5 tips to make a more Professional Company Presentation

At the end of every college year, companies start brushing up their presentations to make it more professional and interesting. Their aim is to get the best of new talent and they compete with companies from across industries for this.

Here are 5 tips on how to make your presentation really stands out and attract maximum new employees.

1.       Use professional presentation templates

Many times managers find it is convenient to use the existing presentation with modified data. Company presentations have too much space allocated to logo and color related branding. The people you present to will get their impression of your company based on the quality of presentation you use. Low quality images, poor opening slides, unprofessional ppt backgrounds etc. reflect badly on your company. Check online on sites like BuyAPresentation for professional ppt templates that truly reflect what your company is about – from title images to slide backgrounds to diagrams.

2.       Sell your company

A company presentation is not just about your company, but also about the audience. Include slides that will tell them what they can expect when they join you. This will ensure that they attend the company interviews with interest. Tell them what is unique about the company, how their career will progress. Give them examples of people who have done well with you.

3.       Dress to reflect your company

It is not just about the slides and the presentation template. You also reflect your company image.  Dress the way you would dress to work on a good day. If your company  is professional one, wear a suit, if it is about fun and being laid back, wear what feels comfortable.

4.       Prepare for question and answer questions

While a professional company presentation covers basics like salary, locations and career paths, potential employees are bound to have questions beyond that. Leave enough space in the allocated time so that you can interact with them and answer their questions.

5.       Leave behind

Those really interested in your presentation will want to follow up by looking up sources. Give them websites, books, references where they can look up to know more about your company.

As you can see, a company presentation is not a simple information presentation. The slides and the presenter need to be geared to treat it as a sales presentation.  Even if the presentation is being made internally to people who have just joined the organization, it needs to go beyond just providing information. Every company presentation is a professional sales presentation and needs to be treated as such.

5 Things a business presenter should learn from Sachin Tendulkar

What can a living legend in Cricket teach you about Business presentations? Is there any connection between sports and presentations? Read on to find the answers.

Every time Sachin Tendulkar gets on to the field, his game showcases his excellence to thousands of spectators who turn up just to watch his performance. Here are the 5 presentation tips from the Little Master’s game:

·         Never play without practice:

Sachin is considered not just as the best batsman in the world, but also as the best batsman to have ever played the sport. Yet, he spends hours practicing every day, before he enters the field. He never says, “It is after all the same ball and the same game”. He knows that every pitch is different and every bowler is different.

As a business presenter, it is tempting to make a client presentation without making sufficient rehearsals, because “It is the same presentation and the same subject”.  But, realize that your every client is different, and their needs are different. Your audience can easily spot your lack of preparation and they equate it to your lack of sincerity in solving their issues. So, never play without practice. 

·         Don’t play risky shots at the beginning:

Sachin Tendulkar probably has the widest range of shots to choose from, thanks to his unique talent and years of experience. Yet, when he begins his innings, he plays carefully. He realizes that any batsman is vulnerable in the first few overs of an innings. 

For you, this represents the first few minutes of the presentation. You either win over your audience or lose them in those few critical minutes. So, take your time to build your audience trust, in the opening of your presentation. 

·         Don’t play planned shots:

Tendulkar plays each ball by its merit. He knows that shots planned before judging the ball are risky. He achieves spontaneity of shot selection with hours of practice in the nets. 

This invaluable lesson is useful for your Q and A sessions. Answer your audience questions only after listening to them completely. You may get the urge to template your answers, if you have heard similar questions before. But, hold till you understand the spin of the question, before you start your answer. Practice answers to frequently asked questions on the day before your presentation.  

·         Don’t play the balls that are not in your ‘V’:

Tendulkar is always conscious of his playing area or the ‘V’ zone.  He knows that ‘away’ deliveries are dangerous. 

As a business presenter, be aware of the scope of your presentation. Never give lengthy answers to questions that are far removed from the topic of discussion. This not only bores your audience but also might cost you a deal.

