Presentation design: let's cut straight to it. You can’t just focus on one single thing, ignoring the big picture, and expect the company to grow.

Delivering a presentation is one of the most essential and fundamental methods of cultivating your business. But there’s more to creating a great business presentation than just including all of your most persuasive statistics and testimonials.

If you really want to attract clients, you have to consider every single aspect of the presentation—both on screen and off. With that in mind, let's review 3 simple presentation tips you can use to help your business flourish to its full potential.

1. Consider Your Audience



Before you even begin writing your presentation, go over any relevant prospect data or market research about your audience that you have access to. Who are they, and why specifically might they use your product or service? Be sure to tailor your presentation specifically for them.

For instance, if your company specializes in residential roofing and you were presenting to a group of handymen, they would most likely want to hear about how your product can be best used in a their respective space.

You wouldn’t present those products in the same way to an organization of commercial real estate; they’d be more interested in how the tiles could be used on a building vs a home. While in the same space, the resources and nice are different.

Trim your presentation down to the elements that will be most relevant to the people you’re speaking to. This way, you’ll get higher engagement and it’ll be much easier to ask for a sale or action.

2. Don't be Frugal with Visual Elements

Seeing people use the same old PowerPoint themes over and over again is enough to put anybody to sleep. A pre-made template is a fine place to start, but if you want your slides to stand out, you have to add your own personal touches to make them fresh and original. Imagine going into a venture capitalist meeting with your investor pitch deck wholly made from a default template. The information is there but the effort will have fallen by the wayside. 

Pick out a color scheme that complements your brand; a few contrasting colors are usually pleasing to the eye. Use plenty of white space so that your slides won’t appear cluttered and difficult to digest. Keep your assets room to breathe!

There are a couple of ways to quickly get your presentation looking great:

1. Use Photos!
2. A good photograph can go a long way; don’t rely too much on text. When you’re looking for photos, try to stay away from ones featuring subjects who are obviously posed in an unnatural way; these can make your presentation feel robotic. If you're unsure of where to look, check out sites like Unsplash or Pexels.
   
   
3. Use Professional Fonts!
4. We’ve all been to presentations where Arial Times New Roman make their constant appearances. If allowed at your workplace, why not try some non-default fonts? Head over to fontsquirrel.com  where you’ll find commercially available non-default fonts that you can use for your next presentation without any legal consequence!

Picking a couple of fonts that stand out for headings will give your presentations that extra pizazz as well as help it stand out in a sea of sameness if you’re at a conference presenting along with other speakers.

3. Don't Just Talk . . . Listen!

The worst thing you can do in a presentation is read off your slides word-for-word without ever actually engaging with your audience. The most effective presentations aren’t lectures where you simply dictate information—they’re conversations where you tell a story and respond directly to their questions and concerns.

This doesn’t mean you should tolerate audience members constantly interrupting you with irrelevant comments, or force them to hold off all of their questions until you’re finished speaking.

Even better, consider asking them questions as part of your presentation. Their answers might give you better insight into the direction your presentation should go and you’ll be able to engage with them on a deeper level.

Rather than just talking at them, you’ll be talking with them.

Keep these handy strategies in mind, and your next business presentation will be a hit!

Don't forget to share this with your peers or save it for a future presentation to keep those nervous ticks away. As always, we're here to help craft presentations to blow your audience away!