The 10 Slide Rule

I have a hard and fast rule about presentations.  If you can't make your point in 10 slides, than you're wasting time.  That includes the title slide and the "Thank You" slide, so we are really talking about 8. 

Your presentation is your prop, not your crutch. It's talking points and conversation starters, it's not the conversation. The most important part of the meeting is what happens in between slides, or after they are long gone.  You should not present for more than 24 minutes. That's almost 1/2 of a 1 hour meeting and leaves little time for useful dialog that is needed for a decision to get made. 

Let's do some math.  Taking my rule, you have 8 slides of actual content. If each slide is meaningful and creates 3 minutes of dialog that takes you to 24 minutes just to get through the deck. If you can't make your point by then, you need to sharpen your message or you're trying to accomplish too much for one meeting. 

I've presented at a lot of meeting and conferences. It never ceases to amaze me how many slides people will generate. I once saw an 80 slide deck that was for a 45 minute presentation slot. You do the math. Nobody benefits from that kind of onslaught. 

A good trick is to keep a running count of slides in your footer ("slide x of y").  This lets your audience know what they are in for and you are visually reminded every time you click "Insert" "New Slide".

Please comment if you have funny stories about ridiculously long presentations.  If you need help trying to distill your message down to 8 slides, that is what I do for a living.  Drop me a line at info@raptorink.com