees wanting presentation slides to double as hand-outs tend to use very text-heavy slides. You can limit this by distinguishing between templates for presentations and templates for hand-outs. Also consider various presentation formats. Online presentations lend themselves to different templates compared to live events.

The number one rule is to base your template creation on the specific needs of your employees and departments. This also means reviewing your templates every now and then. After all, presentation requirements change, and there can also occasionally be innovations in presentation topics. The issue of sustainability, for example, plays a much greater role today than it did 10 years ago.

On this topic, you can also read about what is important when implementing corporate design for Microsoft Office.

What are the different types of PowerPoint templates?

There are various categories into which PowerPoint templates can be divided. These categories can also serve as an organizational structure for storing your templates, ensuring your employees arel always able to find the right templates for the different purposes, forms of presentation, and topics. When we create templates for our clients, we cover these categories:

PowerPoint templates for structuring presentations

This category includes all templates for slides that play a role in the structure and flow of the presentation. These are templates for title slides and closing slides, agenda slides, break slides, slides as chapter separators or chapter introductions, and slides that are used at certain points in the presentation, e.g. for dramaturgical reasons such as quote slides or summaries.

PowerPoint templates for argumentative presentations

Images beat words. It is often useful to reinforce content and arguments by presenting them visually. There are a few typical presentation forms that can be used to do this. Offer your employees templates for: List presentations, pros & cons, juxtapositions, checklists, dos & don’ts, and conclusions.

PowerPoint templates for charts

If you’re presenting data in PowerPoint, you have many options for quickly visualizing trends, relationships, and dependencies. To ensure charts also meet your company’s corporate-design requirements, you should provide your employees with templates for the most important presentation formats: Column charts, bar charts, waterfall charts, curve and line charts, area charts, pie charts, network or spider charts.

Learn more about the main data presentation formats.

PowerPoint templates for infographics

Infographics are an increasingly popular presentation format, combining information with a clear visual presentation. Infographics are useful when different facts about a topic need to be grasped at a glance. Pictograms are often used for this purpose. Give your employees a variety of visual options and a choice of pictograms or icons to depict facts & figures.

PowerPoint templates for the presentation of processes, timelines, and cycles

Important process information and timelines can be presented very clearly and quickly with the right templates.

Templates for relationships, dependencies, influences, effects

Complicated topics can be conveyed better graphically than textually. This is especially true for relationships and dependencies. With the appropriate templates, your employees are able to bring clarity to complex issues.

PowerPoint templates for organizational charts and structures

Organizational charts and structure charts are graphically complex and require a lot of updating. Templates are useful here as a way of reducing formatting and enabling you to work on a graphically clean basis.

PowerPoint templates with maps

Presenting business figures using maps is a recurring requirement. Provide a set of templates with schematic country views for this; otherwise your employees will be looking for images in Google. These images are neither licensed nor are they consistent with your corporate design.

PowerPoint templates for project planning

Project planning is something that occurs in almost all departments of a company. Provide the responsible persons with templates that support project management: These are templates for schedules, responsibilities, project goals, and project updates.

PowerPoint strategy templates

Useful templates for market and business analyses, as well as for management methods regularly used by your company, help you prepare strategic information. Examples include templates for SWOT analyses, Business Model Canvas, and OKR.

Department-specific PowerPoint templates

Departments with a high volume of presentations in particular have special requirements. In Marketing departments, these may be templates for customer journey and personas. Sales works with account plans and sales funnels, while Project Management departments need templates for project updates and retros. Determine the specific needs of your departments and consider template types appropriate to these.

Topic-specific PowerPoint templates

There are some topics that are relevant right across the company, and which play a role in many presentations. These topics can also be covered by templates, such as templates for presenting a sustainability commitment or the ESG guidelines.

PowerPoint templates for different presentation formats

Not all presentations are the same; not only does the content change, but the framework also varies from case to case. For online presentations, for example, it can be wise to us interactive elements. Online workshops need their own templates, and live presentations in front of a large audience require templates with attention-grabbing images.

