online presentation in business communication

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10 Tips For Giving Effective Virtual Presentations

What to know before you go live.

September 26, 2016

Presenting online? Try these suggestions to improve your results. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

As audiences go global and you need to reach more people through technology (including webinars, conference calls and teleconference), you must consider the challenges to connecting with a virtual audience. Here I pinpoint 10 valuable best practices to ensure you communicate successfully.

1. Be Brief

Audiences begin to lose attention after roughly 10 minutes of hearing from the same presenter. If you have more than 10 minutes of content, use interactive activities to keep your audience engaged (for example, take a poll, give quizzes, or ask audience members for their opinions via chat).

2. Be Simple

Keep slides simple — avoid too many words, graphics and animation features. Less is definitely more!

Light yourself well | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

3. Be a TV Personality

Look straight into your camera, not the screen. Wear clothing that is neutral in color (no plaids or stripes). Light yourself well and from above. Be mindful of what appears behind you in the background. Invest in a good microphone.

4. Be Standing

Even though your audience cannot see you, stand when you present. This allows you to stay focused and use good presentation delivery skills such as belly breathing, vocal variety, and pausing.

5. Be Prepared

Practice delivering your presentation with your technology in advance of your talk. Make sure all of the features of the technology work. Record your practice using the recording feature of your tool. Watch and listen to learn what works and what you can improve.

6. Be Assisted

Have someone available to deal with technical issues and to field email/text questions. Also, if you have multiple remote audience members in one location, be sure to pick one of them to be your “eyes and ears.” Ask them to queue up questions and facilitate discussion on your behalf.

7. Be Specific

Ask pointed questions to avoid too many people answering at once. For example, rather than ask, “Are there any questions?” try “Who has a question about the solution I provided?” Set a ground rule that people state their names prior to speaking.

Imagine your audience | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

8. Be Synchronized

Transitions are critical. You must connect what you just said to what is coming next when you move from point to point. Transitions between topics and slides are good opportunities to get people reengaged to your talk.

9. Be Connected

Imagine your audience even though you can’t see them. You can place pictures of audience members behind your camera so you can look at people as you present.

10. Be Early

Encourage your audience to access your call or webinar in advance of the start time so you can iron out any technical issues in advance and get them familiar with the technology.

Matt Abrahams is a Stanford GSB organizational behavior lecturer, author, and communications coach.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

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12 Tips to Give an Amazing Online Presentation

Whether you’re new to giving online presentations or a seasoned veteran, here are some tips that will launch your next presentation into the stratosphere!

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Do you have an online presentation coming up? I’ve given hundreds of virtual presentations, ranging from YouTube presentations to presentations for Microsoft. And from my experience, online presentations are a different ballgame than in-person ones.

In this article, I’ll share my top 12 tips and tricks to save you the trouble and ace your next presentation.

An online presentation is a prepared speech or talk in which a person or group provides information, pitches a new idea, or introduces a new product or service through a video call. Online presentations are given to an audience, usually in a business setting.

Ready to take a dive into the tips? Let’s go!

Start With Momentum

Virtual presentations are like taking a flight on an airplane. The beginning and ending are super important, but the middle’s kind of a blur. 

That’s why, if you’re going to prioritize any part of your presentation, you are better off spending the majority of your energy on the first and last minutes. Let’s focus on the first moments.

The beginning of your presentation is critical because it sets the tone—a good first impression makes you feel confident and your audience relaxed. This forward momentum will carry onto the middle part of your presentation where you’ll be presenting the bulk of your data/statistics/information—so if you don’t nail your first impression, you won’t gain that forward momentum you need for the rest of your presentation.

And believe me, people judge you almost instantly! Here’s what the science has to say about first impressions:

A 2017 University of Toronto study found that observers take as little as 5 seconds to determine whether a person is charismatic or not!

So when you’re delivering a presentation online, you should try to make your beginning as error-free and smooth as possible. This includes being prepared and removing potential roadblocks:

• Fix computer errors: ALWAYS double- or triple-check your equipment before giving a virtual presentation. Make sure your microphone, webcam, and internet is working. If you have to fumble around with technical details during the video call, your audience may have the impression that you are unreliable.
• Eliminate distractions: Silence your phone, turn off desktop notifications, get rid of loud fan noises, and make sure your room is kid/dog free. Keep in mind that your audience will likely be listening through their headphones, so even the tiniest of noises might be heard.
• Dress appropriately: Here’s an easy one that some people actually neglect. Have you ever been in a situation where you feel like you should have worn something a little nicer ? If you are giving a business presentation, dress in business appropriate attire (yes, even the pants, too!). It’s best to match your audience—and if in doubt, err on the side of professional! It’s also important to wear a color to stand out from your background, but not a color that’s too distracting.
• Be happy: Like it or not, we can’t hide our emotions. Research shows that people can hear your mood from your voice. So if you’re not in a good mood, try boosting it! Watch some funny YouTube videos or give yourself a small pep talk . Sounding confident and happy is the key to success, so make sure you are in the right mood before you go live.

Open With IISSAAQQ

What does this really bad spelling of Isaac stand for? IISSAAQQ stands for the best ways to start an online presentation:

• Icebreaker: One of the best ways to open up your audience is to give a virtual icebreaker. I always keep an icebreaker on hand that can be done over the computer before starting any online presentation—it’s one of the best ways to connect with your audience!
• Illustration: You can say to the audience “Remember when…” and provide a picture, or paint a scene by telling the audience to imagine a scene when xyzzy occurred.
• Short story: A short personal story or story about someone else can really grip people, but the key is to make it short and not drag on.
• Statistic or surprising fact: A really good statistic can get people thinking and challenge their perspective.
• Aphorism: An aphorism is a common phrase or saying, such as “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Add a twist to the aphorism for added effect (“an apple a day keeps the doctor away… except if you’re sitting with an apple computer for 8 hours a day.”
• Analogy or metaphor: Saying an analogy (“User interface is like peeling an onion”) can really break down complex terms into more simpler ones, making it more digestible for your audience.
• Question: Starting with an engaging question can add a great amount of audience engagement, or even asking a rhetorical question can get them thinking out-of-the-box.
• Quote: A great way to start your online presentation is with a quote–but it should be related to your presentation and from a credible source.

End With a Bang

The ending is the part where your audience is (hopefully) happy that the presentation is over, and they feel like they’ve learned something or feel inspired to change. If you’ve made it this far in your presentation, the LAST thing you want to do is crash and burn. So here are some tips to make an amazing presentation that will remain in your audience’s mind long after it has ended.

