How to Create Amazing Client Presentations
Delivering values to clients should be of great importance to any consultant because it is a way to introduce business to potential clients. The saying “charisma is key to success” can be true as a lot of successful people are so charismatic. However, as a business owner, salesperson, or consultant, an awesome presentation can touch your clients strongly and influence investors/clients to check out and invest in your business.
It is a very true wide-known fact that we often get nervous when we are about to pitch an idea or make a presentation to future clients. A very good way to put away our nervous habit is to have it at the back of our mind anytime we give a presentation that we are about to present a tangible gift. And who does not get excited about giving out gifts to another person, especially if the gift will yield lots of returns?
Let’s paint a scenario like this: kids are always very excited about Christmas mostly because, in exchange for one or two of the gifts they give out, they get tons of gifts in returns. Count your presentation as the few gifts you have to give out to get tons of gifts in return. So, rather than getting scared and so tensed up about the whole thing, be excited.
Aside from considering your presentation as a gift to your clients, another good way to view your presentation is as a way of helping them (the simple truth is that you are helping one another. You provide a solution to their problems, and they, in turn, pay you for the solution offered). After all, you know so much about the content of the presentation than they do. In a way, when making presentations to your client, they are seeking your professional advice.
We often make a huge text-heavy slide that would be more suitable for a document than it will do for a presentation. And we most times believe we’re doing just the right thing we need to do to make an amazing presentation, but in the real sense, the clients are bored with our delivery and heavily-texted slide. Some information the clients want to get from the presentation includes time, cost, scope, quantity, and quality.
Ways to create amazing client presentations
Presentations can be summed up from two different perspectives, the delivery and the slides. Not only do you need to come up with amazing content, but you also have to present it in a way that will not get your audience bored. Below are some points to get you prepared, confident, and ready to go for your next presentation.
Know About The Client
Before you start thinking about what to put in the presentation, the first thing you should do is to know about the attendees. It is always a good suggestion to gather enough information about the client.
With the increase in technology daily, it will be easier than you think to gather enough details about the people attending your presentation. You can gather enough information about these people by searching through the internet. You can research them on Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms. In the quest of your research, review the company’s profile, its goals, and individual profile.
You can also check through your network to see if there’s any first or second-degree contact you can reach out to for more information and specific insight on the company’s priorities.
Make A Plan For Your Presentation
After getting to know your clients, the next thing to do will be to make a plan. Create a mental picture of what your slides should look like because things won’t go as planned if there’s no plan in the first place.
Before creating your slides, make an outline, know the points and evidence you want to get across to the people you are presenting to. Know the graphics or charts you want to include. Know the data you want to show your audience. These points will help you later on when putting the slides together.
When coming up with a plan, you can ask yourself questions like: what do I want my clients to know? What do I want to achieve with this presentation? How do I get them convinced? What is that phrase or sentence I want to leave them with?
You can start by highlighting three major points you want the client to always remember even after your presentation. After then, you can add sub-points to the major ones.
You undoubtedly have a purpose for presenting. Make this reason explicit when creating your slides.
Also, remember that a good introduction and conclusion are of great importance. Make plans for them as well.
Keep Your Slides Simple
In a meeting room, as much as your slide should look attractive, it should help you explain your points. Keep the attention on you by using an image or two to make your point as the human brain can process pictures faster than text. Your clients can’t absorb a lot at once. So, give them the contents slowly by keeping your slides simple. That way, the attention will be most times on you and not the slides.
Don’t squeeze all your information on a slide. Before you put anything on the slides, ask yourself the question: is it helping me explain things better?
Start With A Story, Not Data
If possible, start your presentation with a story. Remember that if the story cannot tie your point back to the focus of the presentation, then it should not be told. If your stories will only be about how we did some research, we executed this plan, this is what we found, isn’t it beautiful? You can consider not telling a story because it might not make the best story.
Although clients do value data a lot, they are most times trying to see the realistic part of the data because they’ve probably seen a lot of projects fail despite the enticing research results.
So, it is more advisable to start with a story and then back it up with data.
Tell them facts armed with customer’s experiences and taste as well as competitor moves.
Keep It Short And Precise Without Leaving Out The Agenda
When giving a presentation, it is of great importance to remember that your clients are busy people. They have a couple of other things to attend to, so get to the point. They probably have some other meetings to attend to, phone calls to make or return, emails to reply, problems to solve, and maybe families and friends they have to create time for.
So, it would help if you get to the venue early enough, don’t waste their time by fumbling with the projector, making long introductions, or pointing irrelevant details.
Get to the main points in the first minutes of your presentation because the client is probably itching to ask questions, so hit the nail on its head as early as possible before the attention for the presentation is divided.
Put more attention on selling your vision first; tell your client what they want to know. Often, they want to know how they can overthrow their competitors, get new customers, and keep existing ones.
Make your presentation short and precise as much as possible but deliver value within a short period because the more you tell your clients, the less they remember.
Your presentation should have a clear agenda. It would be best if you left them with tangible reasons to consider your proposal.
Encourage Clients To Speak
After trying to convince the clients about what you have to offer, the clients need to speak. You can stop at intervals to ask questions so that they can share their feedback.
Some clients will speak up, but the more introverted ones should be encouraged to speak. You can ask them questions like, what is your interpretation of the data? Do you have any questions?
Plan Ahead
Prepare for anything the client may want to have after the presentation. It might be a proposal, sample reference, call reference, or any other thing. Be sure these items are made available because the earlier you can provide the clients with what they want, the more likely it is for you to win their hearts.
Verdict
In conclusion, think outside the box. Your clients will only be engaged if your content delivered value, so, in preparation for the presentation, be sure you have enough information about your client so that you can know how to deliver value to them. Also, create a plan for the presentation, highlight the points you want to deliver. Know the statements you want them to ponder with and keep it interesting.
Make your slides very simple, clear, and straightforward. Always ask yourself the question, is this statement or image emphasizing or explaining my points? If not, do not include it.
Start your presentation with a story only if it will make you deliver better, encourage your clients to speak, and be ready to answer questions after the presentation. In the end, you will agree that the presentation isn’t about you. Rather, it is about your clients and what you can offer them.
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