Business presentations are a great way to sell an idea, a product, or a project.
But, more often than not, they fail to convey the most valuable data a company has to provide or to deliver that information in a way that satisfies its target audience.
That’s a huge problem because this tool is supposed to make it simpler for users, consumers, and partners to understand a concept or a dataset.
Better presentations are within your company’s reach, though. With the right tools and techniques, you can start making powerful business presentations today!
In this article, we will take a look into the main steps needed to build a successful business presentation, such as:
1. Get to know your audience in advance
The first step to building a powerful business presentation is to familiarize yourself with the target market.
Corporate presentations, shown internally, vary widely from the ones a business might build to gain interest from customers. After all, they have completely different target audiences.
These presentations can be quite useful in a business environment, working favorably to present current customer information or the company’s performance in a given timeframe.
But even those can present a challenge if you are not capable of providing a satisfactory assessment of your audience. That is why understanding your audience is the fundamental step to create better business presentations.
To better assess who will be consuming your business presentation and what needs should be met when building it, start by listing the following information about the persona:
- Gender
- Age
- Industry
- Organization
- Familiarity with the subject
The more information you can gather about your audience, the easier it will be to build an impactful presentation that gets a message across.
2. Organize your information and data
Another important step to creating powerful business presentations is understanding the information within.
The sooner you create a precise persona of whom your company is presenting information to, the sooner you will be able to organize the data that is needed in your presentation.
Data is the best resource a presenter has at their disposal to convince their audience of the benefits of buying into a project, getting a product, or investing in an idea. So, choose carefully which data you will include in your business presentation and how it will be shown.
Data literacy is a subject that has been gaining traction in companies. It is considered a fundamental skill in the 21st century as data literacy can inform better decisions and reduce feedback loops when answering important business questions. The subject also comes to mind when talking about business presentations.
The stronger the level of data literacy of your audience, the easier it will be to deliver information with little challenge. But a presenter must also work on their data literacy, so they can pick the relevant data to include in a corporate presentation.
Make sure that every piece of information included in the presentation adds a sharper context to the concept you are presenting and works in favor of informing decision-making.
Layering is a good strategy to present many data, but don’t lose your audience attention.
That’s the only way to guarantee that your audience will be ready to take action — whether buying a product, signing up for a trial, or establishing a partnership — at the end of your business presentation.
3. Choose an adequate layout for your presentation
As much as data is important to convince your audience, the way you choose to present it is also relevant to how it will be perceived by the targets.
Creating an elegant presentation is paramount to its success because it makes it so much easier to deliver ideas clearly and concisely.
There are many ways to present information to your audience, and picking the right data visualization tools is an important step towards succeeding.
Whether you present your data in pie charts, bar graphs, or complex interactive tools, the choice should be informed and work in favor of the businesses’ goals.
Think of how people will consume your presentation. Will they see it on their computers, on a large screen, in groups, or alone? This will help you determine things such as font size, color palette, and the scale for the presented data.
4. Set up a personal mindset
If you work for a corporation, you probably see many presentations every day. So, when building yours, you will want to use your creative thinking skills to the max. To do so, you will need to focus not only on making the presentation itself but also on your mindset.
Establish targets for your presentation, define its scope, and learn from the best. Steve Jobs once said that “a lot of times people don’t know what they want to see until you show them”, and he was one of the greatest lecturers the world has ever seen.
Study how you are going to deliver your presentation and, most important of all, make sure you believe in the idea you are introducing to the target audience. This will go a great length in making your business presentation a hit.
5. Prepare for a Q&A with the audience
Do you want to know the secret to successful business presentations? Any experienced lecturer will provide you the same answer to this question — preparedness.
A presenter should completely master the subject they are addressing in their business presentation, understanding its nuances and challenges, so they can deliver the message accurately.
One way to do that is to prepare a little Q&A for afterward. When studying for your Q&A, consider your persona’s pains, how they relate to the information that was presented, and what answers you can offer to various scenarios.
Write those answers down, study them, and review the subject at hand. That will help you engage with your audience after a presentation, making it easier to sell a given idea or product.
In case you are presented with questions you haven’t prepared for or can’t answer at the spot, take a note for your next presentation. Use that information to guide you in the future and to understand the persona even better.
Do you feel like building powerful business presentations is not a job you can do single-handedly? Outsourcing the task to experts, like the team at Visua.ly, will help you get better results with less time and effort, releasing you to focus on the tasks you already have at hand.
Ready to start building interactive business presentations that look truly great? Get a quote from Visually!