• Have an easy solution: The last few slides of your presentation should not be too information-heavy. Keep that for the middle. Your last slides should be both convincing and easy-to-understand.
• Have a clear ending: Avoid the awkward “So, does anyone have any questions?” moment by providing an end slide to your virtual presentation. It can be a simple recap of the presentation, or a call to action.
• Include a digital goodie: Include a digital goodie at the end! Everybody loves getting things, and it shouldn’t stop just because you are online. Digital goodies might include a downloadable PDF or document that includes more statistics/research or a list of relevant sources related to your presentation.
• Lead with a call to action: Calls to action are driven by emotion. And they work because we often respond to emotion over logic. If your business is proposing a new solution to an existing problem, try focusing on the emotional benefits vs. the statistics—happier customers vs. less product returns, cleaner world vs. smaller carbon footprint, etc. You can also try this double method: start with the negative, which amplifies the potential bad that might happen if your recommendation is not taken. Then, you can add in the positive, which highlights the good that can happen when your recommendation is taken.
• End with humor: One of the best ways to end a presentation is to use humor. If you do it right, you can leave a HUGE impression on your audience that will last for days, weeks, or months! There are a few ways to end with humor. First, you can introduce a question in the beginning or middle of your presentation and answer it in a funny, surprising way at the end. Second, you can end a story you started but stopped in the beginning or middle of the presentation. Some really good people to draw inspiration from are stand-up comedians. One great example of callback humor is in the movie, Airplane! In the beginning of a movie, a passenger enters a taxi. The driver tells the passenger to wait for a bit, but the driver never comes back as he ends up on an airplane instead. In the closing credits, this scene is played, which recalls the intro of the movie in a funny but memorable way:

Show Your Face

Did you know that faces are attractive to humans? A study by Richard Fantz demonstrated that infants stare twice as long at human faces! We are just inherently born with an attraction to faces. In short: we love human faces, and yours is no exception.

If you’re giving an online presentation or even getting on video call for the first time with your new online networking contact, a super-easy bump in your likability factor is to simply show your face. Many video call programs such as Zoom or Skype allow you to share your screen while also showing your face. Here’s an example of my face in a webinar I hosted on how to thrive in a digital workplace:

Pro tip: you can even take it up a notch by backing up your webcam. This allows you to show your body language better! In fact, one of the most important nonverbal cues for charisma is your hand gestures . In the Toronto study mentioned earlier, the observers didn’t even need to hear a presenter talking; all they needed to do was see their body language! That’s how powerful body language really is. So push back your computer or phone or camera so your hands and upper torso are showing!

When you use your hands, you can also benefit from the following:

• Showing your wave hello (I ALWAYS do this!)
• Your explanatory gestures while you are speaking
• Visible hands while you are listening

Want more tips on how to make a better video call? Here are our 15 Tips for a Better Video Call !

Stand, Don’t Sit

Sitting is great. Standing is even better! One big mistake a lot of virtual presenters make is sitting down instead of standing. 

When you stand, you can utilize the full range of your deep breathing, therefore increasing your vocal power . You’ll be able to project your voice louder and deeper, and have stronger vocal variance when you stand. Standing also helps you naturally convey a more powerful posture if your chest is up and your back is straight.

If you can, try to utilize a standing desk to your advantage! If you don’t have a standing desk, you can use your kitchen counter or another higher position to place your laptop. If you absolutely must sit, remember to keep your back straight throughout the presentation.

Does your online presentation contain a juicy tip, great piece of advice, or free goodie?

Consider giving it out in the first 5 minutes of your presentation rather than keeping it until the end. This will give your audience a little dopamine boost of motivation to continue listening to your presentation!

“Simply put, people are obliged to give back to others the form of a behavior, gift, or service that they have received first.“ – Robert Cialdini, author of Influence

Leverage Visuals to Your Advantage

Have you ever wondered what is the best way to use visuals in your online presentation? Visual aids are used to:

• engage the audience
• allow the audience to remember the information
• axplain complex ideas in easier-to-digest ways
• add variety to your slides

I try to use visuals in ALL of my online presentations! The thing is, it’s really hard to keep your audience engaged and distraction free, especially if they are online. So if you’re boring your audience by using long lists of words… your message won’t be getting across. According to John Medina, author of Brain Rules :

• If we only read text, we are only likely to remember 10% of the information 3 days later.
• If we add in a relevant image, we are likely to remember 65% of the information 3 days later!

So there’s no easier way to have your information remembered than to add visuals! Here are some examples of visuals you can use in your presentations:

• stock photos
• Youtube videos
• hand-drawn pictures

In my articles, I like to use hand-drawn stick figure comics. That’s because they’re both funny and engaging! They also help nail down important bits of information I want my readers to take away. 

For example, here’s a random fact that you may not have known:

Alligators don’t only eat meat; they eat fruit, too!

Interesting, right? Now here’s an image to really drive in that fact:

I know, it’s not the best picture ever (I blame my lack of art skills!). But see how adding a simple image can really solidify a piece of information? You’ll remember this fact a lot longer by seeing an image rather than just by reading or hearing it. 

Now take the power of visuals and use it to your advantage—if you’re giving a business presentation online, sprinkling in a few key visuals throughout your presentation can help you drive in those really important points. 

If you’re debating whether you should use a visual, here’s a quick checklist to ask yourself:

• Does my visual help the main point of the slide?
• Is my visual appropriate for the audience?
• Is my visual too distracting?
• Does my visual help the audience understand complex information better?
• If a video, is it too long or short?

If your visual doesn’t meet one of the above checklist items, it’s best to cut it. And here’s something important you can write down for each visual you add into your slide:

The purpose for this visual is to ___.

If the purpose is not clear enough, consider removing the visual. Remember: visuals should only ADD value to your slide, not take it away.                                                                           

Add Interaction

A major downside to online presentations is that it’s hard to engage your audience. Besides nicely-placed visuals, you can add an element of interaction to your virtual presentations to make your audience more interested. Here are some interactive presentation ideas:

A great way to increase audience engagement is to use physical props. 

How do you use props in an online presentation? Props should be used to explain a difficult concept, demonstrate a product, create humor, or be memorable. They should always support your presentation, and not distract from it. And the key to using online props is to first make sure that people can actually SEE your prop.

This means if you are in a video call, avoid using small objects that everyone can’t see. If you need to, you can momentarily stop screen sharing and turn to your live video feed so the audience can focus on your prop. 

