Thankfully, we've got some hot presentation tips that'll help you storyboard your way to PowerPoint success. Zing!
Whether you're a business leader getting ready to deliver an important message to key stakeholders, or a startup founder angling for your next round of investment, we're here to help.
Storyboarding's a way to visualise the structure of your presentation. It started in the film industry, where Hollywood's finest used storyboards to plan the story structure of their feature films.
A storyboard's a series of drawings accompanied by a little bit of text, where each drawing details a particular plot point. Don't worry if your art skills aren't quite up there with Picasso's – you can use simple stick figures instead.
You might have heard of Walt Disney. He's kind of a big deal in the filmmaking world, and made a few movies that were quite popular. We dig him because he came up with the idea of storyboarding back in the 1930s.
More specifically, Disney's animator pal Webb Smith started drawing rough sketches on different bits of paper, then stuck them up on a wall to show how a storyline comes together. An army of PowerPoint-loving LinkedIn influencers is forever in his debt.
Presentation design is a tricky creative process. You might call it an art. If you get it right and create a great presentation, you're far more likely to achieve your goals – whether that's selling more stuff, or helping people see your point of view.
Naturally, you also need to have some public speaking skills. But it's a lot easier to confidently deliver your business presentation when you know that your PowerPoint slides have a strong storyline and compelling argument.
There are lots of ways to storyboard your slide presentation. Some people like to whip out a whiteboard to get their presentation ideas down. Some are all about the sticky notes. And some people stick to bullet points in a trusty notepad.
We happen to think that Boords is the best tool to nail your presentation storyboard. You can collaborate with team members if you have multiple presenters, which makes it a pretty nifty bit of presentation software. Try it free.
New project
and name it after your presentationCreate storyboard
You can use custom fields to add extra presentation ideas and keep all your thoughts in one place. We recommend adding a Notes
field, and using a nifty custom icon.
Sound
and Action
fields. Notes
and any other new fields that'll be useful for your planning.As a general rule, you should stick to one idea per slide in your presentation. Storyboarding the entire presentation helps you see the slide deck as a whole, so you can pick out the key points and get rid of anything that doesn't need to be there.
Label each frame after an idea, adding as many frames as you need.
Now that all your presentation ideas are in the storyboard, it's time to take a step back and see how the storyline flows.
Ask yourself questions like:
The best thing about storyboarding your presentation before you pop it in PowerPoint is that you can review the outline from a bit of a distance. This can help you to pick out the weak parts more easily.
Be ruthless, cutting anything that doesn't need to be there
Pop in some single slides that let people know where they are in the presentation. You might want to make them a different color so that they stand out.
As well as providing structure, these title slides help to break up the slide show and give your audience time to breathe.
At this point, things should be looking pretty tasty. But before you dive into PowerPoint and start building the final presentation, you should take one more look at the outline and send it to people for feedback.
Share
in the top right of the screenManage people
to give team members editing accessIt's a lot easier to make changes while you're still in the storyboarding phase. Once you start designing your presentation, amends take longer – costing you time and money.
Now that your storyline's sorted and you've got the makings of the greatest business presentation of all time, it's time to move on from storyboarding and design your final PowerPoint slides. Oh, and then the small matter of perfecting your public speaking.
All of us at Boords are rooting for you. Now go smash that presentation!
Forget janky storyboard templates. Boords is the simple, powerful way to storyboard your presentation.
Try Boords for free. And think of us when your business makes its next million.