How to be an entrepreneur and the challenges and rewards encountered

I love Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint . As posted on his blog the explanation is: "It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points."

Most of us have been on both sides of the PowerPoint fence. On one side we've burnt the midnight oil trying to perfect our presentation, and on the other we've been bored to death by the drivel of someone presenting by reading bullet point by bullet point from the slides.

Guy goes on to talk about the content you should have in your slides when presenting to VCs. If you're in this situation, take notice and follow Guy's recommendations.

For the rest of us, most of the time we're trying to present to new prospects, at trade shows or speaking at conferences. I like to follow this rule of presenting:

HOOK, POINT, ILLUSTRATION.

HOOK them with a great and intriguing lead, make your POINT clearly, then ILLUSTRATE it with a story. We are far more apt to listen to someone tell a story, then we are to someone trying to prove they know more than we do.

Repeat the same process if you need to. Tell your story, make it vivid, take them on a mental journey.