Janice stepped to the front of the stage and asked: “Imagine what our world would be like if all the energy we used was clean and renewable?”

This is a great example of one of my favorite starting strategies — asking the audience to imagine a difficult situation or problem and then to visualize the solution that we wish them to discover. It may begin with a slide like this that invites them into the story we are presenting. On possibly begin with only a simple verbal invitation.

Visually, this opening slide may be the only image they see throughout the entire verbal discussion. Or I may walk them through my example slide by slide.

Whichever way it is done, asking your listeners to step into your story and take a trip with you, the way Janice did, is a powerful way to bring your message to life in their minds.

Imagine.

There is a great little trick that is available in PowerPoint that few users are aware of: Transparent shape fills. It creates a shape that can simplify and partially obscure a background allowing text or other elements to stand out. Once you learn how to build it you will use it all the time.

The technique is simple. First create a shape in PowerPoint from any of those available using the INSERT > SHAPES command. Then use the FORMAT > SEND BACKWARD or FORMAT > BRING FORWARD commands to place the shape in front of the element you want to obscure and behind the element you wish to highlight.

Now adjust the fill and transparency of that shape using FORMAT > SHAPE FILL > MORE FILL COLORS. The TRANSPARENCY adjustment is located at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

Adjust the color and amount of fill and its transparency to create the effect you are looking for — that is usually a trial and error process.

Cool, huh?

A few weeks back I discussed the value of using text alignment to build a sense of organization and structure in your slides. But too much organization is repetitious and boring.

The technique I like to use is to build order first using alignment and consistency. Then, I intentionally break the pattern using one element that is obviously not part of the structure of the document or slide. The resulting break-out adds interest and excitement.

Try it. You’ll like it.

A recent client, Steve, loved to use his PowerPoint slide deck as a cue so he wouldn’t forget any of his product details or where he was supposed to be in his presentation. Unfortunately, he overloaded his slides with every sentence and paragraph he wanted to remember. And then he would just read it all to his hapless clients.

Presenters use PowerPoint to cue themselves and lead them through their presentations all the time. Unfortunately, there is a natural and real fear of forgetting the order and detail of our material. This phobia causes many of us to store every minutiae of our content in endlessly bloated bullet points on dozens (maybe hundreds) of slides. So our need for cues turns into “Death by PowerPoint” for our audience.

Fight this urge to overload your slides.

Use minimal words to delineate your subject. These few words on the screen should give you all the cue you need to remember the order of your presentation. With those small prompts, you, the expert, should be able to orally fill in whatever details are appropriate. Those few words will give your audience the basic context of your comments without distracting them with an on-the-screen reading assignment.

And you won’t feel compelled to read a long-winded slide word-for-word.

Everybody wins!

“Story” is a funny word when used in a business context. It sounds soft and “touchy-feely.” Many business leaders will discount the concept of telling a story in a presentation as not professional.

“Just give ’em the facts,” they might say.

But they couldn’t be more wrong. Their clients, customers, workers, peers, bankers, stockbrokers and just about everyone else they will ever deal with are human. And humans respond powerfully to stories. We are wired for stories. It was how we communicated and survived millennia ago. And it is how we connect most directly today.

I like to think there is a natural wall that separates us as presenters from our audience as we begin. They see us as “not one of them.” It is one of our primary tasks as we start our presentation to get them to see us as on their side of that wall– to have them feel as though we are with them and have their best interests at heart.

And we can do that most effectively through stories. Your audience might have a natural skeptical response to your first words. But they will tend to believe what you say in your stories unless you break that trust.  (Important note: Don’t break that trust!)

So until big, stuffy, no-nonsense business leaders can get comfortable with the word “story” let’s just call them “case-studies” or “examples.”

Their power will be the same and it will be our little secret.