What Are Some of the Benefits of Presentations in Business & Professional Settings?
Businesses and professional firms use presentations to inform, educate, motivate and persuade internal and external audiences. They build presentations into sales, training and internal communication programs, using the power of words and images to engage their audience and retain attention.
A well-crafted presentation also demonstrates professionalism and helps to reinforce an organization's corporate image. Focusing on the importance of presentation in business can be the difference between nabbing the right employees, customers and investors and not.
Face-to-Face Significance
A presentation provides an opportunity to meet your customers and prospects in person. Using presentations as part of a sales campaign can improve results via many benefits, says Olivia Mitchell. These benefits include the power of reciprocation, the influence liking someone has on decision-making, social proof, and the tendency to believe and obey authority figures.
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Engagement Is Important
More for you, what are benefits of powerpoint, tips on presenting a strategic marketing plan, how to present an idea to a company, the relationship between marketing & communication, features of interactive whiteboards.
Presentations make it easier to engage your audience. Striking images can hold an audience's attention, while clear bullet points or summary text helps the audience follows the logic of a presentation. The theatrical nature of a presentation can create greater impact than an individual trying to make the same point by just talking, according to The Self Employed.
This level of engagement ensures that you get your message across to the audience. Engagement is partially dependent on your own persona, so stress the importance of presentation skills in the workplace to get the best results from your team.
Presentations Offer Flexibility
Flexibility is an important benefit of presentations. You can change content quickly and easily to incorporate new information or to modify a presentation for different audiences. If you are making a presentation on company capability to prospects in different market sectors, for example, you can incorporate sector-specific content for each client. Advantages of digital presentations include more flexible than a printed medium, such as a corporate brochure, which would be expensive to modify. You can also hold them fully online if the need arises.
Encouraging Consistency
Creating a standard presentation helps to ensure that different people in a company communicate information in a consistent way. A presentation provides a framework for communicating information about products, services or companies in a structured way. The presentation should include bullet points or prompts to remind the presenter to emphasize the most important points.
Versatility for Reaching the Audience
Presentations are a versatile communication tool. You can use them in one-to-one meetings, viewing the content on a laptop or tablet computer. The same presentation can feature as a core element in a large meeting, using a projector and screen. You can also make presentations available online for downloading from the Internet or viewing during a Web conference.
- Speaking About Presenting: The 6 Reasons Why Face-to-Face Presenting is More Persuasive
- The Self Employed: 4 Benefits of Interactive Presentations
Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning
Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever
When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.
Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.
For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.
And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.
Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.
Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.
The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.
The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.
So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.
The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.
You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.
Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?
Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.
Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).
When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.
Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.
A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!
Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.
How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?
Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .
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Importance of giving an effective presentation in corporate workplace
Effective presentations drive communication, decisions, growth, and collaboration, fostering corporate success and stakeholder engagement.
- Presentations are a powerful means of conveying information, ideas, and data in a structured and comprehensible format. In a corporate setting, clear and effective communication is crucial for disseminating important messages, whether to employees, clients, stakeholders, or investors. Presentations facilitate the transmission of complex information, ensuring that the audience grasps the key points.
- Corporations rely on data-driven decision-making and strategic planning. Presentations enable decision-makers to synthesize data, analyze trends, and discuss potential strategies with clarity. They provide a platform for stakeholders to review options, weigh pros and cons, and collaboratively arrive at informed decisions that align with the company's goals.
- Sales and marketing presentations are instrumental in promoting products or services, persuading clients or customers, and winning business opportunities. Effective sales presentations highlight the value proposition, address customer pain points, and showcase the competitive advantage of a company's offerings. These presentations can make the difference between securing a deal or losing it to a competitor.
- Corporations often need to attract investments or secure funding for expansion and growth. Presentations are essential tools for conveying the company's financial performance, growth prospects, and strategic vision to potential investors or lenders. A well-crafted presentation can instill confidence and trust in financial stakeholders.
- Within a corporate environment, cross-functional teams collaborate on projects, initiatives, and campaigns. Presentations serve as a means to align team members, share progress updates, set goals, and clarify roles and responsibilities.
- They promote transparency, accountability, and a shared understanding of objectives, fostering a culture of teamwork and collaboration.
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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”
- Guy Kawasaki
Remember: Less is more.
A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.
- Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
- Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
- Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
- Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.
As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.
- Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.
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4 Truths About Business Presentation Design
Ask ‘what makes good design?’ and you’ll likely get a different answer from every designer you ask.
But there are some universal truths about design that will thread through all of their answers.
And these truths apply to business presentation design too.
1. Keep It Simple
Keep it simple. You hear this over and over again when it comes to design, yet it’s the one truth that is frequently NOT applied when it comes to business presentation design.
Instead, what you often get are PowerPoint presentations with a sea of text, broken up with bullet points. This is what’s known as information overload, and it’s not going to get your audience running to take action.
As every Apple devotee knows, Steve Jobs was the king of simple design. He applied it to his products, both inside and out, from circuit boards to packaging. And it’s one of the major factors attributed to the success of Apple products.
So think of the Apple ethos the next time you’re creating a business presentation, and keep it simple.
2. Make It Usable
You might not think of usability as being an element of good business presentation design, but it is.
Good business presentation design enables the presenter and his or her presentation to work as a team, each with its distinct role, complimenting and reinforcing each other rather than making one or the other redundant.
But to do this, your presentation has be a natural extension of your presenting, not a word-for-word reiteration of it. Your presentation should reinforce what you’re saying, not drown it out.
To be usable, your presentation needs to illustrate your key messages in a way that makes them stay with your audience, bouncing around in their heads for days after they hear them.
3. Be Distinct
In the onslaught of PowerPoint slides in the business world, it’s easy for your presentation to get lost and forgotten.
This is why your presentation has to be distinct if you want people to pay attention and to remember you and your ideas.
PowerPoint is a great tool. (That’s why we devote our entire business to it.) But its default themes and templates aren’t the best way to get your message across.
So while they may be easy to fall back on when you’re running out of time, taking the easy way out is how you end up with a presentation that looks like all the others.
Good business presentation design has to go beyond the bullet points if you want your presentation to be successful.
So make sure your next business presentation is a unique reflection of your key messages.
4. The Total Package
From beginning to end, your business presentation design needs to be a seamless package, presenting your ideas as a cohesive whole.
From the fonts to the colors and the graphics to the animations, every piece of your presentation reflects on the whole, so every aspect must be considered and chosen carefully.
If you need help deciding on the best way to present your important information, eSlide can lend a hand.
We are adept at providing every level of help you might need, from advising on simple changes to your business presentation design to completing a total overhaul of one or more presentations.
Contact us for a quick, easy assessment of your business presentation design needs.
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