Storyboards: A special type of PowerPoint templates

Templates can be used as individual slides. However, entire presentation sequences can also be defined using interrelated templates. These so-called storyboards are used to establish the structure of recurring presentations, such as reports or project updates. Employees no longer need to worry about the content flow or design of their presentation, and only need to fill the slides with the current content. This takes a lot of pressure off in daily business.

Storyboards also set the standards for the depth and structure of information on recurring topics. For example, a storyboard for decision-making templates can be directly structured for management so that a quick decision can be made.

How to distribute PowerPoint templates across your organization with slide libraries

If you want to provide your employees with a professional set of PowerPoint templates, the obvious question is how to bring all those templates into the company. All employees who work with PowerPoint should have easy access to the templates. Ideally, there should be a clear organizational structure and a good search function so that everyone can quickly find what they need. Also consider the updating required when templates or their content change.

A professional slide library does a good job of updating templates, slides, and presentations and making them available company-wide. Uploading, administration and maintenance are all done centrally in one place. User groups and access rights can also be used to manage confidential slides and presentations.

There are many slide-library providers and there are also PowerPoint add-ins that combine the library feature with other benefits for your company. One such tool is QuickSlide. It offers a slide library, plus comprehensive brand management and productivity tools.

Read more about what slide libraries do, and what you should consider when choosing one, here.

If you want to create templates for your company and are looking for a professional partner to assist you, then please feel free to contact us.

Best practice for a corporate design relaunch in PowerPoint

21. March 20234. April 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

Best practice for a corporate design relaunch in PowerPoint

How we implemented our new brand identity to PowerPoint

Reading time 7 minutes

A while ago, our team at Strategy Compass developed our new corporate design. We refined our positioning and redefined our brand, visually and in terms of content.

This meant we faced the same challenge many of our customers face when they approach us: How can we convey our new corporate design across the entire company and all business communications? So, we followed all the steps we normally recommend to our clients in this situation – which meant we could experience and evaluate our own methods first hand.

In this article, we’ve summarized our best practice for you.

Consider PowerPoint from the outset for a corporate design relaunch

Establish central responsibility for the corporate design relaunch in PowerPoint

Important issues to clarify when transferring your corporate design to PowerPoint

Develop a PowerPoint master and style guide

Provide slide templates and storyboards

Create an asset library

Use smart tools for the rollout of your corporate design in PowerPoint

Consider PowerPoint from the outset for a corporate design relaunch

When developing a company’s new corporate design, PowerPoint is often pushed to the end of a list of related tasks. What’s often considered more important is the business stationary design, how the website will look, or how print materials and marketing campaigns are presented. PowerPoint is often forgotten as a key channel for showcasing a brand. When it is finally considered, it takes a while to realize that time and expertise are needed to transfer the new design across PowerPoint in a way that everyone working on PowerPoint presentations can adequately reflect the brand values and appropriately implement all the design specifications.

We recommend considering PowerPoint right from the start. Many organizations commission external partners for the development of their new corporate design. PowerPoint should be included in the catalog of requirements on their briefing.

At Strategy Compass, we developed our new corporate design ourselves internally. When deciding on the color palette, fonts and other design elements our designers took PowerPoint into account from the outset.

Establish central responsibility for the corporate design relaunch in PowerPoint

Perhaps some think that PowerPoint just fits in somehow with the new corporate design. However, it doesn’t work like that, whether you’re a large company or a medium-sized one like ours. This is why the topic of PowerPoint is so important. It requires responsibility and decisions must be made, for instance, do you integrate fonts from the corporate identity or use system fonts? With a corporate design relaunch you need to strike a balance between a consistent brand presence and a user-friendly implementation. Even the most beautiful design won’t help employees who are neither experts in graphic design nor PowerPoint professionals if they cannot work with it for their presentations.

At our company, one graphic designer is responsible for PowerPoint which helped us not only during the process of the corporate design relaunch. Having someone in charge of this means we constantly keep PowerPoint in mind. We continuously improve and develop PowerPoint and all the tools and components related to it, such as masters and templates, to ensure they can always be applied properly.