·         Look to score a century each time you play:

Tendulkar tries to score a century each time he plays. He walks in with the same determination every time, and the passion shows in every stroke he makes.

As a business presenter, your passion is the most important ingredient that keeps your audience glued on to your presentation. Make every presentation with the intention of making it the best presentation you ever made. You may have made the same presentation a hundred times before. But, for your audience, it is the first time. So, show your passion.

Follow these 5 lessons and become a maestro in business presentations.

Happy presenting!

How to get your presentation top favorited online

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How to get your presentation top favorited online

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Free eBook 20 ways to improve your business presentation skills

Download Free ebook on 20 Ways To Improve Your Business Presentation Skills.

 

This ebook contains the following topics: 

. 40

A) Creating content for a winning business presentation   
1)    The power of a 10 minute analysis   
2)    How to create a Pitch Table   
3)    What if your sales pitch is allowed just for 2 minutes?   
4)    Hunt for selling points – day   
5)    Is your business presentation Romance or Thriller?   

B) Creating better slides for a winning business presentation   
6)    Are you making flea market slides   
7)    What do your slides say about you?   
8)    Your childhood habits may kill your presentations   
9)    Don’t trigger the ‘Scan it’ button   
10)    How many slides are ideal in a sales presentation?   
11)    Is it possible to use Presentation Templates?   
12)    How to crunch your number of slides with concept diagrams?   
13)    Using concept diagrams   
14)    Zen slides can kill your sales presentations   
15)    Present with simple diagrams   
16)    The curious case of an invisible presenter   

C) Creating the mindset for winning business presentation   
17)    Are you asking your audience to throw you out   
18)    Tips for a better handshake   
19)    Don't get too close to your customers   
20)    5 ways to sell yourself in a business presentation 

10 Minutes To A Great Presentation

As a business presenter, you are always faced with deadlines to create your presentations. How can you create good quality presentations quickly? Here is a simple three step process:

1.       Start creating a mind dump:

It is very tempting to spend time waiting to get inspiration to start creating your presentations. A cup of coffee to ‘get you in the mood’ turns into a chat on the phone that goes on forever. Alternatively, many presenters open up their presentation software, select a standard presentation template and wait for a flash of inspiration.

Stop wasting your time, and realize that there is no shortcut to great ideas. You need to generate a lot of ideas for your presentations reject the poor ones and go ahead with the good ones. There is no way to bypass this process. 

So, when you need to create your next presentation, here is what you do. Get a piece of paper and start noting down all your ideas on the sheet. Do not ‘think’ at this point. Just focus on exhausting all your thoughts on the subject. 

Soon, you will reach a point where you either start repeating your points or draw a blank. That is the time to pause and take a look at all the thoughts you have noted down. 

2.       Club related ideas under various headings:

You would see that a number of points in your thought dump are related in some way. Start clubbing them together by giving each group a headline to represent the nature of the points. For example – features like push back seats, ample leg space and thick cushion can all be clubbed under ‘Seating comfort’. 

3.       Arrange the headings into a coherent story:

The last step is to arrange your various headings into a coherent story. This story is the ‘outline’ of your presentation. Start noting down the relevant data and the images you need to explain each heading. Once you have the outline, it doesn’t take much effort to convert it into slides. 

This method helps you to see the big picture first, before you start creating your slides. So, your presentation will have a clear flow.  I recommend you use professional presentation templates to reduce your time even further. BuyAPresentation.com is one such site that provides templates to help sales and marketing presenters to reduce time. 

You can crash the time for creating your presentation, from many hours to a few minutes.

The additional benefit is that you can get all your approvals for your content based on your outline, instead of your slide deck. Thus, you avoid the painful rework of your presentations. 

Hope you found the method useful. Happy presenting!

