8 ways to become a presentation master

After starting your business it’s likely that you’ll encounter a number of situations where you’ll need to deliver a presentation. Whilst presenting can be a nerve-wracking experience, it’s a great opportunity to really sell your business. 

Part of delivering a great presentation is knowing how to utilise tools such as Powerpoint, Prezzi and Google Slides. On top of this, there are a number of things you should do to ensure your presentation really hits home. After all, why would you want a presentation that is ‘run of the mill’ when you can do something truly brilliant? So, to help you, here are 8 ways to become a presentation master…

Introduce yourself

From the outset make it clear who you are, what you do and why you are presenting. It’s important to give yourself credibility in the eyes of the audience. You should also establish clear parameters in terms of questions. According to PC advisor.co.uk: “If you want questions throughout tell them. If you want silence and then questions at the end – let them know.”

Be clear on your objectives

What do you want to achieve with the presentation? Make this clear from the start and then make sure that each and every point clearly aligns with this goal. You can have the most well designed presentation but if the points don’t have a point, then what’s the, well, point?

Keep your copy concise

Don’t overload your slides with lots of text – keep them simple with clear bullet points. Overwhelming your audience with text will immediately put them off, your presentation should be a visual aid not a transcript.

Choose your fonts wisely

Are you thinking about using a fancy font? Well don’t! The presentation needs to be as clean and clear as possible. Do not distract your audience with unnecessary visual information. Choose a font that is easy to read. Of course using different font weights to emphasise certain points or distinguish headings is fine.

Use amazing imagery

When text alone isn’t enough you should use images to enhance your presentation. But think carefully about the images you use, so many presenters falter by using poor imagery that was clearly pulled from the first page of a Google Image search. Keep it classy and use professional images.

Consistency is key

Ensure that the design of your slides remains consistent throughout the presentation. This includes colours, font, branding and background. And set some rules (and stick to them) on how you use headings, paragraphs, links etc.

Break it up into logical sections

Think of your presentation as a story with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. You need to have an informed and welcoming introduction, your main points (the meat of the presentation) then need to be presented in a logical way, and then you should finish off with a clean summary.

Practise, practise and then practise

So you’ve created an engaging and well structured presentation. However, that’s just the first step. The slides, whilst important, are really just a prompt – and something for your audience to take away to crystalise the points you are physically presenting. What’s more important is how you present – and this requires practice.

Run through your presentation at least five times before the real deal. You should also think about getting a couple of friends / family to sit in and give you some feedback. Plenty of practise will not only help you refine your presentation, it will also provide you with bags of necessary confidence.

That’s it! Follow these 8 tips and you’ll become a presentation master in no time.

We hope you’ve found this checklist useful. Are you interested in reading some more blogs about small business issues? Then why not visit our dedicated business blog here?