Presentations are used in the business world quite frequently for several reasons. These presentations could be to explain a new product or service to a potential client. They could also be a way to report progress, solve a current problem, providing new information, and much more.
Before giving your business presentation, it’s essential that you take the time to ensure you’re prepared. The last thing you want to do is step in front of a large audience or a very important audience and seem unprepared. To better prepare yourself before a presentation, you should know a few presentation tips.
In this guide, you’ll discover how to give a presentation. This information is useful not only to better prepare yourself but to keep your audience interested and engaged as well. Continue reading below to get started!
1. Consider Your Audience
One of the first things you should do is consider your audience. Know who your audience is so you can cater to them during your presentation. This step is essential.
What is the main purpose of your presentation? Is it to give information? Is it to persuade the audience into making a purchase?
Gather this information and then create a presentation that’ll keep them entertained and interested. Something to keep in mind is your audience will vary between extroverts and introverts. It’s great to have some activities for the audience to complete as part of your presentation.
Activities help them stay engaged but keep your introverts in mind also. Introverts might learn best from a lecture style. Everyone learns differently so have a good balance of lectures, audios, visuals, and hands-on activities.
2. Create a Storyboard
Before you dive right into your slideshow presentation, make sure to create a storyboard first. How will a storyboard help? Your storyboard is your rough draft.
This is where you’ll come up with the main purpose of your presentation (what you want your audience to take away from it). You’ll also put together the main points you want to share and how they connect to the main purpose. The storyboard is where you can brainstorm and come up with presentation ideas.
You’re going to learn what works and what doesn’t. Discover your introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Once your storyboard/outline is complete, you can then begin to develop your slides.
3. Develop 3 Main Points
You’ve done your research and you know everything about the topic your presenting. There’s so much information you want to share but wait. How much information can your audience take in at one time?
If you overload them with information, then your presentation might not be as successful as you hoped. It’s a good idea to stick to three main points. This will prevent your audience from feeling overwhelmed during your presentation.
They’ll also be able to leave your presentation remembering all of the information presented.
4. Limit Your Slides and Information
You want to stick to three main points, but you also want to limit the number of slides and information listed on each slide as well. For example, if you chose the three main points you want to discuss, but then have 10 slides for each point with information listed from top to bottom, it’ll still become overwhelming for your audience.
Instead, limit your total number of slides to 10. Having your audience sit through more than 10 slides in total is a good way to lose their attention. You can still conduct a 30-minute presentation with only 10 slides.
Use your slides as a guide, not as the primary way to provide information. You’re going to provide the audience with information by lecturing, hosting activities, playing short video clips, using voice recording services for a voice-over, and more!
5. Stay Consistent
When creating the slides for your presentation, it’s important to stay consistent. When you have different colors, text fonts, and text sizes on every slide, it can become distracting. The more consistent your design is, the more professional your presentation will appear.
Find a font and text size you like and then use it throughout the entire presentation. You can use your voice, your activities, and your other visuals to draw emphasis to certain points.
6. Bait Them With a Hook
When learning to write papers in school, you learned to bait your reader with a hook. The same is true for your presentation. Don’t forget to start off your presentation with an introduction that baits your audience.
This will set the tone for the rest of your presentation. Use an interesting quote or a shocking statistic that relates to your topic. You want to start with something that makes your audience sit up in their chairs, open their eyes, and give you their full attention.
If you plan to incorporate video clips into your presentation, then you can even consider beginning your presentation with a video clip that’ll grab their attention while giving them a good idea of what your presentation will be about.
7. Practice, Practice, Practice
You can put together a well-planned and thought out presentation, but you could fail to meet your audience’s expectations if you don’t practice. Remember, your slides are your guide. You are the main show.
Be sure to practice presenting your slides, giving out the activities, and all other aspects. You should also record yourself while you practice. You can then watch the recording to see what things you want to work on.
Does your voice need to sound more enthusiastic? What’s your body language like? Did you remember to smile?
These are all things you may not catch when actually practicing, but you will notice when watching yourself practice. Practicing your presentation is also a good way to work out any small issues with the slides and presentation itself, such as a video not loading correctly.
It’s Time to Plan a Spectacular Business Presentation
With all of this helpful information by your side, you can now begin to plan a spectacular business presentation! Take your time, be precise, stay consistent, provide a variety of presentation methods, and practice, practice, practice. Keep this guide in mind when creating your presentation, and you’ll be sure to amaze your audience.
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