High-level executives and senior management are particularly a demanding audience. The quality of information, factual integrity, crispiness of slides and not to mention, the time constraints they have all matters when you plan to create a presentation. People often try to create a TED-like presentation to woo executives. This is not the solution to the challenge. Senior management and board members are not seeking entertainment through your presentation. They need to make effective decisions in the shortest possible time. It is the job of your presentation to provide them with all relevant facts and information without missing out on anything.
An ideal professional presentation should be simple, persuasive, factual, lucid and honest. The presentation is your chance to make executives understand the vision you hold. The primary goal is to make your audience excited about you, the products or the company, as a whole. It doesn’t matter if you’re pitching to venture capitalists, senior investors or business evangelists, the right PowerPoint presentation can help you make your mark. Right from content selection, data explanation to presentation design, it all matters. To stand out with a professional presentation, you need to be creative and minimalistic with your approach.
Why create to-the-point presentations?
Before you jump on a presentation software and start creating your presentation, you should understand how presentation structure affects the audience experience. Keeping your presentation content informative, logical yet simple is imperative for presentation success. People can comprehend the information better if it’s in a structured form. Think of your presentation as a story, therefore it should have an interesting opening, a middle body and a conclusion on which everybody could agree on. People like high-level executives, senior management and VC’s are often running short on time. Your presentation has only 5 minutes to pitch your idea and generate interest. Always remember that a well-crafted can draw a line between a closed deal and a missed opportunity.
Let’s move ahead and talk about out of the box tips to create presentations which matter:
Know your audience:
Now that we understand how critical it is to present information concisely, it is time to know your audience. It’s all about putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what your audience expects from you. You can only provide a sufficient amount of detail on the subject matter when you identify the level of your audience. In other words, pitching to potential investors, leads is entirely different from projecting growth numbers to board members and senior management. It is only then the slides can arouse interest almost immediately. You should at all costs present ideas, initiatives or opportunities that fit their interests. If the information is worthy of their time and has strategic importance, they will reach back.
Pick a professional template:
It can be said that not everyone has expertise when we talk about designing the presentation, picking colour aesthetics or ensuring relevant contrast. Ready to use templates are of great help here. You can create a state of the art professional presentation which can woo your executives in no time. Professional templates offer design consistency, ease of formatting, enhanced branding and customization. Your presentation can gain integrity from the audience if they can associate the slides with that of your brand. The template is a skeleton which you can fill with quality content and engage with the audience. Templates often come pre-packed with graphs, charts and visuals to make the presentation a whopping success.
Provide substance:
Great design is important but so is your content. Presentation design and content need to complement each other. Right from front to back, you need to put key elements of information into your slides. While addressing high-level executives and senior management, your presentation should describe vivid details and must-know facts. The slides should also analyse competitors, perform a SWOT analysis (if applicable), define market size, clearly define mission & vision. Your audience must conclude from the slides what drives your business model. It is only then you can project solid management expertise. The slides should not talk in abstracts but pieces. The presentation language should be tangible.
Use high-quality visuals:
High-quality visuals aid your audience pay attention, comprehend, remember the content and take away key pieces of information with them. Visuals evoke emotions, it helps people focus more on the subject matter. Every day we consume visuals in several forms. Moreover, humans are visual learners. Our brain processes a piece of visual information in just 13 milliseconds. Including professional images, graphs, charts, maps, diagrams, video clips, short teasers can all be a game-changer for your slides. The visuals should not be pixelated and confusing. Your audience can only understand the material if it’s highly readable. No one likes to read the text right off the slides. Presentations with over cluttered text can cause a phenomenon called ‘Death by PowerPoint’.
Set corporate-friendly typography:
When it comes to attracting readers to your slides and conveying a specific mood or feeling, typography plays a crucial role. While you’re presenting to your audience, it’s important to establish context as early as possible. If the subject matter or context is serious, you should go with simple and plain fonts. Typography imports consistency to your slides. Right from the beginning slide to a conclusion, the text should look identical. Typography also helps brands align their presentations with marketing guidelines. Most importantly, typography ensures a balanced hierarchy for information.
Initiate a call to action:
As far as professional presentations are concerned, you should always end your pitch with an impressive and moving call to action. It is the job of your presentation to make people realize how they can grow with you. Initiating CTAs are important. It is only then people will remember what you’re saying and take the key information home with them. A successful call to actions makes people come back and reach out to you for more. Keep smiling and story-tell your presentation. You should make your presentation about your audience and not you.
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