In the world of business, survival is the name of the game. You have to outwit, outplay, and outlast your competitor for you to thrive in the industry. With this, businesses use different marketing strategies to win the competition. One way to make it is by creating an outstanding business presentation that will perfectly deliver the message to its target market.
Business presentation makes a lot of difference, as it can make or break the company itself. As we all know, the principal concept of business is selling. To make the most out of your business presentation, make sure that everything you want your audience to know can be conveyed flawlessly.
Making a business presentation is not really that easy. There are a lot of factors to be considered while creating great output. It takes practice to master it but with a few tips it will certainly be attainable.
1. Make an outline. This is basically the first thing to be considered since it will serve as the backbone of your presentation. Use only key phrases of the essential information you want to give and be consistent with it all throughout your presentation. Make it simple and easy to comprehend. Having the concept in mind and with the guidance of an outline, you are on the right track of accomplishing the desired outcome. (Note: These presentation tips refer to PowerPoint, but generally they are also applicable to any presentation)
2. Slide layout. Choose the right layout for the slides. It will capture your audience’s attention and heighten their excitement as to what comes next. Just a reminder: be sure to make it easy to follow. Titles should be highlighted and positioned properly; phrases will appear from left to right or from top to bottom. Always present important information near the top title, so that it can be seen by the audience from the back rows.
3. Minimize punctuations and avoid all capital letters. Too much use of punctuations is messy and not pleasant to the eyes. Capitalizing all letters is also not advisable for it is somewhat similar to SCREAMING at your audience.
4. Use simple fonts. Make sure that the fonts are readable. Commonly used font styles are Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri or Verdana. Avoid fancy fonts or the script types because these are hard to read on a screen. Also, do not use too many font styles. At most, use only two different types for emphasis - one for the heading and another for the content. With regard to font size, make it large (between 24 and 30), so that people at the back can easily read what is on the screen.
5. Text color should be in contrast with the background color. Dark text perfectly matches with any light background but white. If you plan to use dark background, be sure that your text color is lighter to make reading easier. Get rid of patterned or textured background; this will receive unfavorable response from the audience because the text is not readable. Also, whatever your color scheme is, be consistent with it throughout your presentation.
6. Use appropriate slide designs. If you plan to use a design theme or a design template, choose the one that is the most appropriate for your audience. For business presentations design should be as much straightforward as possible. For younger audience, go for a colorful design that contains assorted shapes and figures.
7. Have a limited number of slides. Having too many slides is not advisable because this may be boring for your audience. Also, changing slides can cause distraction, and you may lose the attention of your audience. Therefore, you need to keep your number of slides to minimum – perhaps one slide per one big thought.
8. Make use of photos, charts and graphs. A presentation filled with a combination of photos, charts, graphs and embedded video will keep your audience interested. Eye-catching presentations really do wonders.
9. Do not use too many slide transitions and animations. Remember that your presentation is meant to be a visual aid. Thus try to avoid excessive use of slide transitions and animations. Transitions and animations will enhance your audience’s interest but you need to limit this so that their focus is on the content of your presentation and not on the presentation itself.
10. Make sure that your presentation can run on any computer. To ensure that your presentation will run, use PowerPoint’s Package for CD (PowerPoint 2007 and 2003) or the Pack and Go (PowerPoint 2000 and before) feature when you burn it on a CD. Also, a copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer should be added to the CD to run your PowerPoint presentations on computers that have no PowerPoint.
About Author: Romel Curambao is very passionate with his writings. He really sees to it that his articles have a deep impact to his readers. A dedicated and devoted writer and a Broadband expert, Rommel is your perfect choice when it comes to anything that has something to do with social media, blogging, entrepreneurship, and other interesting topics such as internet options.
