How Not to Commit Death By PowerPoint with David McBee.

Welcome to Public Speaking with Peter George. Do you want to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then stay tuned as we discuss public speaking tips, techniques, and tactics that help you increase your impact, influence, and income.

Do you use PowerPoint or similar software when you present? Are your slides enhancing your talks—or making people wish they were somewhere else? In this episode, David McBee shares the most common mistakes speakers make with slides and shows you how to avoid them. David is an author, trainer, and professional speaker who works with sales representatives and business owners around the world. He’s known for his passion, sense of humor, and talent for making the complicated simple. Here’s my chat with David McBee.

What Is Death by PowerPoint?

Peter: How do you define “death by PowerPoint”?

David: Death by PowerPoint is when the slides become the presentation themselves—when you put up slides and read them to your attendees, or worse, paraphrase them because you were told not to read them. Either way, you’re saying everything that’s on the slides, and the slides replace you as the presentation. A few years ago I was invited to a presentation by a professor of communications. For 40 minutes, he had his back to us while he read his slides verbatim. The resentment that creates is real. You’re literally saying to your attendees, “You’re not smart enough to read—so I’ll read to you.” People feel like they could have just received an email.

Slides Support the Story—They Are Not the Story

David: PowerPoint’s job is to support my storytelling. It’s not supposed to be the story. I can do a 30-minute presentation with 100 slides—because some slides are up for three seconds. One word. One phrase. One image. I’m not afraid to use a lot of slides if those slides are supporting my story. What I never want is a deck someone could email to a colleague and have them understand the meeting without me.

David: Here’s an example. When I tell a story about how people discover new content on streaming TV through voice search—you grab your remote and say “The Terminator,” and it finds it across every platform—you know what’s on the screen behind me? Just the microphone button from the remote. That’s all. It cues the story and gives the audience a visual to associate with it. But if you emailed me that slide, you’d have no idea what it meant.

Animations, Fonts, and the Importance of Consistency

David: I’ve tried Prezi. I’ve tried every animation. After using Prezi, people came up to me and said, “That was so cool the way the technology moved.” They weren’t talking about my content. I went home and said, I’m not using that again. Now I just use fade. Simple, clean, consistent. I don’t want animations to take away from my story.

David: The same goes for design. How many times have you seen someone use 18 different fonts and 47 different colors with no consistency? Stick with a handful of colors and a handful of fonts. If you use imagery, it should take up the full screen or have a proper border. Clip art pasted on a slide looks unprofessional—and most people who do it know it, they just don’t know another way.

Using Bullets Strategically

David: If I have six bullets, I don’t put all six on screen at once—because the audience will read ahead while I’m still on the first one. Use animation to reveal one bullet at a time, only when you’re ready to discuss it. Better yet, ask yourself whether bullets are even necessary. Could a single word, a phrase, or an image do the same job more powerfully?

The Power of One Strong Image

Peter: I was at a presentation by an executive director of a charity that helps homeless youth. Every slide was packed with numbers—year-over-year donations, statistics. What would you suggest?

David: The overall story needed to be rewritten. Show me the image of a 12-year-old girl living in a car. That would be so much more powerful than all those numbers. If the stat is important, throw it up on screen as one big number—then explain why it’s relevant. The image and the stat together work. A dozen stats in a row that are just stats? Nobody finds that interesting.

Do You Even Need PowerPoint?

Peter: In the end, do all of us even need to use PowerPoint?

David: It depends on the goal. If you’re a dynamic speaker who can tell your stories effectively without visual support, you don’t need it. Many great TED Talks happen with nothing behind the speaker. But if an image or a stat would amplify your story—use it. Think of it like writing: most writers write too much. My editor once told me to think about how you tweet—at 140 characters, you’re thoughtful about every word. Apply that same logic to your slides. What’s the least amount of visualization you need to tell this story? That’s what gets you away from death by PowerPoint.

David: The Statue of David is not a block of granite. It’s what was taken away from the block of granite that left us with David. Build your full deck—then ask what you can cut away.

Peter: David, where can listeners learn more about you?

David: Google my name—I’ve been in search engine optimization for nearly 20 years, so you’ll find me easily. For a visual example of everything we discussed today, go to youtube.com/@DavidMcBee—you’ll see these strategies in action.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Public Speaking with Peter George. Are you ready to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then visit petergeorgepublicspeaking.com and let’s make it happen. I’ll see you next time.