Present to Impress: Tips to Execute a Perfect Business Presentation
You need to give powerful presentations if you want to succeed in business. You don’t need to be a motivational speaker, but you do need to be able to move a room.
For some people, the thought of public speaking is horrifying because they don’t want to look silly or make a big mistake.
There are ways that you can get over the fear of delivering a business presentation and making it unforgettable.
Know the Purpose of the Presentation
Why are you delivering the presentation? This is a simple question that will dictate the content and the structure of the presentation.
There are dozens of reasons why you have to give a presentation. You may need to give a presentation to get a new client. Another reason is to deliver a report or campaign results to your company’s executive team.
The purpose of the presentation will give you goals to set for the presentation, too.
Use Slides Wisely
Slides are not a crutch to help you remember your business presentation. They are a way to support you when you deliver it.
The worst presenters put the text of the presentation into slides with a few images thrown in. They’ll then read the entire presentation. That will only ensure that you lose your audience.
Have you ever watched a product launch or developer’s conference keynote from Apple? Steve Jobs was a master at delivering presentations that got people excited.
Tim Cook has carried that tradition to launch new products. Part of the reason why these presentations always deliver is because they do more with less. That’s really what the ethos at Apple is all about.
They apply that ethos to their slide designs. You’ll find that when there are statistics or numbers to be delivered, you’ll see there’s only one number. That number is huge. Under that, there’s a supporting sentence.
You can apply this to your own presentation. Make your visuals memorable and use them to support what you’re saying.
Practice Your Presentation
One of the reasons why people get nervous about delivering a business presentation is because they don’t know the material well. They wind up reading the whole thing, looking down at notes the entire time.
You miss the impact that you could have because you’re not engaged with the audience at all. You don’t connect with them.
Practicing your material gives you the chance to know it inside and out. You’ll be able to look up, walk around the room, and keep your audience throughout the whole thing.
You’ll have much more confidence to give a great presentation because you practiced it for hours. Speaking of practice, it also helps to get some professional help by attending public speaking courses in nyc.
Get Feedback from Others
Getting feedback before you give a business presentation will give you a chance to make your presentation stronger. There are always things that others can see that you can’t.
You can practice your presentation in front of a few people, and you can have people take a look at your slides.
The easiest way to get feedback on your slides is by using SharePoint. It integrates with PowerPoint and other Office 365 apps so you can share the presentation, get feedback, and integrate the changes.
Keep Your Audience Engaged
How do you give a great business presentation? Keep your audience engaged and awake for the entire time. It’s hard to be standing in front of a room, extremely nervous, to look around and see that the room has mentally checked out.
They could be wondering what’s for lunch, checking email, posting on social media, or daydreaming. Your job is to make them forget about those distractions for a short period of time.
There are a few tricks that you can employ during your presentation. For example, you can ask a lot of questions during the presentation.
Law school professors keep their students on edge by using the Socratic method of teaching. They call on students and ask questions randomly to see who knows the material and who doesn’t. You can do something similar.
Another trick you can do is have the audience repeat the most important points of your presentation. This helps keeps the audience engaged and it helps them loosen up as well.
Have Only One Key Takeaway
In some presentations, you’re responsible for delivering a ton of content. Yet, there’s only so much the audience will remember from your business presentation.
The way around that is to have one key takeaway for the audience and hammer that home over and over. That key point should be a broad generalization, like “the marketing campaign delivered a high ROI.”
That general statement gets to the point and is easy to remember.
Anticipate Questions
People are naturally curious. They’re going to have questions for you during and after your presentation.
You’ll want to set the ground rules as far as answering questions goes. It’s best to take questions at the end so your flow isn’t interrupted every few seconds.
It also helps to think about the presentation and guess what questions people will have. You can be prepared to answer them.
Be Yourself
This is probably the one thing you don’t want to hear before you give a business presentation. However, it is the most important.
If you’re selling a product or a service to a potential client, they want to buy from someone they like. Not being yourself doesn’t allow them to see who they’re buying from.
It’s also your opportunity to shine and let people know that you have a personality. You don’t want to overdo it with fun, but there is plenty of room to give your presentations a little personality.
Give a Great Business Presentation
A great business presentation can make your career or bring huge success to a company. You want to make sure that your presentation goes off without a hitch.
Practice your presentation, get feedback, and focus on the most important points. That will help you have more confidence when you walk into the presentation room.