Pro tip: Don’t show the prop until it is needed. A bad move is to give away the goods and immediately take them away, causing your audience to remain in suspense and be distracted throughout your presentation!

Host Quizzes and Polls

One cool thing you could do during your presentation is to include your audience’s opinions using surveys. If I’m giving a presentation, I can insert a little quiz with a list of possible answers which my audience can then vote on. It’s really interesting to see how many people pick the right (or wrong) answer!

If you want to know how to create awesome quizzes for your presentation, check out our software section below.

Live Q&A’s

One technique I love to use for better interaction is to simply ask questions!

For example, if you have an existing product you are discussing, you might want to ask your team, “What are some common customer complaints about this item?” Your team will then give their answers, pitching ideas of some common customer complaints.

Here’s where it gets good…

You can then go to the next slide that addresses these problems individually. Bam! You’ve done two things: 

• You added interaction, and 
• You provided a nice transition to the next slide. 

Niiiice, a two-for-one combo!                

Cut the Presentation Bologna

What happens when you talk about the same things over and over again in a presentation? One bored audience, that’s for sure. And a whole lotta bologna on the side.

Repeating the same stuff. Facts that don’t need to be there. Extra words that make your eyes tired or are difficult to read.

I call this stuff Presentation Bologna. And it’s NOT the good kind of bologna (is there even a good kind?). Presentation Bologna includes:

• bullet points not relevant to the slide’s topic
• statistics or facts that reinforce already-existing data
• visuals that take up space rather than contribute value
• “fluff” words, or extra words that can be cut from a sentence without changing the original sentence’s meaning

Your goal is to make your presentation slides as small as possible, while retaining the most essential information possible. You can even write down notes on notecards to help assist you in explaining the points you have in your presentation or memorize what you will say altogether.

Online presentations should be simple and straightforward, like live presentations. The biggest difference here is that your audience will likely be straining their eyes, trying to look at their (potentially tiny) computer screens while you are giving a presentation.

That’s why it’s essential to cut the bologna. I usually do this step after creating the bulk of my presentation, but before practicing my presentation. Speaking of practicing, let’s move on to the next step…

#Screen Record Yourself         

The great thing about giving online presentations is that you can practice everything in the comfort of your own home. You can practice in the same room you’ll present in, with the same lighting, with the same computer setup, and everything. When practicing, make use of the screen recording feature! Screen record is an absolute must, especially for virtual teams . Most newer Mac and Windows computers have a built-in screen record feature already. 

When going over your video recordings, take careful consideration of the following:

• Do I use too many/not enough hand gestures?
• Is my body language unnatural or distracting?
• Do I sound loud and confident enough?
• Do I have any technical issues?
• Am I under the time limit or going over?

You can even send your presentation over to a friend or family member for them to review at their convenience. Yay for technology!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Pick Your Presentation Tools

When giving an online presentation, you have to have the right tools for the job. There are a lot of presentation tools out there—tools exist for: 

• making your own animations
• creating Infographics
• planning conferences
• creating mind maps
• finding great images for your slides
• making your entire presentation

Depending on your needs, you’ll need to choose the right tools for your virtual presentation. I recommend choosing one tool to create your presentation and adding in visual tools along the way, based on your needs. Here are 5 of my favorite online presentation tools I use:

Pixabay is by far my most favorite image-finding tool. This site has over 1.7 million free, high-quality stock images and videos you can use to insert into your virtual presentation. Using a stock image is a great way to break up text, add a little emotion, and make your presentations a little more exciting.

When I use Canva, I feel like I’ve been given a magic design wand. That’s because there are a ton of free infographics, logos, pictures, posters, and even presentation templates you can use and customize to your heart’s content. And they’re surprisingly high quality for being free! Canva  even has a section for Zoom Virtual Backgrounds that you can add to your video call when giving your online presentation!

Did I mention it’s free? I use the Premium version, although the Free version is great, too!

• Poll Everywhere

Here’s one that I mentioned earlier in the article. This is a great software I use to create live polls and quizzes for my virtual presentations! Whether it’s a multiple choice quiz, true/false test, or just a general Q&A poll, users can participate on their computers, phones, or tablets! It’s super easy to use and integrates easily with Keynote as well. 

Want to eliminate distracting noises completely? Sometimes that’s not possible. But the closest thing I have found to help is Krisp. Krisp is a software that’s free to use (up to 120 minutes a week!) and works by blocking out all background noises so only your voice can be heard by other conference call members. You can download and install it, but I use the Chrome extension! It’s seriously worth giving a shot if you’ve got loud noise in the house.

Here’s the golden question: Should I make a Keynote online presentation, or a Microsoft PowerPoint one? Since I have a Mac, I use Keynote. It’s intuitive, easy-to-use, and it’s built into all Mac computers already. Keynote has a ton of presentation templates you can use, and you can even create tables and charts in the app itself! For me, Keynote is a must for my presentation-creating needs.

I compiled a list of the best tools my team uses. You can check them out here:

15 Best Remote Tools

Embrace The Fear

Have you ever been skydiving? Even if you haven’t, you can just imagine that pit-in-the-stomach feeling of jumping out of an airplane. And if you shy or a natural introvert , giving presentations is not so different than skydiving.

After giving hundreds of presentations—both in-person and online—my best piece of advice to those with presentation anxiety is to give up on trying to get rid of that fear. That’s because that fear will probably never go away . 

But here’s the silver lining: the fear does get better. The more you give presentations and get comfortable speaking in front of people, the less giving presentations suck . If you hate giving presentations like I once did, you might even turn to love them—once you learn how to walk with confidence and have the power to influence the way people think, you feel like you’re on top of the world! 

And that pit-in-the-stomach feeling? It changes to a good fear—the kind that makes you look forward to giving presentations! And the more presentations you give, the better you get.

Life is better when you build your social skills. As a recovering awkward person, I was terrible at socializing—I would often lock myself in the bathroom at parties just to avoid conversation! But now, I want to inspire people to take charge of social situations because I know that social skills are the key to a happier, more productive life. That’s why I gave all my secrets about how to be ridiculously likable in Chapter 5 of my book. Interested? Here’s a free gift for you today– click here for the free first chapter of Captivate !

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Bonus: Other Creative Presentation Tips

Congratulations, you have arrived at your destination!

As a thank you for taking this Science of People flight with me, I’d like to share with you some bonuses to take your presentation skills to the next level. 

