Using Bullet Points? Then Your Audience Will Remember 10% Of Your Presentation

Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

We’ve all been guilty of it.  The boss needs you to present impromptu and you’ve got a day and a half if you are lucky to prepare.  As you sit there wondering where to start, you cast your mind back to the last presentation you sat through.  You can’t remember much about it but you figure the good ol’ headline and three dot point format will do as you hastily search through the Powerpoint templates to find a colour scheme that works.

If this is a scenario you’ve been through then you may find comfort in the fact that according to the science, the audience at most will have remembered about 10% of what you said after three days.

Don’t take my word for it.  This comes from University of Washington biologist John Medina who takes the bold but perhaps accurate position that people in business should “burn most Powerpoint decks” in his new book.  If that doesn’t convince you, perhaps ask Google’s CEO.

Whilst personally I wouldn’t go this far simply because of the practicalities of setting fire to a computer, his words bring to light something that we in the presentation industry deal with day to day which is “just because something is common, doesn’t mean it’s right” and no more is this true then with presentations.  To put it bluntly, most presenters would be better off without slides.

With that being said, the majority of the time this is not through ignorance.  Most of the customers we speak to are more than aware their presentation is about as helpful as a three legged rocking horse, and as such we are often greeted with “I didn’t know companies like you existed.”

Fortunately we do.  There isn’t many of us but when that deadline to submit your presentation looms closer and closer, we can be your knight in shining armour.

Put simply, presentation design isn’t graphic design and it isn’t copywriting.  It’s the amalgamation of the two with the added complexity that we have less than three seconds per slide to support you to convey your message.  On top of that, often we need to work within timeframes that would make both of these professions recoil in anguish and despair.

Put simply, we ensure that our customer’s presentation are effective, memorable and deliver results.

Like to learn more?

Take your presentations to the next level with our PowerPoint Boost Course! Learn the tips, tricks, and tools to create impactful slides that captivate your audience.