There is no pleasure to me without communication...

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

11 Smart Slide Creation Techniques Your Audience Will Thank You For

Expectations regarding presentations, and presenters, have increased significantly in today’s dynamic, international environment. It’s no longer acceptable to stand in front of your audience, talk about what you need, present loads of slides stuffed with text, and expect a great outcome.

Presentations today are the most effective when they influence, persuade and inspire. And when this happens, we can facilitate positive change, growth and results within our organizations.

Your slides need to convey your key messages clearly and concisely because your presentation is seen as a direct reflection of your competence, professionalism and expertise. How can you accomplish this without having to be a Microsoft PowerPoint expert?

Techniques and Tools for Mastering Slide Creation

I find the easiest way to have clear and effective slides is to have a checklist to follow, perform my own review against the checklist as I create each slide, and then get a second opinion from a colleague I trust.

Here is the checklist I use for every slide presentation I create, whether it’s a presentation for a client or training material for a workshop.

Quality Assurance Slide Creation Checklist

1. Have one obvious main message per slide.
2. Have ‘enough’ white space on each slide.
3. Use 18 pt. font at a minimum. 20 and 24 pt. fonts are even better.
4. Avoid animation unless is it clearly supports your message.
5. Use active slide titles rather than a topic, to convey the slide’s main message.
6. Use meaningful images to convey ideas, concepts and messages.
7. Choose elements/shapes/smart art that shows relationships between the information.
8. Use bullet points not sentences.
9. Include only one graph/chart per slide.
10. Use call out boxes for key messages; not more than one per slide.
11. Consider using appendices or back up slides for supplemental information.

Beware of dual-purpose slides

From what I’ve seen lately, companies often use slides for dual purposes. They are intended to serve as documentation to support new processes, status updates, recommendations, etc., AND they are used as the basis for a formal presentation. The same slides for both purposes creates a conflict.

Slides are a visualization tool that should support you during your dynamic presentation, rather than tell the story FOR you. If an audience is reading your slides, they are not paying attention to you. Most people cannot listen and read at the same time after all.

So keep the slides for your presentation crisp, clear, concise and meaningful, and keep your audience’s attention on YOU and your key messages.

The techniques and tips in this article are just some of the ones I teach in my Preparing Powerful Content workshop. If you’d like more support, contact me for your free one-hour consultation in 2015.

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn Pulse.

5 ways to listen better

Listening is the most underrated skill of all the skills needed to communicate clearly and concisely. Julian Treasure makes a great case for improving our listening skills.

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

What is your plan for today? #mondaymotivation

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

A little bit of humor for the weekend. #TGIF

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

Your Report is Your Business Card

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

FREE Webinar on "Optimizing Your Audit Findings"

Want to know more about my NEW online International Audit Report Writing workshop? You're invited to register for my FREE one-hour webinar on Optimizing Your Audit Findings.

You’ll get to experience my webinar format firsthand, and I’ll give you techniques and strategies to write your audit findings more concisely and persuasively. These are the exact same techniques I share in the full International Audit Report Writing workshop/webinar.

So join us on Tuesday 28 April 2015 at 18:00 CET. Click here to register for the webinar now!

Giving Presentations Worth Listening To

Giving presentations can be difficult for even the most experienced speaker. Here is some great advice, insight and suggestions from Gordon Kangas during a local TEDx Talks.

What is your best presentation preparation technique?

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

I try just to communicate

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

Your Monday Motivation

Today's #mondaymotivation comes from Sheryl Sandberg. I think it's great advice for all professional people.

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

Just keep writing...

Whenever I get stuck writing, I always repeat to myself...

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

Reports are much more than just reports

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

The ABCs You Were Never Taught in School

• A scientist who loves research but hates presenting his results to management because speaking in public is out of his comfort zone.
• An American project manager living in Germany who has realized the hard way that working internationally means that shifts in style, tone and language are required when communicating across cultures.
• An auditor struggling during international audit missions because he is perceived as being very direct and sometimes demanding, putting off audit clients and even causing escalations.

These are three of the people I met at a recent networking event, where attendees were asked about the challenges they face in their professional lives. Every story I heard was unique, but there was a common thread: A gap in communication competence and comfort.

So while it was a great networking event, I felt there was something missing from the discussion: WHY are these successful international professionals experiencing these challenges?

What’s missing might be those things most of us never learned at school. I call them the ABCs of communication success: Assertiveness, Behaviour and Competence. So let’s get back to the basics:

A: Assertiveness

Being assertive means you are confident in expressing your thoughts and ideas while respecting those of others. You can stand up for yourself without being aggressive. It’s the best way to communicate to ensure your messages are heard and acted on.

If you are overly passive, people may use you as a doormat if you aren’t careful. You might take on too much work or not give your opinion in a meeting… and your opinion might just be the voice of reason that carries a great idea forward.

The good news: You CAN learn to be assertive rather than aggressive or passive.

B: Behaviour

Your behaviour, or your response to someone else’s behaviour, can make or break your success. There’s good news here, too: You are free to CHOOSE your behaviour, and you are free to choose how you REACT to someone else’s behaviour.

Helping others, avoiding overly emotional reactions, and avoiding overtly competitive behaviour when it’s not appropriate in the situation – these will help you communicate effectively. Doing the opposite can prevent you from being successful.

