Five Tips To Create An Amazing Business Presentation

Slideshows, as ever, are still a key tool when it comes to creating a business presentation.

However, chances are when you’re in a business meeting, and someone flips open a powerpoint, we’re going to guess that some of that initial excitement dies down.

In fact, 79% of people believe that most presentations are…pretty boring. So why is this?

Well, it’s so easy for those presenting to fall into the trap of letting the slides do all the talking, by relying too heavily on them.

Unfortunately, sometimes going as far as to read directly off the presentation word-for-word.

When talking about your company, you should want those listening to feel a rush of excitement at your words or to be intrigued by your proposal.

You need to be able to pitch and sell the idea that you’re the best choice.

A slideshow can do many things, but unless you utilise it to its full potential, you may find yourself missing the mark with those listening.

So what can you do to create an amazing business presentation?

1. Avoid overloading your audience

Presentations don’t often suffer from a lack of information, but rather too much information.

Cliff Atkinson, Author of “Beyond Bullet Points”, states that ‘When you remove interesting but irrelevant words and pictures from a screen, you can increase the audience’s ability to remember the information by 189% and the ability to apply the information by 109%.’

How does this help you?

Just remember that the slideshow is not the key factor in a presentation, however, you and your knowledge are a key factor.

Your slides are there to aid you in giving your presentation, not to bombard your audience, so try to avoid long paragraphs or long blocks of text, and aim for one message per slide.

2. Come with handouts to your business presentation

If you have information that is really valuable for the audience to take away, consider creating a handout.

They can serve as a powerful reminder of the points you want to reinforce, give detailed breakdowns of your presentation, and even strengthen your call to action.

If you also want to attract attention without using a written handout, consider a video book.

Video books can be a more memorable alternative to a written handout, and can be customised to provide a relevant video to the particular audience you’re presenting to.

For example; if you’re presenting to a room of health care professionals, you could leave behind a video book that could be aimed at their industry, allowing you to stand out from other businesses presenting.

3. Know your material

Practise and rehearse your business presentation beforehand.

Know what you’ll be covering, even if your laptop decides to die or you have an error with your slides.

It happens!

Be confident in the ideas you’ll be talking about, and by knowing your material, you’ll be able to be spontaneous or go off script without worrying about the structure of your slides.

And remember…your slides are an aid, you’re what sells the presentation.

4. Create a branded presentation

If you want to stand out from the crowd, don’t let your presentation look like a fixed template.

Think of how you can incorporate your branding into your slideshow.

Try and avoid script fonts as these can be hard to use, and consider two clear fonts (e.g Arial). Better yet, if you have a clear font in your brand guidelines, use them.

Another idea is to use your brand colours in your presentation.

Just make sure that the brand colours you decide to use contrast on each slide: dark text on a light background, light text on a dark background.

If you do decide to use ‘branded slides’, you can advertise your brand in your business presentation without it being too obvious, just make sure you keep your theming consistent throughout your presentation.

5. Limit the number of slides and include a video

With text and images covered (perhaps even the occasional graph), including video content could be the next bit of crucial content you need.

Video content is incredibly engaging, and could help you liven up your presentation by offering a change of pace from static slides.

The key with adding a video is to keep it short. Staying within less than a minute is a good time length for a video, as you want your video to enhance the presentation you’re giving…not replace.

If you have difficult information, a video could help you explain it, as many companies actually use motion graphics videos to explain complex points, or what their product is.