Be it a CEO, Marketer, or a Finance manager they all create presentations on a regular basis. Sometimes for investors in order to liquidate shares, for banks as collateral for a loan or even simply just to present company operations to the board of management. Overcrowding slides with lengthy paragraphs with the message that you wish to communicate to your audience, has been or infact still is commonly in practice amongst many corporates. This may have been a winning strategy, but the golden question remains as, Is that traditional presentation going to work in this modern era where time is money?; where your audience would only give you a minimal percentage of their time to grab their attention and failing to do so would be losing them?. The answer might be ruthless but it’s a big NO!

The traditional presentation is not going to help you win an investor or persuade your banker to grant you that loan you’re looking for. So here is the mystery, how are you to create a winning presentation that can inspire, motivate, persuade and even change the opinion of your audience? It’s simple; you need to keep things, Fresh. Crisp and Convincing! Fresh ideas combined with crisp content convincingly designed along with clarity, simplicity and focus is the key to getting your message across to your audience which will make them listen and act upon your words.

How do you get about creating something that is fresh crisp and convincing?

Through Story Telling

No matter what your message is, there’s a story behind it – and this applies to more than just case studies. You could tell the story of you – how you got to where you are,  Or the story of your Start-up – what led your start up to define a vision and elect where to begin? No matter what the topic you’re presenting on may be, it needs to be presented in a form of storytelling. This way you are definite to have the focus of your audience hooked, which will help break through the noise and communicate what really matters.

The Art of Story Telling

Define the Approach When creating a winning presentation it’s important that you are aware of your audience, understand the context and you identify your goals. In simple terms identifying your goals is “what you want the viewers to feel at the end of the presentation”. Sometimes presentations are like journeys, knowing your goal is similar to knowing your destination, once you know your goals it’s just a matter of drawing your path in order to achieve it which is very similar to plotting the easiest and effective path that will help you reach your destination in a journey.

Develop the Script This is where you draw your path in order to achieve your goals, a pen and paper is all you need. Summarize all relevant content that will be needed to be added to the presentation. Once you have identified all mandatory information and written the script of your presentation, conveying your ideas to your audience will be as easy as having a chat over coffee.  Thinking, sketching and writing your script is where every presenter spends the majority of time; in fact it is known that a good presenter puts in 90 hours creating an hour long presentation with 30 slides. It is important that your script helps raise interest, maintain attention and generates understanding.

Create Visual Identity The first step of designing your presentation is creating a visual identity. Decide how the heading is going to be placed, where the logo of your company will be placed, and the color scheme of your presentation.

Create Visual Solutions People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. So make sure that your Slide designs have that wow factor which will attract your audience. For an example if you are presenting a specific solution to a problem, do not do it with mere words, create a visual solution instead this will make it easy for your audience to relate what you’ve got to say.

As a result your presentation will not be another slide show but a presentation of inspiring ideas to create passionate belief amongst your audience.   Follow the above set of protocols and winning investors, persuading your banker to give you that loan or simply convincing your management with a new marketing plan or brand repositioning will never be a hassle. So remember, keep things fresh, crisp and convincing and your presentation will be a guaranteed success.   Has creating such presentations been a problem?  Looking for a solution? That solution has a name! Contact Digibrush Productions on info@digibrush.net. ” Digibrush Productions has the experience in creating award winning presentations that has helped their clients win national awards at the SLIM Brand Excellence and many more”