Our customers often have someone from their Marketing department who takes on the responsibility of transferring the corporate design to their company’s PowerPoint as they’re responsible for all day-to-day business involving PowerPoint. Read our take on this in our blog article, Who’s responsible for presentations?

Important issues to clarify when transferring your corporate design to PowerPoint

Too often a new corporate design is established and only then its integration in PowerPoint considered. If this is the case for your company, then you should ask yourself the following three questions.

How can we transport our brand elements across to PowerPoint?
Don’t fall into the trap of believing you can transfer your corporate design 1-to-1 into PowerPoint. This probably wouldn’t work anyway, due to the technical requirements of PowerPoint, and not everything that is possible in PowerPoint is user-oriented and practical. Therefore, instead, make sure you match your brand values with the look and feel of your corporate design.
Where should we allow for creative freedom and where should we impose restrictions?
Presentations have their own success criteria. These are strongly dependent on the purpose for presenting, the topic, target audience and the presenter. Think about how PowerPoint is used within your company. Are presentations conducted mainly online or on site and in person? What are the different types of presentations given? When you gain some clarity on these points you can define standards and simultaneously decide how much room for creativity your employees should be allowed for their presentations.
How can we support our employees in creating brand-compliant presentations?
Consider what your employees need when applying the new corporate design to PowerPoint. Besides the familiar PowerPoint master there are other tools which facilitate the creation of brand-aligned presentation decks, for instance, a style guide, slide templates or storyboards to use apply for recurring presentations.

Develop a PowerPoint master and style guide

The PowerPoint master is the basis for your corporate design in PowerPoint and comprises predefined design specifications for PowerPoint. When a presentation is opened via the master, fonts, colors and positioning of text boxes and so on are all preset and ready to use. What’s important is that the PowerPoint master is set up perfectly, both as a technical framework and with usability taken fully into account. Read more about what makes a good PowerPoint master.

Always involve your PowerPoint user groups when developing a new PowerPoint master. We spoke with our different teams internally to gain clarity on their requirements for the master. Sales have different needs to the Marketing team and C-level personnel focus on different aspects of PowerPoint compared to the Customer Success Team. We highly recommend this approach. A PowerPoint master which fails to meet the challenges of everyday business won’t get used – then there’s the danger that all employees will try to create their own templates, for instance, by repeatedly overwriting existing presentations. Long term, this will only dilute rather than strengthen your company’s brand identity.

At Strategy Compass, besides establishing a PowerPoint master, we also developed a style guide. While master templates cover all design rules implicitly, the style guide provides an explanation for the corporate design so all users get a good feeling for how the brand is presented within PowerPoint. Our style guide, for instance, offers practical guidelines on how to use the corporate design, typical pitfalls, dos and don’ts, tips for selecting images, etc.

Provide slide templates and storyboards

Every presentation is different yet similar slides are put to use again and again. Support your employees by providing these slide evergreens as templates, all set up in the corporate design and ready to use.

At Strategy Compass, for instance, we have a set of around 100 slide types that we use as templates, including those with different design options such as the presentation of organigrams, processes, charts, pros and cons, quotes, etc. There are also topic-related templates, including team introductions, company data, product features and presentation events, like workshops, online demos, etc.
With storyboards we go a step further. These are templates for recurring presentations that specify a structure, such as product updates, regular reports or management presentations. Storyboards set company-wide standards for design, content and structure. We take a deeper dive into this topic with our blog post how storyboards help you with presentation creation.

Create an asset library

If you want to make the creation of presentations in your corporate design as easy as possible for your employees, then setting up an asset library is the way to go. Here, you can make all presentation masters, slide templates and other assets centrally accessible. This way, your employees won’t waste valuable time looking for these assets and avoid having to start from scratch with every new presentation – which also cuts stress levels!

In terms of a consistent appearance, the advantage lies primarily in the well-organized range of brand-compliant slides and templates. These can either be used as they are or are pre-designed for users to fill with their own content. Either way, they display the correct corporate design, so PowerPoint users don’t have to concern themselves with design or compliance with design guidelines. This large pool of templates gives users – especially those without any design experience – confidence in creating appealing presentations. Read more about the advantages of slide libraries in companies.

