Powerpoint was forced on me one time in my career. I was a corporate spokesperson for CBS owned Switchboard.com and they required that I use it. Other than that, Powerpoint has not graced my projection screen my entire speaking career. I use screen capture videos instead of Powerpoint.

Powerpoint has really lost its ability to show anything interesting or different. Yes, I know you can do wild things with it, but most people have seen ALL those things already. Why not do something they probably haven't seen...screen capture video. The program I use for this is "Camtasia". It can capture anything I can display on my computer screen. This has made me a fortune.

Here's how:

The audience is all set to see another round of mind numbing Powerpoint slides where the presenter is basically reading his/her presentation. Then I take the stage with no Powerpoint at all. I just show the cluttered desktop of my computer with a picture of me and my dog.

During the presentation I tell the audience I'm going to show them a video. I start the Camtasia video and they see everything I'm talking about AND they hear me narrating the video. They see exactly what I want them to see and they see exactly where I'm clicking on the screen. Here's what I say that gets them drooling to buy my stuff: "This MultiMedia CD has 50 of these videos on it. We'll only have time for 3 or 4 today."

After the presentation people are begging me to sell them the CD. I don't think they missed the Powerpoint that I didn't have.

Even if you throw away your Powerpoint you still need to to learn the tips and techniques that will make you
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