Storytelling Course Lesson 6: How To Conquer Your Presentation Visuals

In the past few lessons we’ve been really focusing on how you can tell better stories in your presentation that are objective and persuasive. In today’s corporate context however, every presentation tends to be accompanied with visual aids to help you communicate better.

Sadly, due to the ubiquity of PowerPoint, it has been misused to no end. Today we’ll be talking about a simple technique you can use to do instantly better visuals through building a strong story first.

——

One of the most rampant problems we see our clients or for that matter executives in general facing is that they tend to overstuff their slides with text.

Naturally, most executives are wise to this and try to include imagery in their presentations.

As a result of this, another problem arises..

Their choice of images tend to be cliche’ or solely selected as ‘decoration’ for their slide so it’s less ‘plain’.

Here’s how we hedge against this problem — defining the meaning before the image.

Instead of picking out images that are of business people in call-centers smiling with their thumbs up, decide on what’s your single key point for that specific slide and deciding on an image that effectively visualises your understanding.

An example exercise you can try: When you think of the term ‘Financial Freedom’, what image comes to mind?

Some people see a dove flying, a bill at a restaurant or a farmhouse in the countryside.
Different people will have different mental imagery when listening to the same idea.

Selecting the right visual to communicate the image in your own mind will solidify the meaning of your idea in the minds of the audiences.

There are many layers to this, we can talk about the meaning behind the images and also about how seemingly non-related images can spark analogies relevant to your central idea.