Here are some techniques you may want to master:

All too often we end up using the same old social scripts and asking people the same questions over and over again. If you want to do a team icebreaker before, during, or after your presentation, use my list of conversation starters:

57 Killer Conversation Starters

People who don’t feel confident often believe that confidence is something we are born with. It’s not . Confidence is a skill that can be developed. If you are nervous about your presentation, try boosting your confidence with these scientific techniques:

11 Scientific Strategies For More Confidence

Not everyone can work from home. But if you find a way to do it properly, you can reap some pretty amazing benefits. Check out the 7 Deadly Problems of working at home and how to combat them:

How to Work from Home Successfully in 7 Steps

Finally, I put together a guide on how to manage remote teams. If you’re leading a team of remote workers, this is one guide you shouldn’t miss! Check it out here:

12 Reliable Tips to Manage Remote Employees

Popular Guides

24 thoughts on “12 tips to give an amazing online presentation”.

I’ve never seen such a detailed guide anywhere else! Excellent! In recent months, probably almost everyone who works or studies remotely had to make online presentations. I like that you emphasized humor and the different visualization techniques that can be used to diversify the monotony of the narrative. I also find some of the platforms that you mentioned very useful. Thank you! I am preparing for a big and important presentation and hope to perform at my best!

Thank you so much Vanessa!

Love your article. So much to learn from! I’m preparing a presentation in few months and you gave all I needed.

Thank a lot Vannesa. You provide me excellent information.

Fantastic resource! I couldn’t ask for more.

I usually give some advice to my engineering students for doing good presentations. This is a powerful resource. Thanks for sharing the tips.

Comments are closed.

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15 Expert Tips for Giving a Powerful Business Presentation

Written by: Mahnoor Sheikh

A powerful business presentation is much more than just a bunch of nice-looking slides.

Whether you’re presenting to venture capitalists, senior management or potential customers, you need to make a great first impression and stand out from the dozens of other speakers they’ll encounter.

For some people, presenting in front of even a handful of listeners can be a nightmare. And when it's a room full of important business folks, like investors or your boss, things get even worse.

If that sounds like you, don't worry. We have a way to calm your nerves and bring back your confidence.

In this post, you'll find 15 expert tips to help you deliver an unforgettable business presentation.

Ready to create your business presentation? Our presentation maker can help you create a professional slide deck quickly and easily using ready-made templates.

1 Know your material.

Before you can convince anyone else, you need to be completely sold on your idea or product. It’s important that you know the points you are making, inside and out.

When you present before an audience, you’ll likely be using visual aids, notes and/or slides. While these tools can help, make sure they aren’t the sum of your expertise.

These are only tools to aid you in your ability to communicate.

Don't rely on them too much or you’ll come across as unsure and boring. Your knowledge of your subject should be beyond your cue-cards so that you can effectively answer any questions that crop up.

You need to inspire confidence. If you bring up a point that is on your slide, back it up with statistics that you’ve encountered or quotes that relate to your topic.

2 Be enthusiastic.

Believe me, vibes matter.

No one wants to hear you drone on about a subject you don’t care for. If you’re tired and bored of your own presentation, your audience is probably feeling the same way.

Anyone listening to you should know how passionate you are about the subject. This will be very apparent in your body language , like the way you speak, make eye contact and walk around on the stage.

Harvard professor Amy Cuddy studies how body postures can communicate power.

Before her highly successful TED talk, she spent time striding, standing tall and extending her body. These movements got her into the zone of feeling powerful and passionate.

It’s also important that you properly energize yourself before a business presentation.

Do some warm-up exercises, like stretching or vocal exercises.

Check out this video on vocal exercises to practice before an important speech or presentation:

You can also do other things that get you focused and energized. Go through inspirational quotes or listen to music. Make sure you’ve drunk enough water and keep a bottle with you during your presentation.

3 Arrive early to set up.

One of the things that can mess up your business presentation is not being familiar with the space you’ll be speaking in. Make sure you arrive at your venue at least an hour in advance.

Set up anything you’ll need , like a projector, laptop or speakers.

If the venue already has all the equipment set up, make sure everything is compatible and working fine. Transfer any files from your USB or download them off of your email or cloud.

Next, check if there are any impediments to your being heard or seen.

Sit at different locations in the audience area to make sure the stage is visible, and the speaker can be heard at the very back. This will help you assess how loud you should be.

Check to see if the projection is visible in the lighting you have, and adjust the lights accordingly.

Another big advantage of arriving early is that you get to meet and greet some of your audience members. This will help you feel more confident on stage as you’ve already broken some of the ice .

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4 Be comfortable with your own self.

You’ve prepped well, you know your stuff inside-out and your visual aids are ready. The next big questions are: What should you wear? How should you act?

It can be tricky deciding what to wear to give a killer business presentation, but your look will likely depend upon your comfort and who your audience is.

Lauren McGoodwin, founder and CEO of Career Contessa, recommends :

“When dressing for a presentation, it’s important to wear something you’re comfortable in, and something that makes you feel confident.”

She also says that you should wear something that allows you to move and gesture freely.

But regardless of what you wear, it’s important to be your best self.

Many people are nervous speaking in front of an audience, so rehearse beforehand and have a friend, colleague or any objective observer monitor you.

If you come across as jittery—always shifting your weight from one leg to another, moving your hands too much, shaking, etc—it’s a good idea to take a note of all that and work at establishing a firm presence on stage before your big day.

How you act also depends upon your personality.

Adopt your natural position. If you’re comfortable standing in place, don’t force yourself to stride across the stage. If your voice is gentle, no need to yell, just get a microphone.

Keep your everyday demeanor and bring out the best you.

5 Open strong.

We live in an era where audiences have low attention spans and expect to be entertained. Start your business presentation with a bang so as to set the tone for the rest of your presentation.

You could start off with a statistic that shocks the audience into sitting up and taking note or with a quote that instantly makes them listen.

Don’t forget to put them at ease by reassuring them: “I know you may be wondering…”, “…that fact may seem shocking, but research backs it up because…” etc.

You could also start with an interesting image , an attention-grabbing video or a touching personal story.

Remember, first impressions are everything.

You need to convey to your audience that your business presentation will be worth their while and not just a run-of-the-mill lecture where you dispiritedly talk at them.

6 Set goals for your business presentation.

At the very beginning of your presentation, lay out the goals you hope to meet during your time on stage. This tells the audience why they should listen to you and what they have to gain from paying attention.

As these goals are met, both you and your audience will feel a sense of purpose and achievement at effective communication. Here's a customizable presentation slide template in Visme for goals.