How To Get Your Presentation Top Favorited Online

At BuyAPresentation, we post presentations online regularly. We frequently get featured on AuthorSTREAM and Slideshare a few times and have won a presentation contest on Slideshare. Very few presentations actually make it to the top favourtied. So, we analyzed the top presentations online averaging over 3000 favorites and here are the results on what audience online like and conclusions on how to make your next presentation top favorited: 

1. Title Slides Look and Feel: Simplicity tops

About 70% of the top presentations (14 of 20) use large text in the title slides. Even if used, the title slide carries a small or subdued picture. Presentation Content and not the first slide is king.

2. Popular Topics: Technology and Marketing 

Given that these are presentations shared on a social media, it is probably not surprising that presentations related to Technology are the most popular. Marketing (technology in marketing) is the other broad category which is popular. 93% of top favorited presentations are related to Marketing, Social Media or Presentation Skills.  Some tags in the top presentations: PowerPoint Tips, Social Media, Marketing, Trends, Technology, Future, Creativity, Design.

3. Expertise matters, advertising is ok at the end:

In relation to the popular topics selected above, it is also interesting to note that the authors of the presentations are some sorts of experts in their field. Almost all presentations (9 of 10 presentations) are posted by people who represent their company and would like you to buy a book ( Eg: Brain Rules for presenters) or to market their company (Shift Happens). This also shows that it is alright to talk about and sell your company or product at the end of the presentation. 

4.  Coverage: Number of slides matter:

Top presentations have at least 45 slides or more with the average number being 90 slides.  The number of words per slide averages 17.  The range for number of words per slide however is quite wide as some presenters have used a lot of text for some slides (like a document). 

5. Design: Few pictures, more diagrams and visuals

Typically most of the presentations use few pictures and a lot of visuals and Diagrams. By visuals, I mean play with text (small/big, different font sizes, styles) to highlight a point. A lot of the presentations use loads of diagrams like process flow, data graphs etc. This makes the presentation more interesting to read and understand. 

All top presentations also have one important feature in common. They do not have standard presentation template or background colors. The backgrounds are usually white and they make use of a range of colors and different slide formats. Some presentations use visual cues – for example all slides with rules have a standard look.  

6. Structure: Clear story

All presentations use a clear and simple structure. They are designed for reading online and are complete in themselves i.e. can be understood without a presenter.  A typical structure used is as follows: 

•    Agenda or Introduction to topic

•    Definition

•    Current situation with examples

•    Reasons why it is important to change / know the information

•    3 to 5 clear Guidelines with examples

•    Summary or Conclusion 

This structure makes it easy to read the presentation right through and understand why it is posted. The clear rules and statistics probably make the presentation useful enough to be shared with others readers.

7. Components: Quotes, Statistics, Examples, some humor and engagement 

All presentations have these components – quotes from consumers, authority figures, statistics (even if they are approximations), examples that can be verified and some element of humor through pictures.  Some presentations try to incorporate some amount of interaction and engagement by addressing the audience, for example, “Did you know…” or “Here is a quiz..” 

Some other things to think about: 

•     Ratio of views to favorites: Around 0.6% of people who view the presentation mark the presentation as favourties. So the trick is to first get enough people to visit and share the presentation. Most of these presentations are very popular on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz and are embedded in hundreds of other sites.

•    Should it be Downloadable: If you are wondering if your presentation should be marked downloadable to be more popular, it is not required. 2 of top 5 presentations are not allowed for download. 

•    Takes time and repetition: All the presentations evaluated have been around for a while – 1 to 4 years.  Many have multiple presentations by the same author on almost same topic.

If you are looking for presentation templates with professional design and lots of diagrams and charts for your presentation, I recommend you visit buyapresentation.com.

Source for top presentations: Slideshare.net – all time favorites including: Brand Gap,,Death by PowerPoint,Social Media,What The F**k is Social Media,Shift Happens,Brain Rules for Presenters,The Real Life Social Network,Visual and Creative Thinking,Steal this presentation,All About Google