Use smart tools for your corporate design rollout in PowerPoint

There’s an array of software tools to support the rollout of your company’s corporate design in PowerPoint. At Strategy Compass we were in the fortunate position that we could make use of our very own product, PowerPoint add-in QuickSlide. Naturally, we were already using QuickSlide so the switch to our new corporate design was really straightforward. In QuickSlide, all assets, from the PowerPoint master to the style guide, templates and storyboards are stored and provides centrally – and thus could be updated centrally. Key benefit: All users could then automatically start working with assets in the new corporate design.

QuickSlide comprises an slide library, offers extensive functionality for asset management in PowerPoint and is the ideal tool for professional brand management in PowerPoint. For instance, there are several check functions to ensure your presentations are all brand-aligned and consistent. Even editing slides is a much smoother process when using QuickSlide.

Are you planning a corporate design relaunch?

Are you currently facing the challenge of transferring a new corporate design to PowerPoint yourself? Do you have questions about our recommendations? Would you like to know more about how best to approach such a project?

Get in touch with us. We will be happy to help you and show you ways to set up such a project efficiently.

Key helpers for a more efficient use of PowerPoint

13. March 20234. April 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

Presentation creation for businesses

Key helpers for a more efficient use of PowerPoint

Reading time 5 minutes

PowerPoint is an indispensable tool for business. Millions of new presentations are created every day, the majority of which are business presentations, i.e., those created in companies for various business purposes and scenarios. If you believe the studies which say an average of four hours is invested in creating every presentation, then it’s definitely worth looking at how the creation of PowerPoint decks in your company can be simplified and made more efficient.
With this blog article we’ll provide a glimpse at some helpful tools which will support your employees with their presentation creation and how using them could optimize working with PowerPoint company wide.

PowerPoint master
Templates
Asset library
PowerPoint add-ins
Storyboards
The OSCAR Principle

PowerPoint master

Nearly all companies work with a PowerPoint master – a .potx file stored within PowerPoint. When this master is opened, a new presentation is automatically created for which the design specifications such as fonts and the color palette are predefined. The PowerPoint master thus facilitates the formatting of slides in a company’s corporate design. The master can do this if all the technical, design and user-friendliness criteria are set up appropriately. It’s therefore important to observe the following points when creating your company’s PowerPoint master:

Set up the technical framework of your PowerPoint master properly, taking into account different text levels, footnotes, shapes and colors, color schemes within tables, etc. It can help if the person setting this up is already quite experienced in using PowerPoint.
When transferring the corporate design to the PowerPoint master, consider all the specific requirements for presentations. For instance, consider the advantages and disadvantages of the corporate design fonts compared to system fonts. We advise you to focus on the look and feel of your brand identity rather than applying a complete reproduction of all formal design specifications.
Remember that PowerPoint users creating business presentations don’t tend to have a background in design. Too many layout options can be confusing so just provide the selection of layouts as necessary for your users.
Review your PowerPoint master from time to time. Requirements for presentations can change so adaptions are always needed now and then.

Find out more about what makes a good PowerPoint master.

Templates

Presentation slide templates are an ideal supplement to a PowerPoint master. They are ready-made slides, already designed and filled with content. Employees can either use them as they are or adapt them with slight changes as needed. The main benefit is that users can continually access existing slides as a basis for their presentation and thus don’t have to keep starting from scratch.
There are different categories for templates:

Slide templates which cover particular formats for presenting, for instance, process slides, chart slides, or pros and cons.
Templates for different topics, such as company data, team introductions or sustainability metrics.
Slide templates set up for specific scenarios, including product presentations, reporting, etc.

Asset library

A PowerPoint slide library lets you distribute, manage and maintain slides, templates and whole presentations within a company. The library is a central place where everyone who creates presentations can find all the assets they need – and thus avoid spending hours searching for them.