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Your audience will be more likely to remain tuned in if they can see the objectives of the presentation being fulfilled and this in turn will make them more likely to deem your talk a ‘success’.

These goals will also help your audience remember crucial points of your business presentation, which will ensure that you have a productive Q&A session.

7 Tell a story.

Stories connect with people much more than statistics, academic points or even quotations do.

A story can be personal, of course, but it can also be the story of a brand or even a story about consumers.

Steve Jobs was a great corporate storyteller and he shone at every Apple product launch presentation. Check out this video of Jobs presenting at the launch of the iPhone in 2007.

Steve Jobs framed his company’s new innovations in terms of stories of revolution. Macintosh “changed the whole computer industry” and the iPod “changed the whole music industry”.

These were stories of change that brought the product, the consumer, and the exciting time they were living in all together—it made the audience go on a journey.

You can work in a similar way by highlighting the problems (the villain) and how your product, business or idea (the hero) will lead your audience closer to a solution. Telling stories can make your business seem like part of a grand narrative that your audience wants to become a part of.

Then, of course, there are personal stories. These usually appear at the beginning, but a good presentation makes effective use of them throughout.

Tell your audience how you got to where you are, and what makes you believe in your business.

Remember to keep it short, but interesting.

The goal is to establish an emotional connection with your audience so your message hits home. Don’t overdo it or deviate from your actual point.

If you’re looking for more storytelling techniques to incorporate into your presentation, check out this Visme video on presentation structures used by top TED speakers:

8 Interact with your audience.

A business presentation can get boring and sleep-inducing real fast if you just talk “at” your audience instead of talking to them.

Turn your presentation into a conversation by involving your audience in the discussion. Ask them questions, take their feedback and connect with them via anecdotes (“I know we’ve all felt this way”.)

You can also get them to sit up and work with you. For example, they could be asked to raise their hands if they agree during certain points of the presentation.

Interacting with your audience during your business presentation will help prevent the dreaded “ death by PowerPoint ” and keep them wide awake and attentive.

9 Use visual aids.

Visuals help people retain information for longer periods of time, so use them generously throughout your presentation to make sure your message hits home.

And no, visual aids don’t necessarily mean boring PowerPoint slides.

Pictures, videos and art are also great mediums to get your points across and intrigue the audience. Visual flowcharts can help summarize complex topics.

And if you really do want to use presentation slides, use a tool like Visme to create ones that look professional and stand out from the rest. Check out these editable business presentation templates .

Use data visualization, like bar graphs, pie charts and more to make numbers look interesting.

Visme lets you create over 15 different types of graphs and tons of data widgets, like progress bars and radials, for your business presentation. You can also tap into the flowchart maker, array maker, map engine and other tools to help you visualize information. Here's a sneak peek at how it works:

As for the slides, make sure you don’t stuff them with text.

If you put bullets up on the screen, make sure they are visible and condensed. No one wants to see entire paragraphs up there when you’re talking to them at the same time.

A quote or two is fine, but don’t overdo it.

10 Add some business-friendly humor.

During long presentations, there is nothing more relaxing than a speaker who can make you laugh.

If you just keep talking in a serious tone, it’ll seem like you’re droning on. A friendly, conversational style and light jokes can make sure that you retain your audience’s attention.

But remember, this is a business presentation. Don’t go overboard with comedy or your audience won’t take you or your presentation seriously.

We recommend using humor only if you’re naturally good at. If not, don’t force it.

11 Make startling statements.

Every once in a while, shock your audience into sitting up and focusing.

Challenge their existing beliefs with solid knowledge and statistics. While a startling fact or statistic can be a great way to begin a presentation, it is also important to use these statements throughout.

Don't overdo it so it loses its appeal, but around thrice during an hour-long presentation should be good.

12 Remember the 10-20-30 rule.

Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki came up with this handy presentation rule in 2005 .

Here’s an infographic that sums it up:

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Kawasaki sat through many, many bad presentations and figured out this rule to make sure presentations stop being so repetitive and boring.

10 slides give presenters an ample amount of space to summarize their argument. Any more information and the audience is likely to lose focus and doze off.

20 minutes is how long the average person can pay attention without losing his mind wandering. Kawasaki says that, in an ideal world, the last 40 minutes of the presenter’s hour will be utilized in a Q&A session.

A font size of 30 points means that everyone can read a presentation, even from the back of the room, and the presenter is forced to put minimal text up on the screen.

Keep in mind that Kawasaki is talking about a specific situation, a pitch for a room full of venture capitalists.

While his points can be generalized, a business owner may also find themselves in a situation where they aren’t perfectly applicable. It would be good to revise them slightly in different situations.

13 Make eye contact and smile.

You don’t have to stand there and speak like a machine. Your audience will respond better to the presentation if you personalize your interactions with them.

Make sure you meet the eyes of multiple members of the audience so that they feel like you are paying attention to them individually.

Eye contact can reassure your audience that you value their time and are grateful for their presence and it can also drive home the message that you are confident in your pitch.

Smile at audience members when you meet their eyes! If you’re nervous, locate five or six friendly faces in the crowd and keep coming back to them for encouragement.

14 Be prepared for tough questions.

Don’t underestimate the power of the Q&A session!

Your answers can make or break your business presentation. A good presenter knows their material completely and is ready to face difficult questions.

Here's an editable presentation slide template in Visme for Q&A sessions:

Remember, people will trust in you and your business venture if they are sure you know what you’re doing.

If you’ve ended your presentation on an awkward silence, ask some questions yourself and use language that makes it apparent that you know the concerns of your audience.

Start with phrases like “Now, you may be wondering if…”. This sets the crowd at ease and allows them to comfortably voice their concerns.

15 Close on a high.

It is very important to have a closing note after the Q&A session. You shouldn’t need a slide for this part, but you can use one if you want.

The way you conclude your presentation should be powerful and ensure that the audience remembers you. Like your opening, you can end with a personal story or quotation. Or remind them about the goals and summarize the main points quickly.

Make sure the end is euphoric and shows that your ideas can achieve success. This will ensure that your listeners place their confidence in you and leave feeling satisfied and uplifted.

Make Your Business Presentation a Success

The secret to giving a successful business presentation is putting your heart and soul into connecting with your audience and truly showing them the value in your ideas.

This list of professional tips can empower you in small ways, leading to big outcomes.

If you’re already feeling pumped about your next business presentation, create one that doubles your impact using Visme’s presentation maker .

