When you’re sitting in a meeting and the presenter is using slides, you know yourself that you will be more inclined to sleep or switch off when the presenter turns the lights off to make it easier for you see their slides.
Don’t turn the lights off in your slide presentations!
Unless of course you’d like them to sleep while you are speaking! When the lights are on and you can look into people’s eyes,
your audience is way more inclined to focus on you and your message.
What should you do instead?
If the audience can’t see your slides with the lights on, don’t turn off the lights! Turn off your slides! Controversial I know!
Seriously, either redesign your slides so people can see them with the lights on, or replace them with a flipchart, whiteboard or some handouts instead.
There is one moment it’s OK to dim the lights. And that’s if you are doing a demo of software or something where you do in fact want people to focus on the slides or screen.
In that case, just have the lights off for the demo and put them back on quickly so you can reconnect with the whites of people’s eyes as quickly as possible.
Happy Presenting!
© Michelle Bowden 2020. Michelle Bowden is an authority on presentation & persuasion in business. Michelle is a CSP (the highest designation for speakers in the world), co-creator of the PRSI (a world-first psychometric indicator that tests your persuasiveness at work), best-selling internationally published author (Wiley), and a regular commentator in print, radio and online media. www.michellebowden.com.au