Make Your Next Presentation Great

Posted: October 22, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11613" align="alignright" width="400"]© pressmaster - Fotolia.com[/caption]Presentations are one-shot chances to wow people with your pitch. Making even small mistakes can blow it. Impress your audience with an extraordinary presentation.

Sue Hershowitz -Coore, a corporate consultant, communication specialist and internationally-recognized professional speaker, provides key tips to help keep speakers from making common presentation-killing mistakes.

Why Should They Listen to Your Pitch? 9 Key Tips

The sponsor – an experienced sales person – had 15 minutes to make her pitch to 25 customers. Each person in the audience could recommend her services to others. It was an important 15 minutes.

But she blew it.

Instead of pitching a fun, cool product (which is what she represents), she presented a boring slide deck with too many bullet points and collages of meaningless (to her listeners) photos. Oh, and she took 25 minutes.

What a shame.

Instead of stepping out of “presentation mode” and having a conversation with the buyers, she talked and talked and talked. She told us about features no one cared about and no one remembered. Instead of presenting to pique our interest, she stifled any.

9 Important Tips

Do not begin with the name and introduction of everyone on your team – even if your entire team is present. Instead, add their photos, names and an interesting statement to your collateral. So when listeners are interested in learning who is who, they can at their own pace.

Do not begin with background of who you are and why you’re there. If your prospect has invited you to pitch, they know.

Start strong. There are many powerful ways to begin a presentation. You can startle them or delight them. You can start with a point they’ll easily agree with or one that will make their blood boil. You can help them envision their success or their demise. Craft an opening that will matter to them.

Read the entire article Why Should They Listen to Your Pitch? 9 Key Tips, at presentationxpert.