Sign up for a free account today and take it for a test drive!

What do you struggle with the most when it comes to giving business presentations? Let us know your thoughts, questions and feedback in the comments below.

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About the Author

Mahnoor Sheikh is the content marketing manager at Visme. She has years of experience in content strategy and execution, SEO copywriting and graphic design. She is also the founder of MASH Content and is passionate about tea, kittens and traveling with her husband. Get in touch with her on LinkedIn .

Home Blog Business Business Presentation: The Ultimate Guide to Making Powerful Presentations (+ Examples)

Business Presentation: The Ultimate Guide to Making Powerful Presentations (+ Examples)

A business presentation is a purpose-led summary of key information about your company’s plans, products, or practices, designed for either internal or external audiences. Project proposals, HR policy presentations, investors briefings are among the few common types of presentations. 

Compelling business presentations are key to communicating important ideas, persuading others, and introducing new offerings to the world. Hence, why business presentation design is one of the most universal skills for any professional. 

This guide teaches you how to design and deliver excellent business presentations. Plus, breaks down some best practices from business presentation examples by popular companies like Google, Pinterest, and Amazon among others! 

3 General Types of Business Presentations

A business presentation can be given for a number of reasons. Respectively, they differ a lot in terms of content and purpose. 

But overall, all types of business presentations can be classified as:

• Informative
• Persuasive 
• Supporting 

Informative Business Presentation 

As the name suggests, the purpose of an informative presentation is to discern the knowledge you have — explain what you know. It’s the most common type of business presentation out there. So you have probably prepared such at least several times. 

Examples of informative presentations:

• Team briefings presentation 
• Annual stakeholder report 
• Quarterly business reviews
• Business portfolio presentation
• Business plan presentation
• Project presentation

Helpful templates from SlideModel:

• Business plan PowerPoint template
• Business review PowerPoint template
• Project proposal PowerPoint template
• Corporate annual report template

Persuasive Business Presentation 

The goal of this type of presentation is to persuade your audience of your point of view — convince them of what you believe is right. Developing business presentations of this caliber requires a bit more copywriting mastery, as well as expertise in public speaking . Unlike an informative business presentation, your goal here is to sway the audience’s opinions and prompt them towards the desired action. 

Examples of persuasive presentations:

• Pitch deck/investor presentations
• Sales presentation  
• Business case presentation 
• Free business proposal presentation
• Business proposal PowerPoint template
• Pitch deck PowerPoint template
• Account Plan PowerPoint template

Supporting Business Presentation 

This category of business PowerPoint presentations is meant to facilitate decision-making — explain how we can get something done. The underlying purpose here is to communicate the general “action plan”. Then break down the necessary next steps for bringing it to life. 

Examples of supporting presentations:

• Roadmap presentation
• Project vision presentation 
• After Action Review presentation 
• Standard operating procedure (SOP) PowerPoint template 
• Strategy map PowerPoint template 
• After action review (ARR) PowerPoint template 

What Should Be Included in a Business Presentation?

Overall, the content of your business presentation will differ depending on its purpose and type. However, at the very minimum, all business presentations should include:

• Introductory slide 
• Agenda/purpose slide
• Main information or Content slides
• Key Takeaways slides
• Call-to-action/next steps slides

We further distill business presentation design and writing best practices in the next section (plus, provide several actionable business PowerPoint presentation examples !). 

How to Make a Business Presentation: Actionable Tips

A business presentation consists of two parts — a slide deck and a verbal speech. In this section, we provide tips and strategies for nailing your deck design. 

1. Get Your Presentation Opening Right 

The first slides of your presentation make or break your success. Why? By failing to frame the narrative and set the scene for the audience from the very beginning, you will struggle to keep their interest throughout the presentation. 

You have several ways of how to start a business presentation:

• Use a general informative opening — a summative slide, sharing the agenda and main points of the discussion. 
• Go for a story opening — a more creative, personal opening, aimed at pulling the audience into your story. 
• Try a dramatic opening — a less apparent and attention-grabbing opening technique, meant to pique the audience’s interest. 

Standard Informative Opening 

Most business presentation examples you see start with a general, informative slide such as an Agenda, Problem Statement, or Company Introduction. That’s the “classic” approach. 

To manage the audience’s expectations and prepare them for what’s coming next, you can open your presentation with one or two slides stating:

• The topic of your presentation — a one-sentence overview is enough. 
• Persuasive hook, suggesting what’s in it for the audience and why they should pay attention. 
• Your authority — the best technique to establish your credibility in a business presentation is to share your qualifications and experience upfront to highlight why you are worth listening to. 

Opening best suited for: Formal business presentations such as annual reports and supporting presentations to your team/business stakeholders. 

Story Opening 

Did you ever notice that most TED talks start with a quick personal story? The benefit of this presenting technique is that it enables speakers to establish quick rapport and hold the listener’s attention. 

Here’s how Nancy Duarte, author of “Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations” book and TED presenter, recommends opening a presentation: 

You know, here’s the status quo, here’s what’s going on. And then you need to compare that to what could be. You need to make that gap as big as possible, because there is this commonplace of the status quo, and you need to contrast that with the loftiness of your idea. 

Storytelling , like no other tool, helps transpose the audience into the right mindset and get concentrated on the subject you are about to discuss. A story also elicits emotions, which can be a powerful ally when giving persuasive presentations. In the article how to start a presentation , we explore this in more detail.

Opening best suited for: Personal and business pitches, sales presentations, other types of persuasive presentations. 

Dramatic Opening 

Another common technique is opening your presentation with a major statement, sometimes of controversial nature. This can be a shocking statistic, complex rhetoric question, or even a provocative, contrarian statement, challenging the audience’s beliefs. 

Using a dramatic opening helps secure the people’s attention and capture their interest. You can then use storytelling to further drill down your main ideas. 

If you are an experienced public speaker, you can also strengthen your speech with some unexpected actions. That’s what Bill Gates does when giving presentations. In a now-iconic 2009 TED talk about malaria, mid-presentation Gates suddenly reveals that he actually brought a bunch of mosquitoes with him. He cracks open a jar with non-malaria-infected critters to the audience’s surprise. His dramatic actions, paired with a passionate speech made a mighty impression. 

Opening best suited for: Marketing presentations, customer demos, training presentations, public speeches. 

Further reading: How to start a presentation: tips and examples. 

2. Get Your PowerPoint Design Right

Surely, using professional business PowerPoint templates already helps immensely with presentation deck design since you don’t need to fuss over slide layout, font selection, or iconography. 

