As a rhetoric coach, I have a principle: This principle is: I don't want to be right, I always just want the best outcome.
Therefore, in my rhetoric coaching sessions and seminars, I always apply the Two-Versions Method. For every rule that is supposed to create an effect, for every new suggestion from my participants, I do a counter-test. I try out the rule, but also always the alternative to this rule, and then I choose what has the highest impact. Simple method. Wanting to be right is for others, I prefer to aim for the best outcome and immediately discard my version if the other variant wins in terms of impact. That's how I did it with PowerPoint. I'm not saying PowerPoint is bad, I just always do the counter-test with the alternatives, and in the 15 years that I've been doing this, the result is as follows: In 95 out of 100 cases, PowerPoint loses. Here are the two alternatives with which you can replace POWERPOINT with the aim of achieving a greater impact. The first one is: Speak freely - Without any slides. A speaker stands on stage. He is silent. Suddenly he says: "Steve Jobs once said: (Pause) Anyone who has something to say, (Pause) doesn't need PowerPoint." Try to imagine the impact on the audience. Now imagine a second speaker. He stands on stage, he clicks on the following slide with the remote control: Steve Jobs: "Anyone who has something to say, doesn't need PowerPoint" And now, after everyone in the room has already read the slide. He says: "Steve Jobs once said: Anyone who has something to say, doesn't need PowerPoint." You can feel it directly: The variant WITHOUT PowerPoint simply has a significantly greater impact. Through the comparison of thousands of slides, I have found: You DEVALUE your statement when it is also displayed on a slide. That's the truth! And all other justifications like "An additional sensory channel must be addressed" are good-sounding theories that do not pass the practical test of comparison. If achieving the best impact on the audience is your goal, then remember: Replace all text slides with speaking freely!
The second variant: Draw on the flipchart
You can draw bar charts, schematic drawings, short texts, keywords, numbers... everything on the flipchart. Two important reasons make it much more effective than displaying a finished slide. First: Only when you move, you also move your audience. PowerPoint makes you appear as a rigid puppet next to the screen. The only movement is pressing your remote control. However, when you draw something on the flipchart, you are creating a movement, which also moves your audience. Second: Like in a football game, the impact lies not in the result, but in the EMERGENCE of the result. With PowerPoint, you only display a finished image, nothing emerges. The finished image does not evoke any emotional involvement. It is the act of creation that has the impact, not the finished image. Let's take a bar chart as an example. A bar chart drawn by hand attracts much more attention than the finished PowerPoint image. Imagine silently drawing an XY diagram on the flipchart. Then, turning to the audience, you say: "The sales target we set for this year was:..." And now you draw a reference number on the Y-axis and comment: "9 million euros." Then, facing the audience again. "In reality, we achieved..." Now, you slowly draw a bar from bottom to top and comment, "FOURTEEN-POINT-THREE MILLION EUROS!" You will never achieve the same impact if you try to do the same with PowerPoint. Please don't just take my word for it, actually try it out. In my book "Are You Still Presenting or Already Fascinating?", I tell the story of how I prepared a Berlin advertising agency for a competitive presentation. It was about a multimillion-dollar contract to design the customer magazine for the car company Mazda. During one presentation to the Mazda management, the agency owner silently drew the wings of a stylized flying bird on the flipchart with two V-shaped strokes. He turned to the Mazda management: "We want to fly with you to new horizons." Then he turned back and added a rectangle with rounded corners - and out came... the logo of the car company. "Thank you!" Please imagine if he had "perfectly" realized the whole thing with PowerPoint. You can feel it: It would have only been a pale imitation of the impact it actually had. My people got the contract. The four competitors who all came with PowerPoint went empty-handed. For more information about our Top100 Speaker Matthias Pöhm
