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Beginners Guide To Business Presentations And Powerpoint
Rating: 4.3 out of 5(1,702 ratings)
5,854 students

Beginners Guide To Business Presentations And Powerpoint

Learn to create professional PowerPoint slides for business and deliver them with maximum impact online or in person
Last updated 11/2025
English

What you'll learn

  • Principles of slide composition and design using palettes and templates for maximum visual impact
  • Why Amazon has banned PowerPoint and the importance of a clear and concise narrative for each slide
  • Presenting using virtual meeting platforms like Teams and how you can use collaboration features while presenting
  • Why you shouldn't use animations or transitions and how they distract from your content
  • How pictures and diagrams can be misinterpreted and how to avoid that in your presentations
  • Presenting in a physical setting and how to maximise your impact by understanding the room setting
  • The importance of a well prepared executive summary and how it supports your preparation
  • Getting started in Powerpoint using key features to build and layout different elements such as shapes, tables, charts
  • How to deal with people who are busy on their phones or laptops while you are presenting
  • How to avoid cluttering a slide with too much detail and how to keep the number of slides down
  • Why Mark Twain was thinking about PowerPoint slides when he said "I was going to write you a short letter but I didn't have time, so I wrote you a long letter"
  • Different presentation settings and reasons for presentations and why that matters for your slides
  • How to maximise a public presentation by understanding the room and engaging your audience

Course content

119 sections501 lectures27h 10m total length
  • Introduction And Why Presentation Skills Are Crucial For Your Career Success3:59

    Master PowerPoint for business presentations, crafting clear slides with text, graphics, and data charts. Use Zoom or Teams effectively to deliver concise executive updates and boost career success.

  • Let's Celebrate Your Progress In This Course: 25% > 50% > 75% > 100%!!1:20

    Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>

  • Watch Peter Alkema Do Powerful Public Business Presentations Using Powerpoint1:24
  • Wipeboard Lesson: Your Journey To Awesome Business Presentations These Skills12:15

    This wipeboard lesson teaches you the skills and steps to be a better business presenter: slide design, types and settings of presentations as well as how to make an impact in virtual and in-person presentations. Learn how to get from where you are today to a level of awesomeness that you will need to be successful in the workplace and any environment that you need to make presentations

  • Introduce Yourself To Your Fellow Students And Tell Everyone What Are Your Goals0:19

    This is your opportunity to share something about yourself with the rest of the students in this course. Tell us all about your goals and what you want to achieve. You can come back to this board and add more thoughts as you go through the course and achieve your goals. Seeing all the other students in the course will also motivate you and keep you going as you participate in this community of learning.

  • You've Achieved 25% >> Let's Celebrate Your Progress And Keep Going To 50% >>0:24

    Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>

Requirements

  • No course requirements

Description

"I always thought I understood PowerPoint but this course has given me more light and understanding. I am definitely ready to create my own slides and presents." - Malesela M.

"Peter certainly practises what he preaches! The live examples and practical demonstrations are brilliant and establish Peter's credibility for teaching the course. The material is targeted and relevant for giving an effective presentation, with no unnecessary detail. I love Peter's humour and honest no-nonsense approach to coping with what will go wrong." - Janet A.

"Having to know the different types of presentations, when and how to use them and the purpose of using and knowing these different forms of presentations. How to set up good presentation slides and which content to include on those slides and also how to set up a powerful virtual and physical presentation that will grab your audience attention and also how to use the different editing format that will help you make a killer power point presentation." - Nosipho Khumalo

"This is the best course that shows you how to do quality presentations which is exactly what I needed to know, absolutely valuable and helpful for my personal growth." - Josephine Mahlangu

"Excellent thus far! Thank you Peter, once again your lesson and course have given me so much knowledge and understanding about this topic. Really enjoyed" - Werner van Wyk

In this course I will teach you how to prepare and present powerful business presentations using Powerpoint. The course includes techniques for presenting online so that you still maximise the impact of your presentation if everyone is working from home. I've presented to thousands of people in all kinds of settings during my 20 year career which includes 10 years as a management consultant and 10 years in leadership roles at large financial institutions. Your career success will depend on how well you can communicate and delivering presentations is a crucial method of communication in the workplace. Learn these skills today to make you a more powerful PowerPoint presenter for business.

I will teach you about the following

  • Different presentation settings; conferences, executive meetings, small team meetings

  • Reasons for presentations; status updates, executive reviews, approvals, business cases, projects

  • Understand why Powerpoint is banned at Amazon and how you can avoid abusing Powerpoint

  • How agendas are set and presentations are compiled and distributed before a meeting

  • How to combine text, graphics, data, charts and other visual material in aesthetic slides

  • Using Powerpoint from scratch and the techniques of creating your first basic slide

  • Why Mark Twain was thinking about Powerpoint when he said "I was going to write you a short letter but I didn't have time, so I wrote you a long letter"

  • How to avoid cluttering a slide with too much detail and how to keep the number of slides down

  • The importance of an executive summary and how this helps you deliver a better presentation

  • How pictures can easily be misinterpreted and why an unambiguous narrative is critical

  • Why you shouldn't repeat words on a slide and what a title and sub-title should achieve

  • The "so-what" box and how you must incorporate this element on your most important slides

  • How virtual meetings allow you to add a bit more detail onto slides

  • Different views in Powerpoint as well as adding shapes, text, doing alignment and keyboard shortcuts

  • Drawing tools, tables, charts, smart art, borders, fill, outline, grid and guides

  • Transitions and animations and why you should avoid using them in business presentations

  • Why you shouldn't use gradients, mix pictures and text or use curly fonts that are too small

  • How to use all the collaboration features of online meeting tools while you are presenting

  • Why you shouldn't ask people if they can see your slides or hear you when you start presenting

  • Presentations in a physical setting and the importance of understanding the room beforehand

  • How to deal with people who are busy on their phones or laptops while you are presenting

  • Why you should tell people what you are going to tell them before you actually tell them

  • Why it doesn't matter if you don't actually present your slides and why that's sometimes important

You can become a powerful powerpoint presenter by following the lessons in this course, locking in the learnings with the worksheets and applying what you have learnt in your next presentation.

Who this course is for:

  • Business people that want to prepare and present powerful presentations using Powerpoint