Even so, you’ll still need to customize your template(s) to make them on brand and better suited to the presentation you’re about to deliver. Below are our best presentation design tips to give your deck an extra oomph. 

Use Images, Instead of Bullet Points 

If you have ever watched Steve Jobs’s presentations, you may have noticed that he never used bullet-point lists. Weird right? Because using bullet points is the most universal advice in presentation design. 

But there’s a valid scientific reason why Jobs favored images over bullet-point texts. Researchers found that information delivered in visuals is better retained than words alone. This is called the “ pictorial superiority effect ”. As John Medina, a molecular biologist, further explains :

“Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.”

So if your goal is to improve the memorability of your presentation, always replace texts with images and visualizations when it makes sense. 

Fewer Slides is Better

No matter the value, a long PowerPoint presentation becomes tiring at some point. People lose focus and stop retaining the information. Thus, always take some extra time to trim the fluff and consolidate some repetitive ideas within your presentation. 

For instance, at McKinsey new management consultants are trained to cut down the number of slides in client presentations. In fact, one senior partner insists on replacing every 20 slides with only two slides . Doing so prompts you to focus on the gist — the main business presentation ideas you need to communicate and drop filler statements. 

Here are several quick tips to shorten your slides:

• Use a three-arc structure featuring a clear beginning (setup), main narrative (confrontation), ending (resolution). Drop the ideas that don’t fit into either of these. 
• Write as you tweet. Create short, on-point text blurbs of under 156 symbols, similar to what you’d share on Twitter. 
• Contextualize your numbers. Present any relevant statistics in a context, relevant to the listeners. Turn longer stats into data visualizations for easier cognition. 

Consistency is Key 

In a solid business presentation, each slide feels like part of the connecting story. To achieve such consistency apply the same visual style and retain the same underlying message throughout your entire presentation.

Use the same typography, color scheme, and visual styles across the deck. But when you need to accentuate a transition to a new topic (e.g. move from a setup to articulating the main ideas), add some new visual element to signify the slight change in the narrative. 

Further reading: 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

3. Make Your Closure Memorable 

We best remember the information shared last. So make those business presentation takeaways stick in the audience’s memory. We have three strategies for that. 

Use the Rule of Three 

The Rule of Three is a literary concept, suggesting that we best remember and like ideas and concepts when they are presented in threes. 

Many famous authors and speakers use this technique:

• “Duty – Honor – Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be” . Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
• “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are the unalienable rights of all humans that governments are meant to protect.” Thomas Jefferson 

The Rule of Three works because three is the maximum number of items most people can remember on their first attempt. Likewise, such pairings create a short, familiar structure that is easy to remember for our brains. 

Try the Title Close Technique

Another popular presentation closing technique is “Title Close” — going back to the beginning of your narrative and reiterating your main idea (title) in a form of a takeaway. Doing so helps the audience better retain your core message since it’s repeated at least two times. Plus, it brings a sense of closure — a feel-good state our brains love. Also, a brief one-line closure is more memorable than a lengthy summary and thus better retained. 

Ask a Question 

If you want to keep the conversation going once you are done presenting, you can conclude your presentation with a general question you’d like the audience to answer.

Alternatively, you can also encourage the members to pose questions to you. The latter is better suited for informational presentations where you’d like to further discuss some of the matters and secure immediate feedback. 

Try adding an interactive element like a QR code closing your presentation with a QR code and having a clear CTA helps you leverage the power of sharing anything you would like to share with your clients. QR codes can be customized to look alike your brand.

If you are looking for a smoother experience creating presentations on the fly, check out the AI PowerPoint maker —it offers everything you can ask forfrom presentation design in a couple of clicks.

12 Business Presentation Examples and What Makes Them Great 

Now that we equipped you with the general knowledge on how to make a presentation for business, let’s take a look at how other presenters are coping with this job and what lessons you can take away from them. 

1. N26 Digital Bank Pitch Deck 

This is a fine business pitch presentation example, hitting all the best practices. The deck opens with a big shocking statement that most Millennials would rather go to the dentist than step into a bank branch. 

Then it proceeds to discuss the company’s solution to the above — a fully digital bank with a paperless account opening process, done in 8 minutes. After communicating the main product features and value proposition, the deck further conceptualizes what traction the product got so far using data visualizations. The only thing it lacks is a solid call-to-action for closing slides as the current ending feels a bit abrupt. 

2. WeWork Pitch Deck

For a Series D round, WeWork went with a more formal business presentation. It starts with laying down the general company information and then transitions to explaining their business model, current market conditions, and the company’s position on the market.

The good thing about this deck is that they quantify their business growth prospects and value proposition. The likely gains for investors are shown in concrete numbers. However, those charts go one after another in a row, so it gets a bit challenging to retain all data points. 

The last part of their presentation is focused on a new offering, “We Live”. It explains why the team seeks funds to bring it to life. Likewise, they back their reasoning with market size statistics, sample projects, and a five-year revenue forecast. 

3. Redfin Investor Presentation 

If you are looking for a “text-light” business presentation example, Redfin’s investor deck is up to your alley. This simple deck expertly uses iconography, charts, and graphs to break down the company’s business model, value proposition, market share, and competitive advantages over similar startups. For number-oriented investors, this is a great deck design to use. 

4. Google Ready Together Presentation 

This isn’t quite the standard business presentation example per se. But rather an innovative way to create engaging, interactive presentations of customer case studies .

The short deck features a short video clip from a Google client, 7-11, explaining how they used the company’s marketing technology to digitally transform their operations and introduce a greater degree of marketing automation . The narrated video parts are interrupted by slides featuring catchy stats, contextualizing issues other businesses are facing. Then transitions to explaining through the words of 7-11 CMO, how Google’s technology is helping them overcome the stated shortcomings.

5. Salesforce Business Presentation Example 

This is a great example of an informational presentation, made by the Salesforce team to share their research on customer experience (CX) with prospects and existing customers.

The slide deck errs on the lengthier side with 58 slides total. But bigger topics are broken down and reinforced through bite-sized statistics and quotes from the company leadership. They are also packaging the main tips into memorable formulas, itemized lists, and tables. Overall, this deck is a great example of how you can build a compelling narrative using different statistics. 

6. Mastercard Business Presentation

This slide deck from Mastercard instantly captures the audience’s attention with unusual background images and major data points on the growth of populations, POS systems, and payment methods used in the upcoming decade.

