7 Master Tips for Your Next Business Presentation

1. Tell a story.

"Instead of boring your audience to tears, develop a genuine connection with

your audience. How? Throughout your presentation, tell stories that add
meaning and depth to your message. Telling personal stories will make you
more likable, trustworthy, and interesting. In addition, facts and stats typically
stimulate only two areas of the human brain, but stories can activate up to
seven, and trigger emotional responses within listeners. Presentations that
are engaging both mentally and emotionally are more memorable and
influential, thus more successful."
--Leslie Belknap, marketing director at Ethos3

2. Vary the template.

"If it looks stock, it probably is. Altering an existing template doesn't take a
tremendous amount of time. It also indicates that the presenter knows how to
represent the idea and narrative visually. Don't be afraid to change colors, add
logos, and alter the elements for a totally unique look with just a few minutes
of work. Font selection is very important. The font is not just a typeface. It
represents the idea through the actual look of the word. It should align with the
tone of the core idea/narrative. Furthermore, font selection is most critical for
readability. Adding a bursting star doesn't mean you are increasing the impact
of a point or a component of a slide/frame. Instead, add punch with mixed
media. Bringing an idea or point to life through text, images, photography,
video, etc., is much more memorable than cheap movements. Your software
should allow for insertion of PDFs and video."--Ryan Mack, president
of Carrot Creative, a VICE Company

3. Use a storyboard.

"The most traditional (and foolish) way to create a presentation is to open up a

blank PowerPoint document and try to make magic happen. This can result in
mistakes in flow, logic, and overall cohesion, as you try to write and design
each concept in real time. Steal a writer's tip and create a text-only framework
for the entire thing before you launch into the full draft. It's just like the outline
you used to create for fifth-grade book reports, where all of your sub points
support your main points, and the intro and outro tie everything together. Aim
for a single summary of your core idea, supported by three smaller sub points
that will prove your summary. And of course, don't start to design your work
without making sure that the outline is airtight. The result? No more strange
tangents, lost points, and unnecessary slides."
--Sunday Avery, content writer at Ethos3

4. Think about introverts and extroverts in the audience.

"One of the best pieces of advice came to me from a mentor years ago. He
told me all audiences are generally comprised of a 50/50 balance of introverts
and extroverts. I have tested his theory on audiences since then and can
attest to it's validity. The grand lesson: never lean your presentation in one
direction. For instance, if your presentation is dominated by workshops and
activities, your extroverts are going to love you and your introverts are going
to despise you. On the opposite end of that spectrum, if you lecture the entire
time, your introverts will feel comfortable and your extroverts will get bored.
Presenters must make the extra effort to balance their message and activities.
Like most things in life, moderation is key."
--Scott Schwertly, CEO of Ethos3

5. Keep it to three points.

"The human brain works like this: One, two, three... I forget. No one is going to
remember your tenth point, yet most presenters today feel it is necessary to
showcase everything they know about a specific topic. The sad reality is that
we live in a world with short attention span. Presenters either win hearts by
being succinct or they neglect this responsibility and get forgotten forever.
Therefore, the stage or front of the room is not the appropriate place to exhibit
your depth of knowledge via 17 different takeaways. No one is going to
remember them, or you."
--Scott Schwertly, CEO of Ethos3

6. Whatever you are selling, you are still selling ideas.

"It doesn't matter what widget or service you're offering. These days, people
are not buying either--they are buying ideas. Nobody is buying an Apple
Watch. They are buying the ideas of new fitness or faster communication or
prestige and early adopter status, or some blend thereof. A presentation is no
longer about closing anything but rather about germinating an idea that
resonates with the audience. The idea then drives a passion to acquire the
product or service. That's a much stronger way to sell. But how do you create
a presentation that plants the idea you are communicating into the mind of the
viewer? And how do you stay on track when working with ideas? First, you
have to ask who the audience is. Before I start a presentation, I make slide
No. 1 and list all I know about the audience on it. Tech savvy or consumer end
user? Decision makers or influencers? Buying for self or for the firm? Likes
short and sweet or likes story and emotion? After that, I put topics in logical
order on each of the following slides and build the images and the story to fit
all the info I placed on Slide No. 1. That slide will keep telling me how to
position my points to create ideas the audience can relate to and that will fan
the fires of desire for my solutions."
--Jonathan Todd, managing director at 808 Marketing

7. Balance the theater and the scholar.

"George Lois said selling is the ultimate mix of scholarship and theatre,
expertise and style. This could not be more appropriate to consider when
designing presentations because at their core, presentations are a sales
pitch--we communicate an idea to another individual or group of individuals in
an attempt to make them agree, or ideally, fall in love with the idea. So,
always be sure you are demonstrating scholarship with style. If you are all
style, then you're a poser. Potentially a hack. If you are all scholarship, then
you're boring... or worst off, forgettable. The balance is incredibly important."
--Ryan Mack, president of Carrot Creative, a VICE Company