C: Competence

When I was at university, there wasn’t any guidance on HOW to communicate well. And I never knew what I was missing until I started working in the real world.

Writing an action-oriented report, delivering a dynamic presentation, facilitating meetings, motivating a team to success – these are all skills we need to master. And if you’re like me, a little practice goes along way.

A Strategy to Strengthen Your Communication Skills

If you are not sure why your messages aren’t being appreciated or acted on, or why you are constantly having issues with clients and colleagues, it’s time to find out.

1. Make your own observations about where YOU feel you aren’t succeeding or communicating well.
2. Ask for feedback from your boss, colleagues, clients and other business associates.
3. Analyze all of the feedback together, looking for patterns, repeated observations or common situations.
4. Prioritize the communication skills you want to tackle first, so you get further, faster.
5. Identify resources to help you fill the gap, including books, workshops, and finding a mentor.
6. Take advantage of every opportunity to practice: Volunteer to run meetings, ask to lead a project group, offer to give the monthly departmental presentation, write the next report due to the Board, etc.
7. Keep a journal of communication goals, successes and challenges. Track what works, what doesn’t, and write down your ideas of how to change it next time.

The scientist, the project manager and the auditor are all educated, intelligent and considered successful by their peers. By identifying their communication skills gaps and executing a plan to fill them, they can reach their ultimate potential. And you can, too!

Which of these ABCs do you need to work on? Let me know in the comments below.

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

This post was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse.

How great leaders inspire action

Enjoy this inspiring video.

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

Keep moving forward

#mondaymotivation

All the best,

Tracie Marquardt

Quality Assurance Communication

It's time to spring clean your communication skills

Spring has sprung here in Germany, and it’s not just time to clean house. It’s also a great opportunity to work on improving other areas in your life. So this spring, why not add cleaning and organizing your communication skills to your plans?

Choosing which ‘room’ to start in

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin. When it comes to spring cleaning your communication skills, you can try different strategies. Try beginning with the communication skill you find easiest and then moving on to the skills you find more challenging. Or jump right in and tackle your biggest communication challenge first. Whether it’s your general speaking skills, written communication skills, or presentation skills, choose one and get started. Take imperfect action, because it can be the easiest action of all.

Assessing what to throw out, improve and acquire

Assess where you are now, and where you want to be. This becomes the gap you want to work on. Ask yourself what you need to discard from your repertoire of skills because it’s not serving you, what you need to improve on, and what you need to learn to be more successful in your communication.

If you know you tend to interrupt when others are speaking, throw out that habit and commit to becoming a more empathetic listener. If you write reports often, assess how you can write more clearly and concisely so that your messages are easier for the reader to understand and act on. If you want to become a sought-after public speaker, learn how to deliver your presentation with confidence and authenticity, with effective slides that clearly support your key messages.

Kick-starting the process

Here are some ideas to help you begin your communication skills spring cleaning:

Speaking skills

• Think before you speak: Get back to basics by planning your strategy to achieve your goal for a conversation or meeting, or practising what you want to say in advance.
• Use your voice: Words aren’t enough. By varying the pace, pitch and power of your voice, you can give meaning and emphasis to your words. Try it out in front of the mirror, with a trusted colleague or even with your dog.

Written communication skills

• Manage sentence length: My advice is to keep sentences shorter. Bite-sized pieces will make it easy for the reader to digest your key messages. Write sentences that contain only 20 to 30 words rather than trying to beat the longest sentence I have ever read in a corporate report (105 words).
• Eliminate redundancy: As authors, we have a tendency to feel like every word we write is important. Therefore, we can’t possibly delete any of those words. The truth is, there are more opportunities to cut out the fluff than we think. So be brutal and cut out words or phrases that don’t add value, are redundant or are not required for emphasis or opinion.

Presentation skills

• Clarify your concept: Make sure your concept is tight. It should be short and concise, even tweetable. Write it in such a way that it hooks your audience and inspires them to action.
• Simplify your slides: Assess each slide to ensure there is only one message per slide no matter how hard that might seem. Challenge yourself to eliminate text and replace it with key words, images, smart art or other graphical representation.

Overcoming procrastination

Let’s face it: Some of us are more challenged by the procrastination monster than others. Strategy comes into play here, too. Take a small step, any step, toward your communication spring cleaning project. The first step will lead to the next step.

You may want to set aside an afternoon to reassess your communication skills in one area or all areas. Then focus on the one aspect that interests you most and take action on that one item. Communication skills are interrelated, so that one topic should lead you to the next topic.

If all else fails, promise yourself a reward for your hard work, such as a hot bath at the end of the afternoon, your favorite guilty food snack, or the freedom to go for a long run to cleanse your mind and body.

Maintaining your forward momentum

Now that you’ve decided on which communication skill(s) to focus, make sure you keep moving forward by addressing communication issues, questions and challenges as they arise. Keep a list of communication goals you want to achieve, progress you’ve made, and areas that need more attention.

I’ll be focusing on writing new articles regularly and refining my core presentation for key note speeches. What will you accomplish during your communication skills spring cleaning? Let us know so we can cheer you on.

All the best,

Tracie