Six Business Presentation Tips
Marketing & Sales Promotion Techniques
If you’re in the business world, you’ve heard it all before regarding giving good presentations. There is often one word associated with business presentations: boring. But by following a few simple business presentations tips, you can wow your audience instead of put it to sleep.
- Know your material but don’t memorize your presentation. By knowing your material, your presentation will flow naturally, but if you go too far and memorize it word-for-word it will sound forced and insincere (and likely boring and monotone).
- Rehearse in front of a mirror. When possible, rehearse in front of an audience and ask for their feedback. What was strong and what can be improved upon?
- Make sure your voice projects to the back of the room, which does not mean you need to shout. Simply practice voice and breath control and have someone sit in the back of the room, so they can tell you whether or not you can be heard in the back.
- Be familiar with the presentation room and the equipment you will using. You should know the acoustics of the room in which you will be presenting, and you should make sure you know how to work any technology your presentation requires. It can be quite embarrassing to have a technological malfunction right in the middle of a smooth-flowing presentation, so be sure to actually run through all parts of your presentation using the actual equipment you’ll use the day of the presentation.
- Move around and interact with your audience if possible. If you stand in one place and just talk “at” your audience, you will lose them right away. Make eye contact with your audience, ask questions or involve them in some way that’s appropriate and keep your body moving. Nervous pacing should be avoided. Use your excited energy in a positive fashion rather than just moving around the stage in a scattered fashion.
- Always have a backup plan for a computer crashing or some piece of technology not working. The more you know your material, the more easily you will be able to continue on with a fluid performance should something go wrong.
By following these simple business presentation tips, your presentation should go off without a hitch. PaperDirect often offers business presentation tips in our blog, and we have a full line of presentation helpers including presentation folders and displays.