Most presentations are boring. I've sat through monotonous, irrelevant powerpoint presentations with no tailoring to my circumstances. I've been talked at, patronised and read to from the slides as I embarked on meandering journeys through the life and times of the product. All unforgiveable when a simple structure can help you to get it right.

Preparation

Setting clear goals
The most important part of the preparation is to set clear objectives. If you don't know what you want to get out of the meeting you stand little chance of getting anything. Decide exactly what you want the client to know about your services by the time you have finished your presentation.

Writing the agenda
The agenda is the guide to the presentation; it will direct the information that you include when writing your material and what gets cut based on the objectives that you set. If your objective is to show that your targeted website offers a far more valuable audience than a general one, then each point must contribute to that message. Personally I always present my agenda to the client at the meeting and preferably have it agreed beforehand.

Devise interesting visuals
Once you have your agenda you have your ‘headings’ for the whole presentation. Each point now needs to be explained and proven in order to get it across. Your client will remember 2 -3 points of your presentation at most. In order for you get each idea across you have to prove the validity of your point and that means presenting it in a variety of ways. With that in mind you must whittle your presentation down to the key factors.

And now the big question: To PowerPoint or not? You have to decide based on the type of presentation you are giving and how comfortable you and your client’s are with it.

Delivery

Starting the meeting
Starting confidently will put everyone at ease; set a time limit on your presentation, let them know the format, e.g. questions can be requested at the end of the presentation, and consider stating the objective of the meeting. "By the end of this presentation I want to have shown you why Behind the Lines offers the very best jokes in training." This sets a common target that you can check on at the end of the presentation.

Making it interesting

Tailoring
Your clients are interested in their problems not yours. Every page and every point needs to talk about them, their opportunities and issues and your possible solutions to them. Boring presentations invariably lack tailoring. I was once presented to by a supplier who brought in a presentation written for another company, it even had their name on every page. It was a much bigger company than mine and the presenter said that he was sure I would understand. I didn’t.

Fluency
Your visuals are there to refer to not to read out loud. Your presentation material is simply an aid to presenting; you must already know what is written on it.

Links
Link the pages by announcing what is going to come next.

‘So we can see that the audience is prepared to spend money but what are their key spending priorities (click to next page without pausing) dog biscuits and toothpaste were the top answers in our survey…..’

Linking from one page to the next helps the presentation to flow smoothly and avoids that buttock clenching stop, start delivery, ‘and this page tells us…’ You will have to learn the order of your presentation but this will help you to keep it brief too.

It takes practice but you will get much better results when you present this way.

Closing
Again our agenda solves the problem of how to finish, simply use it as your summary spelling out briefly how you’ve proven each point. Then ask for the business. Easy!

In future articles I will be offering alternative closes as well as looking at more advanced delivery techniques, however, the essential structure of the presentation based around objectives and an agenda doesn’t change and can be used for formal or informal meetings.

Presenting should be fun, I know it’s a kind of watery stomach fun for some but being able to present well is essential for most of us, whether it’s internal presentations, major client meetings or that killer last point on a brief for an interview and practice really does help.