When delivering presentations to a general internal audience, senior managers, or even investors, a lot can be riding on its contents and how information is presented, and the PowerPoint slides that you create can go a long way to making your presentation a success. However, a successful presentation isn’t just about these—it’s about much more.
5 Tips for Powerful Internal Presentations
These five points will help you to deliver a powerful, insightful presentation that won’t leave your audience lost and confused, wondering why they bothered to attend.
1. Make Good Use of Supporting Materials
Instead of just presenting your material and talking directly at your audience, provide them with information and peripherals that support what you are saying and provides you with credibility. Not only does this strengthen any arguments and assertions that you make, but it also helps to keep your audience more engaged; if they have something to flip through, read, and look at, their minds are less likely to wander.
For example, you can create and print off materials that go into more detail about some of the points you are making, provide statistics, act as references, or cover thoughts and quotes from respected figures and thought leaders.
2. Start Early with Your Goals
Make sure that your audience is aware of your goals, or the goals of your presentation, from the start. By doing this and setting things straight from the get-go, your audience is far more likely to understand and relate with what you have to say. Having and highlighting goals also lets you shape your presentation around it, helping you stay on track and avoid straying away from its main purpose.
Furthermore, having your audience aware of your goals from the start makes getting your desired result far more likely—this is important if you are looking for the thumbs up from the bosses for a project or funding from an investor.
3. Make Bold Statements
Let’s face it, some people hate corporate presentations—that’s just the way it is. Even if you think what you’re covering is the most interesting topic on the planet, there will be some people who will disengage and let their minds wander if you don’t keep them tuned in.
In addition to engaging your audience with materials, you can try and keep them hooked with bold and startling statements, statements that catch your audience’s attention. If you can back up these statements with information and evidence to bolster your credibility, you will drive your point home.
4. Be Prepared for Probing Questions
You are almost guaranteed to have questions thrown at you both during and after your presentation. And, if your audience isn’t asking any questions then you need to be questioning yourself and finding out why; an audience that has been engaged and interested will always have something to say.
The questions that you really need to be prepared for are those that are difficult and probing, especially those that may throw your presentation off-kilter and subvert your goal. As the presenter, you should know both your topic and your audience, and this will help you plan for questions that they may have.
Consider any objections that your audience may have, points they may disagree with, or issues they may raise with your information. If you are ready to address concerns from subject matter experts and justify statements you will be making, you will be in a great position to answer even the most difficult questions from the most stubborn of audience members.
5. Have Your Own Questions Ready
Although a lack of questions can be a bad sign, that is not always the case. A lack of questioning may boil down to you simply having an audience that has nothing to say or where people are waiting for somebody to go first. This is where knowing your audience really helps.
If nobody asks a question, have your own strategic questions ready that are directly related to your message and goal. You can get the ball rolling by easing your audience into questioning by saying something along the lines of “Something you may still be wondering about is…” or “At this point, I’m usually asked about…”
Integrating Org Charts with Presentations
Using org charts within your presentations and supplementary materials is a great way to avoid confusion and help your attendees visualize hierarchies within departments or the company as a whole, project structure, or how an initiative is progressing.
However, many people hit a brick wall when they try to integrate their org charts into PowerPoint. Often, they use a rigid template that can’t be customized and edited, meaning that many of the benefits of using an org chart in this setting are lost.
With Organimi, we realize the importance of including features that allow org charts to be shared easily. That is why our software makes a cloud-based version of all charts and provide various options for users to export and share their org charts in different formats, one of which being in PowerPoint presentations.
Here’s how you can do it for yourself in three very simple steps.
1. Open your org chart and select ‘Export’
When you click ‘Export’, you will have a few different options to choose from including PDF documents and PowerPoint. Select ‘PowerPoint Slide(s)’ and then click ‘Prepare File for Download’.
2. Click ‘Save’ and ensure the download processes
After the download file has been prepared, click on ‘Save’ and it will be downloaded to your system. In most cases, the file will go straight to your ‘Downloads’ folder and you will also see the file in the footer of your web browser.
3. Import into PowerPoint
Once your Organimi export PDF has been downloaded, you can import it into PowerPoint using the ‘Import Slide’ feature.
The download file is created as a single slide that you can build your PowerPoint presentation around. You can also break your chart down into several different sections and pieces and import multiple downloads.