PowerPoint Tips-The 10 Biggest PowerPoint Mistakes and How to Fix Them

A couple of weeks ago, I started a series on how to get paid to speak. In week one, we talked about different types of motivational speakers and what a professional speaker is. Then, last week, I covered a few things that you absolutely need to do in order to get clients to pay you as a speaker.This week, I'll show you how to cash in on one of the most lucrative industries on the planet. We'll cover three ways to get clients to pay you to speak. Remember what we covered in the first session a couple of weeks ago -- the expertise that you have is very valuable. If you play your cards right, you can use that expertise to generate additional revenue for you.You can make a fortune speaking for a living by doing these three things.First, solve a difficult problem for your audience.Second, catalog your knowledge and repurpose your content and collect money for it.Finally, you have to position yourself as the “Go To” expert on your topic.We'll cover each of these things in detail on the episode!Show Notes: Get Paid to Speak: How to Make a Fortune Speaking for a Living (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-make-a-fortune-speaking-for-a-living/)

Last week I started a series on how to get paid to speak. And if you are a new listener to Fearless Presentations, you might be thinking, "How can I get paid to speak if I'm scared to death to stand up in front of a group?" If that is the case, just go back to some of the earlier episodes for tips on how to reduce nervousness. In this episode and the next couple, I'm going to show you how you can cash in on one of the highest-paid professions in the world.This week, I cover the five things you will need to do to become a professional speaker or a motivational speaker. These five things are not non-negotiables... But they are pretty close.The first couple of tips are about your presentation skills. A couple of the tips are about your confidence, attitude, and how to become the expert in the room. And one of the tips is a way to increase your income on each gig. In fact, in some cases, you may give the speech away to generate income in a totally different way.Show Notes: How to Get Paid to Speak (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/want-a-career-as-a-public-speaker-ways-to-build-public-speaking-credentials/)

Public speaking is one of (if not THE) highest-paid professions in the world.In this episode, I'll dispel the myth about what a professional speaker is. Basically, a professional speaker is just a person whom someone has paid to give a presentation. So, elementary school teachers are professional speakers. So are trial attorneys. So are salespeople, Realtors, and combat officers who give mission briefings.Each of these types of presenters delivers information in presentations or briefings that their audiences need in order to solve a problem. However, almost all of them give away this important information for free. So, in this series, I'll show you how you can generate an additional stream of income by speaking about your expertise.Next week, by the way, I'll give you a step-by-step process to help you refine your presentation to build up your credibility in the marketplace. Then, in future episodes, I'll show you how to market yourself as a speaker.By the way, if you are enjoying the episodes, I need a favor from you, please. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave me a review wherever you download the podcast. Your subscriptions, downloads, and reviews help us keep the show's content free because they allow us to reach a bigger audience.Show Notes: How to Be a Motivational Speaker and Get Paid to Speak (https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/want-a-career-as-a-public-speaker-ways-to-build-public-speaking-credentials/)

This week, I explain the difference between the different formats of public speaking training in 2025. Communication has changed a lot in the last decade, and you now have every piece of information ever printed in the world at your fingertips. AI can now write speeches for you.With all this technology and information available, what is the absolute best way in 2025 to reduce public speaking fear? Is there an easier way to conquer this fear now than in the past? Well, maybe.You can listen to podcasts like this one, gain insights from online presentation classes, watch videos on YouTube or Rumble, get a public speaking coach, or even attend a public speaking class.In this episode, I explain the differences between all of these formats and let you know what you can expect from each. By the way, all of these formats can help. But some will give you a much better return on your time and effort.Full Show Notes: The Best Types of Public Speaking Training in 2025.(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/public-speaking-training/)

