Many presentations end in some sort of Q&A session. During this discussion, the slide show usually comes to a standstill, and the last visual used stays on the projector for a long time. Make sure it is a useful one, since it might be the image that the audience will remember best. To be avoided:
- A completely random slide from the deck (the one that sparked the discussion for example)
- A “thank you” or “Q&A” slide
- A slide that addresses one of your weaker points (i.e., you got a touch question about the competition and did the best you could using the competitor comparison slide), move it after you used it.
- A dry list of bullet points recapping the content of your presentation using language full of abstract concepts (“ROI”) and buzz words (“key competencies”)
What could work: a visual that links back to a key point in your presentation. For example, if you spend 5 slides on describing how a teenager will use your mobile social network, just putting a picture of her back up will remind the audience of the story. (This time you can leave out the bullets arrows, boxes, just an image to refresh the memory).
2 comments
If you're expecting a Q&A which has you jumping back to certain parts of your deck, or where you expect questions about areas you didn't have time to cover in depth (such as financial calculations), I might suggest having the next slide being a Table of Contents with links. This lets you click to any part of your presentation including slides showing off how you did those financials. If you remember what slide number your TOC is on, in Keynote, you can return to it at anytime by typing in the number followed by Return.