***Visual Aids Should Be an Added Bonus -- Not Your Entire Presentation!

While visual aids can have a tremendous impact on your delivery, the danger in their use lies in placing your entire script on PowerPoint, a slide presentation or even a white board. What is fascinating about the overuse of this feature is that I have seen it not only with amateur speakers but with high-paid professionals as well.

Just as I do not agree with reading your presentation, I also do not agree with placing all your material on a screen for your audience to read. Your audience is there to hear you speak to them; the proper use of visual aids is to add information by further clarifying, explaining, or demonstrating what you are talking about.

When I give a presentation on voice improvement, I use video clips as my aid in which I show the audience ‘before’ and ‘after’ video clips of my clients. It is an effective, interesting and powerful tool because it demonstrates the change in the speaking voice which I have been discussing throughout my presentation. In essence, it is the proof of my words.

When you create your script, think of them as an aid and not as your presentation. They are a marvelous guide for keeping you on tract but their purpose is in their title. Simply put, they are an aid; they should not be your entire presentation.

You can use them to show titles, sub-titles, facts, figures, pictures, bulleted points and comic relief. Keep them short and to the point. Do not use sentences in their structure unless you are quoting someone else.

1. Practice your presentation using your visual aids.
2. Speak while changing the slide or moving to the next screen.
3. If you are using slides, always check their order before speaking.
4. Make sure your equipment is working before speaking.
5. Talk ‘around’ your visual aids – do not read them in front of your audience.

When you can utilize power point, slides, or the white board effectively, your presentation will be more impressive and more successful which is why practicing beforehand is critical. There is nothing worse than waiting for a speaker who is fiddling with his equipment because he did not prepare and check this aspect of his delivery beforehand.

Visual aids can be a powerful tool if you remember their purpose. A smooth delivery highlighted by effective visual aids will impress your audience – a choppy delivery due to slides that are out of order or equipment that fails to work properly will not.