In his episode, we're going to talk about filler words and how to reduce the negative fillers that can be annoying. Fillers come in a few different formats. Some are just sounds. These fillers are the ones that, when we do them, we tend to get more nervous because we think the audience is judging us.These are the ers, the uhms, the youknows, etc. How to stop saying Um is one of the most common public speaking concerns. Um is a filler word. And filler words are a natural part of everyday conversation. A surprising fact, though, is that you’ll actually sound strange (or even fake) to your audience if you don’t use any filler words.However, there is a negative impact of using too many of these vocal fillers. If um, you say um, too many um, ums in your speech, the repeated use over and over will become a distraction. This excessive use of these filler words has the potential to detract from your message.A funny example of this was in the movie, We’re the Millers. Scottie P., the young girl’s date, keeps using the phrase, “You know what I’m sayin'” over and over. And, Jason Sudeikis’ character calls attention to each of these verbal crutches in a very funny way.The good news about Scottie P. is that what makes this scene really funny is that most people don’t use these filler phrases in everyday conversation. They show up more often when we are speaking in front of a group or delivering a formal presentation. If you understand why that happens, you can fix this bad habit very easily.The best speakers in the world have trained themselves, over time, to minimize their use of fillers. (Notice that I said minimize, not eliminate.) Excessive use of um and other filler noises can frustrate the audience and make the speaker less credible. With a bit of practice, though, you can use fewer filler words as well.Full Show Notes at How to Stop Saying Um When Presenting(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-stop-saying-um-when-presenting/)

On this episode, I cover seven easy ways for ESL presenters (presenters who present in English but English is their second language) to reduce nervousness. If English is your first language, don't worry, because most of the tips will help you as well. In fact, the first four of the seven tips are things that anyone can use to reduce public speaking fear.The remaining three tips are ones that are specific to ESL presenters (or presenters who are delivering presentations to international audiences.) One of the major benefits of reducing public speaking fear if English is not your first language is that your accent will, theoretically, be less pronounced as your nervousness goes down. In the episode, I explain why this happens and how to make it happen if you find that audiences have a tough time understanding you when you present.Full show notes are at We Help ESL Presenters Give Confident Presentations in English(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/a-step-by-step-way-to-help-esl-presenters-give-confident-presentations-in-english/)

In his episode, I'm getting back to our roots -- so to speak. The topic is How to Overcome Stage Fright. In the past, we've covered different forms of this performance anxiety, like Imposter Syndrome, and I've covered how to reduce public speaking fear on a number of episodes. Stage fright is slightly different, though. It can come from public speaking fear or other types of stage performances like singing, playing music, acting, or performing in sporting events.While doing the research for this episode, I made an interesting discovery that I'll reveal to you at the end of the show. Here's a hint, though, if you try to take a shortcut to overcoming this fear, you might make your stage fright worse.Enjoy the three easy steps to eliminating stage fright. And if you enjoy the show, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave me a review on your podcast app. Full Shownotes: How to Overcome Stage Fright(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/how-to-overcome-stage-fright-in-three-easy-steps/)

If you are scanning the internet for PowerPoint tips, it’s most likely because something has happened recently that wasn’t ideal. Perhaps you stood up in front of a group and forgot what you were going to say. Or, maybe, you got tongue-tied during the delivery. Or worse, your audience looked sleepy-eyed or even walked out of the room while you were speaking.These are all symptoms of related to a few of the biggest PowerPoint mistakes that almost every presenter makes at some time in their speaking career.But if you avoid these mishaps, you’ll make a better connection with your audience. In fact, even if you don’t consider yourself a great speaker, if you just eliminate these mistakes from your preparation, you’ll deliver better presentations than 90% of business presenters out there.Shownotes: PowerPoint Tips-The 10 Biggest PowerPoint Mistakes and How to Fix Them(https://www.fearlesspresentations.com/power-point-tips/)

