Even the most professional companies are often prone to one BIG mistake. All the great branding, imagery and sales collateral becomes useless if at the final hurdle – The Big Pitch – your Sales presentation is 92 plain white powerpoint slides with 300 words of text per page. It looks unprofessional, complex, inattentive to detail and ultimately amateur. The message is lost. The attention goes to planning the day and the Blackberry. You Lose.

The limitations of products like Microsoft PowerPoint are exactly why you must work harder to stand out. Here are a few tips to get you on track;

• Only use half the slide space – then 30% for your logo and title at the top, 20% for logo, page number and references at the bottom.

• This might only give you 20 words – write for impact, not detail.

• Leave plenty of space between lines, at the end of lines and after your last sentence. (You can see what i mean below)

• Keep it SHORT – ‘Death by Powerpoint’ is standard terminology for a reason.

Bottom line – If you don’t think you can convey your message in a short, clean presentation, your message needs work. FOCUS your product and your message.

To highlight what I mean, please see the images below (it applies to presentations and print as much as web), taken from a great presentation HERE. It is an amazing presentation (in Flash, not powerpoint); give it a run.

For a Great Laugh, give this a quick viewing!!! (Click)