The quality of presentations is increased, too, as all assets made available in the slide library meet company-wide standards for design and content. Plus, the slides and their content can be updated centrally. There’s an array of different PowerPoint add-ins which cover the functions of slide libraries, some of which are combined with additional benefits like tools to support brand management and productivity. Read more on why slide libraries are the perfect solution for working efficiently with PowerPoint.

PowerPoint add-ins

A PowerPoint add-in is a software extension which provides additional functionality within PowerPoint. There are many different PowerPoint add-ins for various applications. Some of them offer very specialized functions, such as the integration of surveys in PowerPoint presentations. For the professional use of PowerPoint for business there are add-ins which provide more broad-based functionality. Many of them are developed to simplify presentation creation while enhancing presentation quality. QuickSlide, for example, is an add-in which provides extra features around asset management, brand management and productivity. When using an add-in like QuickSlide a company can address all the different requirements from diverse business areas with one solution. This typically saves business costs and reduces the need for IT intervention. You can find interesting information on the market offer of PowerPoint add-ins in our blog article, an overview of PowerPoint add-ins. Here, we explore the question of how many PowerPoint add-ins a company needs.

Storyboards

One special kind of template is a storyboard. Storyboards predefine the structure of recurring presentations, such as decks to present to the management board, sales presentations, regular reports, and so on. This means employees can create presentations for these types of scenarios much more easily without having to think about their structure. The corporate design, content levels and other criteria can be preset within a storyboard. Companies for whom we’ve developed storyboards have given us positive feedback – their presentations are more focused and goal-oriented. Qualitative standards for presentations have been established across the whole company.
Want to learn more about the use of storyboards? Read here how storyboards can support your presentation creation.

The OSCAR Principle

What makes a presentation successful? Anyone who creates business presentations would want to know the answer to this. Just a Google search provides all kinds of advice from diverse sources, but what’s missing is a solid, practice-oriented set of guidelines. We’ve therefore created our own trustworthy tool which summarizes the most important elements of a good presentation, with simple guidelines for presentation creation: The OSCAR Principle.

OSCAR stands for:
Organized
Simple
Concise
Appealing
Relevant

In summary, a presentation should be well-structured, easy to follow, concise and to the point, attractively designed and appropriate for the target audience.
Read how you can create compelling presentations by following The OSCAR Principle and download our chart with an overview of The OSCAR Principle.

Tips and ideas for your final PowerPoint slide

2. March 202320. April 2023 Marion Sztuka Uncategorized

Last slide – full impact

Tips and ideas for your final PowerPoint slide

reading time 5 minutes

By the time you start creating the last slide of your PowerPoint presentation you can sometimes run out of ideas. At least, there’s no other real explanation for the many concluding slides on presentations which show a lack of ambition. However, that last slide of the deck should offer a lasting impression and really shake things up. It should support the main objectives of your presentation as well as possible. Read our tips for results-oriented, effective ways to use the final slide.

Final PowerPoint slide – the end or a new beginning?

Your goals in sight – including on the last slide

Dos and Dont’s for a concluding PowerPoint slide

Final PowerPoint slide – the end or a new beginning?

First impressions count, but it’s the last impression that really lasts – including for PowerPoint presentations. Those who believe they can get away with a mediocre introduction are just as wrong as those who fail to attach any importance to the very last slide of their presentation. Yet it’s so typical to round off a presentation with a slide simply stating, “Thank you for your attention!”, “Let’s begin the discussion” or just “Any questions?”. And what do these three examples have in common? They’re very unlikely to stick in the audience’s mind – and seem to announce that the presentation has come to an end. Listeners are practically invited to shut the door on the presented topic, put it out of their minds and move on with their day. This contradicts the very purpose of a presentation. The intention behind conducting a presentation is usually to make a fresh start and very rarely to conclude something. They’re used as a kick-off, to showcase information as a basis for decision-making, as a tool to win new clients. In all of these cases the end of the presentation in particular is a new beginning – for a process, a project, collaboration between partners, or a new contract or sales transaction.

Don’t miss the opportunity to use that final slide as a smooth transition to negotiations, actions, decisions and the changes you want to bring about. It’s therefore important to have a clear idea of the goal of your presentation.

