Slide Makeover: Don’t treat your ending slide like a mic drop

Raise your hand if the last slide of your presentation only has the words “Thank You,” “Q&A,” or some such. OK, put your hand down now. I’m going to teach you something better to throw onto the screen at the end of your presentations.

Before

This was the actual last slide of a real presentation. Informative, no? Ending slides have so much potential, but this slide just sits there like a dropped mic.

After

Look at the ending slide now! The call to action, “Let’s keep in touch!” is a friendly invitation for people to continue the conversation. And on this slide, she gives five ways to contact her. In this example, there’s a photograph of a smiling presenter, but you could put anything up there, like a logo, a photo of the thing you were talking about, an image about communication, etc.

Ending slides can also have details about how to find resources for your presentation, as I’ve done on the following slide:

When this slide is on the screen, I tell people to feel free to ask me any questions that didn’t get answered in the presentation and to keep in touch. I uploaded a bunch of resources to Dropbox and created a customized shortlink using Tiny URL and a QR code at QR Code Generator for people whose smartphones automatically detect them. And for bonus points cuz I’m such a teacher’s pet, I’ve included an event hashtag and my Twitter handle’s on every slide. Boom.

Always leave your ending slide up for as long as you can so that people have a chance to record your contact info. This is also a good time to encourage the audience to snap a photo they can refer to later.

The Takeaway

An ending slide is an opportunity for free advertising and encouraging audience engagement. Don’t blow it by showing a useless phrase.