When the goal is to persuade, motivate or educate the audience by conveying your ideas, a PowerPoint presentation plays a pivotal role. For years PowerPoint has been an integral part of our lives. From sharing information, instructions to sharing progress & empowering the decision-making, PowerPoint sits at the epicenter of all meeting endeavors.
Now, presenting to your peers or a limited audience is one thing, but presenting to a group of stakeholders, investors, or corporate executives requires much more than a bunch of slides. As a presenter, no matter what line of business you’re in, knowing how to deliver the idea is critical for accomplishing business goals and achieving success.
In this post, we will talk about three ways to enhance your presentation skills such that you end up delivering a superior presentation experience.
1. Use Less Text and More Visuals.
Often presenters include a significant amount of text in their presentation slides and end-up overwhelming the audience. This practice not only distracts your audience but also encourages them to focus solely on the slides and completely tune you out in between. Presenters must note that if their presentation lacks colors, visuals, and a sense of creativity, it can crush the audience’s engagement in no time. Although the text is a vital part of any presentation, one should use it sparingly.
Speaker notes are a brilliant function where you can place important, presenter-only content in the notes section and refer to it while you present. If you’re wondering how to add speaker notes in PowerPoint, the task takes only a couple of minutes. Now that you’ve brought down the magnitude of text in your slides, you can consider using visuals in place of the text that boost engagement. The goal is to make slides that are easy on the eyes of your audience.
2. Explore PowerPoint Templates.
When it comes to creating presentations that encapsulate a perfect blend of content and design, ready-to-use PowerPoint templates can be a game-changer for you. As per the presentation requirement and subject matter, presenters can get their hands on a relevant ready-made PowerPoint template, insert content in placeholders and generate a quality presentation in a matter of a few minutes.
These templates are not only 100% customizable, but they also provide design flexibility, pixel-perfect aesthetics, are corporate-friendly, and much more. Not just that, PowerPoint templates boost branding in your slides as well. Presenters can seamlessly edit the slides and align them closer to their company’s branding guidelines. Hence, establish presentation integrity on the move!
3. Deploy Data-Dashboards.
There is no denying that a presentation is incomplete without figures or numbers. However, in times like today where we’re exposed to a non-exhaustive amount of unorganized data, it can become difficult to understand all of it, especially if it’s in the presentations. Presenters can use corporate-grade data dashboards that not only enhance the visibility of the data but also allow you to do better forecasting, measure key performance indicators (KPIs), empower real-time customer analytics, and foster better decision-making.
For instance, if you have a quarterly meeting coming up, rather than throwing numbers off the slide, you can use intuitive and business-friendly data dashboards that transform the ordinary data into a meaningful representation. Moreover, you can customize the data dashboards in terms of users and their expectations. Hence, presenters can provide a birds’ eye view of data, save time and resources, while engaging the audience to the core. You may initiate a call-to-action (CTA) only when your audience is able to resonate with the data.
The End Line.
A thoughtful, engaging, and precise PowerPoint presentation bundled with your public speaking skills empowers you to establish yourself as the expert on the subject matter. There is no denying that public speaking isn’t an inherent talent! It’s something you develop with time and practice.
Presenters should pay heed to the fact that an ideal presentation can draw a line between a closed opportunity and a missed deal! Use the tips provided in this article to plan your presentation flow, plan your content and practice the delivery to cast a lasting impression on your audience.
