Nikith Deo

Tips for Business Presentations

Intro

Raise your hand if you're nervous about giving a presentation. Is your hand raised? Don't worry, you're not alone. When I'm not prepared, my hand is raised too. With presentations, preparation is key! If you know the content well and have practiced enough, you should feel confident. This article won't help you overcome a fear of public speaking. However, it should provide you with some tips to get better at giving business presentations and hopefully, increase your confidence.

Establish Ethos

Credibility is key! If you've presented to this person or group of people numerous times before, then this is less important. If the person/people you're presenting to don't know who you are, tell them. Talk about your background, your company, your experiences, and briefly highlight the work you've done. Your audience will take you more seriously if they see you as credible.

State Goals Early

Whenever presenting, ensure your audience knows your goals. When pitching a product, talk about what the product aims to accomplish. When asking for funding, explain why and what you'll do with the money. When presenting a marketing report, discuss the goal(s) of the campaign. You can always elaborate later. This helps your audience know what the purpose of your presentation is.

Include Data

Sure, too many charts and numbers can get boring or overwhelming for your audience. Nonetheless, some data is required to prove your point. It can be sales data, campaign performance data, etc. Just make sure it is presented appealingly and clearly to ensure easy understanding for your audience. Know who your audience is too. If you have a boss that hates graphs, obviously don't include them. Try to think of another way to share the data you collected.

Know How You Want To Present

The delivery of your presentation is just as important as its content. Having a great PowerPoint won't help if you can't present it well. Make sure you know how you want to present your content! Is your presentation going to be memorized? Will you have flashcards or a teleprompter? Nothing is worse than just reading off the slides. It's not acceptable in school and it's definitely not going to be acceptable in a professional setting. Pretty much every TED Talk is memorized word-for-word, set that as a goal for how you want to present.

State Startling Information

Nobody wants to listen to what they already know. What you don't know is more interesting. Do you have any data that your audience wouldn't know? If yes, share it! This keeps your audience engaged and provides them a feeling that this presentation added some value to them. For example, a potentially startling piece of information could be that while your client spends a lot of money advertising on Facebook, their revenue is actually higher on Pinterest. If you can startle or amaze someone in a good way, it usually shows that you did your job well.

Prepare For Tough Questions

Being put on the spot sucks. It's so painful to have everyone staring at you while you fumble trying to come up with an answer. To avoid this, brainstorm some questions your audience could ask you and prepare answers for them. You obviously won't be able to think of every single question that you could be asked, however, knowledge of your topic and confidence in yourself will make answering these tough questions a whole lot easier. Try going over your presentation with someone, maybe they're feedback will help you come up with possible questions.

Sparrow Marketing Simplifies Reporting

Need to present a marketing report? That's where Sparrow comes in. Not only does Sparrow make reports for you, but they also create a presentation for you! Sparrow has a lot of templates to choose from. They also let you add your own template if your clients are used to a certain style.

All you have to do is take 3 easy steps to have a report ready in the style you like!

  1. Send us your presentation template
  2. Connect your marketing accounts to Sparrow's web platform
  3. Create reports & monitor analytics

Here's a quick presentation outlining how we can help you.

Conclusion

Whenever presenting, establish ethos, state your goals early, include data, know how you want to present, state some startling information, and prepare for tough questions. Doing this should help you overcome any jitters and deliver a killer presentation. Also, use Sparrow for any reporting needs, you won't regret it! Good luck!


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