Your goals in sight – including the last slide in PowerPoint

There’s a purpose for every presentation you create. And where there’s a purpose there’s also a goal that you want to achieve with your presentation. When working on a presentation it’s important to keep this goal in mind from the first and right through to the very last slide. This helps you in the structure of your slides, the prioritization of the most important information, the collaboration with others in presentation creation and, of course, in the design of that final slide.

The last slide of a presentation will ideally contribute to achieving your original goal. Below, using three examples, we show you how identifying the goal for a presentation and measures on how to meet that goal can really affect how you use the very last slide to contribute to this.

There are three typical objectives for creating presentations:

Goal of presentation: To inform

You want to share knowledge with others. You have achieved your objectives when your audience have understood all the information and have reached the level of knowledge you intended.

Example presentations would be:

Presentations for training purposes
Presentations on research results or findings
Presentations on project updates
Reports and quarterly updates

Ideas for concluding slide

Use the last slide of a presentation as a reminder. Provide a succinct recap of the most important information the audience needs to remember.
Turn the obligatory “Any questions?” on its head and instead ask your listeners if they feel well-informed, that they have taken in everything you presented to them.
Address those who seem particularly interested by sharing further sources of relevant information (literature, videos, upcoming events).

Goal of presentation: To convince

There are different standpoints on a topic. You would like to bring your arguments into the discussion. The objective has been achieved when you gain support for your viewpoints among the audience.
Example presentations would be:

Project proposals
The presentation of ideas within a context of innovation management
Keynote speeches and lectures

Ideas for concluding slide

Revisit a point or an image from the introductory section of your presentation to round it off and show you consistently stand by your argument.
Conclude with an attention-grabbingdeas for concluding slide image or a quote which symbolically supports your viewpoint to leave a strong, lasting impression.
Use your closing slide to outline the desired outcome or status. Your personal vision for a better (working) world.

Goal of presentation: To motivate

The most challenging objective for a presentation is to stir your audience into action. The goal has been reached when the intended action has been triggered.
Example presentations would be:

Sales presentations with the intention of closing a sale.
Decision-making presentations for a management board.
Presentations for the approval of a budget.

Ideas for concluding slide

Let that last slide encourage the audience to put money where their mouth is. List all the decisions which need to be made and add check marks for approval.
Take the next step: For instance, show a fixed date for signing a contract on the last slide.
Connect with prospects on the last slide with a summary of what’s interesting and relevant for them and how they specifically benefit from signing a deal (or other actions you would like them to take).

If you want to know how to set up your slides well from start to finish, please read our other blog article on creating a clear structure for successful presentations here.

Storyboarding helps you to keep sight of the common thread of your presentation. Learn how to use storyboards to build better presentations here.

Dos and Dont’s for the final PowerPoint slide

Here are a few more tips to keep in mind when creating the last PowerPoint slide of your presentation.

Dos:

Think ahead as to what would make an effective closing slide which corresponds to your presentation objectives. This way you can avoid resorting to a lame slide showing, “Thanks for your attention” due to lack of time and inspiration close to a deadline.
Of course, you can thank your audience, but do this verbally as part of your presentation delivery, thus making it more personal and sincere.
Avoid seeing the concluding slide as an endpoint to your presentation and instead see it as a transition point to the next steps, for example, by providing an outlook or setting a schedule for decision-making.

Don’ts:

Do not introduce a new topic on the final PowerPoint slide. This can irritate your listeners and even generate unnecessary discussions. Instead, summarize, repeat or confirm the key messages stated on previous slides.
Avoid the awkward situation that may arise by encouraging your audience to ask questions right at the end when their minds are already on making it to their next meeting. Instead, provide those with questions with an opportunity to raise them afterwards so those in a hurry have a chance to leave.
Don’t use the final slide to present any gags, memes, animations or gimmicks which only serve to gain attention. Instead, keep it relevant and use it a useful tool to meet your objectives.

Our blog articles provide you with many helpful tips on presentation creation.