It was my big day! Ever since I started my new venture, I was looking forward to this day. I had my company presentation ready and it was time to present it to prospective venture capital investors.
It was absolutely important for me to showcase products, technology and my team to the investors, and I had only one chance.
Be it a business presentation to your investors or an update to your shareholders, the visual impression that you create will be a ground breaker.
As you stand there before a huge audience of clients and important stakeholders, your presentation should grip the audience’s attention with exclusive content, impressive images and brilliantly designed slides.
While content is required to express your message, a great platform to express your message is equally important.
The designs that you choose for your presentation will take your entire presentation to the next level.
Deciding the content, designing and structuring your slide deck and finally standing there in front of your stakeholders can lead to a nervous breakdown. But with these 10 tips to create well-designed presentation slides, you no longer have to worry about impressing your audience in your next presentation.
These 10 tips will give your presentation the much needed attention.
Tip 1: Know Your Audience
Your entire presentation should revolve around the audience.
What are their demographics of your audience? Are they busy with very less time to hear you out? Are they your potential clients, or are they your stakeholders? What is their age group? What are they interested to know from the presentation?
Research the audience before you start preparing content. This will give you an upper hand on the type of content, visuals and the length of content to be added.
Tip 2: Remember the Message
When you get excited about the whole presentation, clients, visuals, data and charts, it is quite possible to dilute the main message of the presentation. The message should never be buried under other aspects of the presentation.
Design the main message of the presentation in a clear and simple format that reiterates the reason why the audience has assembled there.
Don’t disappoint the audience by not delivering the message as promised at the beginning of the presentation.
Tip 3: Text to the Point
The slides should not be filled with a lot of text that takes away the attention from the presenter. Each slide should be about one main point and highlighting one key takeaway.
Just give a hint with a few words, while the description of the hint should be delivered by the presenter.
Tip 4: Compelling Visuals
Humans are visual learners. People remember the images that they see than the text that they read.
Now, do you wonder why you always liked comics versus the story books?
A compelling picture can tell your complete message, and further, leave an impact during and after the presentation.
Tip 5: Share Stories
Storytelling comes to most of us naturally, right? During an interview, a real-life incident or a real story that the person narrates will gather more interest than the rest of the interview.
A story is a way to lead your audience into imagination. Stories help the audience to relate to the topic and connect with the message of the presentation.
Tip 6: Add Humour
A dash of humour added in a business presentation with a serious setting will help to build a connection with the audience. Tim Lee who is a TEDx speaker presents his slide deck, and you can see the audience rolling and laughing out loud, appreciating the humour in his slides.
Add jokes or witty scenes that are relevant to the presentation and discover that the audience will have higher engagement.
Tip 7: Maintain the Flow
When you are trying to keep the text less, numerous images, right message, anecdotes, etc. it is easy to get diverted and break the flow.
The presentation and all its elements should have continuity and consistency. Each element that you add should fit well with the presentation and should form part of the same story.
Follow consistency in the layouts, colours, fonts, infographics and the design throughout the presentation.
Tip 8: Time Your Presentation
Imagine you are in a presentation and it goes on and on forever. You would just wait for it to be over than focus on the content, right?
Adults have an attention span of 20 minutes and this is the time when you have to make the best of your presentation. Twenty minutes is good enough to explain your key messages but at the same time short enough to keep the attention of your audience.
Tip 9: Use Professionally Designed Templates
Even for the best artist, it might be a challenge to come up with unique presentation designs. Many a time a powerpoint template will not serve the purpose of finding unique templates that define your brand.
It might be a good idea to look beyond the powerpoint templates. You can make use of the readily available presentation templates designed by professionals and experts. These designs will be an excellent way to showcase your message by making it stand out.
Tip 10: Sum Up Your Points
Towards, the end of the presentation, it can be quite a lot of messages to be retained by your audience. Also it is already about 15 minutes and their attention spans are diving south.
To ensure maximum attention towards the end of the presentation, summarize the presentation quickly by using quotes, points and reference.
Conclusion
Presentations need not be always the boring 100-slide document that everybody hates to sit through. With the application of right tools and tips, it is possible to convert a boring presentation into a creative and an engaging session for your audience.
Presentations should become a powerful visual journey for your audience where they not just understand your message, but enjoy and connect with the message. With the help of the tips included above, it’s time to rise to the challenge of creating powerful presentations. Know more about the golden rules for pitching to an investor here.