This is lesson number 12 of our 12-lesson series on how to win group sales presentations. One of the myths that we tackled in one of the earlier episodes was that the PowerPoint slideshow itself is the shortlist presentation. That one mistake can cause teams to lose the high-level sales presentation more than any other mistake. What we started with last week was a different concept. I began to show you how to create the verbal presentation first. This means that you want to figure out what you want to say first and then create your slideshow last.So, on today's episode, I'm going to show you how to turn that presentation outline that we created a couple of weeks ago into a fantastic and appealing presentation. We are going to do that with what I call our Impact Ideas. Counting the Case Studies that we really expanded upon weeks ago, there are a total of five Impact Ideas. These items will really make your shortlist presentation come to life and make you and the content that you cover more memorable.Then, finally, we'll show you how to create your visual aids -- which may or may not end up being a PowerPoint slideshow.Also, in the last couple of minutes of this session, I'll give you a few of my final thoughts. I know that we've covered 12 different steps in this process. And at this point, you may be thinking, "This sounds very complicated." The exact opposite is true, though. This process will save you so much time. It will also drop the stress level of your presenters a lot. The first time going through the whole process, it can be time-consuming. You have to get each presenter really good at determining what the absolute-most-critical, most-important things are to the audience. You also have to get your entire team to get really, really good at telling captivating success stories.But once you get your team skilled in these areas, the actual designing of a new shortlist presentation is very, very fast. For instance, I've been able to get experienced teams (meaning teams that have already done at least one shortlist presentation with me before) ready to present in a single three-hour morning.The process is very fast once you get the basics down. And hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll be able to see that very easily.

This is lesson number 11 of our 12-lesson series on how to win group sales presentations. So far, we've covered a lot of the foundational concepts of group selling skills and ways to get buying committees to buy from your team after you get shortlisted. Just as a 30,000-foot recap, we started by covering many of the myths about shortlist presentations. One of those myths is that the slideshow is the presentation so you should start by designing your shortlist slideshow. That one mistake can cause teams to lose the high-level sales presentation more than any other mistake.Instead, you want to design the presentation -- design what your team will say -- first. Then, after you have a clear presentation designed, create your slideshow to enhance what is being said in the presentation.We also covered the power of case studies and success stories in a shortlist presentation. The best evidence that you can help this buying committee is past experience on similar projects. When you get really good add adding specific case studies as evidence that you can help this committee, they will trust your team more. These success stories also build rapport with the audience and reduce the nervousness of your presentation team. We also covered how important it is to research the buying committee. The more you know about what they want, the easier it is to design a targeted shortlist presentation. Then, finally, last week, we covered how to create a succinct presentation outline. This is your blueprint for a successful shortlist presentation.Now that we have a great presentation outline, in this episode, we're going to help you help your SMEs (your Subject Matter Experts) design their component parts of the presentation. In this process, you have to be a great coach. You have to help them design a very concise presentation-within-the-presentation. And the backbone of each of those mini-presentation will be... wait for it... Fantastic case studies.So, we are going to help your presentation team members create a mini-presentation within the big presentation. And we'll follow the same strategy that we used last week to help them create a compelling speech-within-a-speech, so to speak.We'll also show you how to help them turn that outline -- that blueprint -- into a compelling presentation by adding in case studies.Then, next week, in the final episode, we'll show you how to help them jazz up the entire presentation with what we call our "Impact Ideas." These are ways to enhance the presentation to an even higher level.I know that, counting these last two lessons, we will have covered 12 different steps in this process. And, at this point, you may be thinking, "This sounds very complicated." The exact opposite is true, though. This process will save you so much time. It will also drop the stress level of your presenters a lot. The first time going through the whole process, it can be time-consuming. You have to get each presenter really good at determining what the absolute-most-critical, most-important things are to the audience. You also have to get your entire team to get really, really good at telling captivating success stories.But once you get your team skilled in these areas, the actual designing of a new shortlist presentation is very, very fast. For instance, I've been able to get experienced teams (meaning teams that have already done at least one shortlist presentation with me before) ready to present in a single three-hour morning.The process is very fast once you get the basics down. And hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll be able to see that very easily.