Perhaps to offset the complexity of the subject, Mastercard chose to sprinkle in some humor in presentation texts and used comic-style visuals to supplement that. However, all their animations are made in a similar style, creating a good sense of continuity in design. They are also using colors to signify the transition from one part of the presentation to another. 

In the second part, the slide deck focuses on distilling the core message of what businesses need to do to remain competitive in the new payments landscape. The team presents what they have been working on to expand the payment ecosystem. Then concludes with a “title close” styled call-to-action, mirroring the presentation title.

7. McKinsey Diversity & Inclusion Presentation 

This fresh business slide deck from McKinsey is a great reference point for making persuasive business presentations on complex topics such as D&I. First, it recaps the main definitions of the discussed concepts — diversity, equity, and inclusion — to ensure alignment with the audience members. 

Next, the business presentation deck focuses on the severity and importance of the issue for businesses, represented through a series of graphs and charts. After articulating the “why”, the narrative switches to “how” — how leaders can benefit from investment in D&I. The main points are further backed with data and illustrated via examples. 

8. Accenture Presentation for the Energy Sector

Similar to McKinsey, Accenture keeps its slide deck on a short. Yet the team packs a punch within each slide through using a mix of fonts, graphical elements, and color for highlighting the core information. The presentation copy is on a longer side, prompting the audience to dwell on reading the slides. But perhaps this was meant by design as the presentation was also distributed online — via the company blog and social media. 

The last several slides of the presentation deck focus on articulating the value Accenture can deliver for their clients in the Energy sector. They expertly break down their main value proposition and key service lines, plus quantify the benefits. 

9. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Technical Presentation 

Giving an engaging technical presentation isn’t an easy task. You have to balance the number of details you reveal on your slides to prevent overwhelm, while also making sure that you don’t leave out any crucial deets. This technical presentation from AWS does great in both departments. 

First, you get entertained with a quick overview of Amazon’s progress in machine learning (ML) forecasting capabilities over the last decade. Then introduced to the main tech offering. The deck further explains what you need to get started with Amazon Forecast — e.g. dataset requirements, supported forecasting scenarios, available forecasting models, etc. 

The second half of the presentation provides a quick training snippet on configuring Amazon SageMaker to start your first project. The step-by-step instructions are coherent and well-organized, making the reader excited to test-drive the product. 

10. Snapchat Company Presentation

Snapchat’s business model presentation is on a funkier, more casual side, reflective of the company’s overall brand and positioning. After briefly recapping what they do, the slide deck switches to discussing the company’s financials and revenue streams.

This business slide deck by Snap Inc. itself is rather simplistic and lacks fancy design elements. But it has a strong unified theme of showing the audience Snapchat’s position on the market and projected vector of business development. 

11. Visa Business Acquisition Presentation 

If you are working on a business plan or M&A presentation for stakeholders of your own, this example from Visa will be helpful. The presentation deck expertly breaks down the company’s rationale for purchasing Plaid and subsequent plans for integrating the startup into their business ecosystem. 

The business deck recaps why the Plaid acquisition is a solid strategic decision by highlighting the total addressable market they could dive into post-deal. Then it details Plaid’s competitive strengths. The slide deck then sums up all the monetary and indirect gains Visa could reap as an acquirer. 

12. Pinterest Earnings Report Presentation 

Annual reports and especially earnings presentations might not be the most exciting types of documents to work on, but they have immense strategic value. Hence, there’s little room for ambiguities or mistakes. 

In twelve slides, this business presentation from Pinterest clearly communicates the big picture of the company’s finance in 2021. All the key numbers are represented as featured quotes in the sidebar with diagrams further showcasing the earning and spending dynamics. Overall, the data is easy to interpret even for non-finance folks. 

To Conclude 

With these business presentation design tips, presentation templates , and examples, you can go from overwhelmed to confident about your next presentation design in a matter of hours. Focus on creating a rough draft first using a template. Then work on nailing your opening slide sequence and shortening the texts in the main part of your presentation when needed. Make sure that each slide serves a clear purpose and communicates important details. To make your business presentation deck more concise, remove anything that does not pertain to the topic. 

Finally, once you are done, share your business presentation with other team members to get their feedback and reiterate the final design.

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Business Presentations, Corporate Presentations, Design, Design Inspiration, Examples, Executive Reports, Inspiration, Presentation Ideas Filed under Business

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Faculty Resources

Powerpoints.

A full set of PowerPoint decks is provided for download below. All decks are tightly aligned to the modules in this course. Since they are openly licensed, you are welcome to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute as desired.

These PowerPoint files are accessible. If you do revise them, make sure to follow these  guidelines for creating accessible PowerPoints .

Use the following link to download  all PowerPoint decks in a single .zip file (13.8 MB) , or download each individual deck below:

• Module 1: Communicating in Business
• Module 2: Writing in Business
• Module 3: Written Communication
• Module 4: Research
• Module 5: Visual Media
• Module 6: Proposals and Reports
• Module 7: Oral Communication
• Module 8: Developing and Delivering Business Presentations
• Module 9: Communicating through Technology
• Module 10: Social Media
• Module 11: Communicating Different Messages
• Module 12: Collaboration in and across Teams
• Module 13: Social Diversity in the Workplace
• Module 14: Finding a Job
• Module 15: Recruiting and Selecting New Employees
• PowerPoints. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Projector Screen. Authored by : Denis Shumaylov. Provided by : Noun Project. Located at : https://thenounproject.com/term/projector-screen/1211212/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

7 Tips for an Effective Online Presentation

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It’s been a year since the pandemic hit globally. This affected everyone’s daily lives, including businesspeople and other professionals. Eventually, we learned to adapt and live in the new normal – most schools and businesses transition to work from home and online learning setups, transactions have become cashless, and food deliveries are more in-demand. Whether you are a student, a speaker, or a businessman, here are effective ways to making your online presentations look more professional:

1. Choose a user-friendly presentation software

2. define your brand personality and style.

Businesses must showcase their brand identity and style in their presentations. Make sure to include your logo on your slides and add touches to the colour of your brand. Stick to a palette that matches the colour of your brand. Choose the right fonts that are simple and learn how to combine different fonts without compromising their readability.

3. Simplify data illustration

4. do dry-runs before going live.

Apart from practising your presentation, doing dry-runs will allow you to check other aspects such as the audio quality, internet connection, and other software you’ll be needing during your presentation. If you have documents or materials to show on camera, make sure that it is organized and within your reach to avoid dull moments. For screen sharing, close all windows and programs that aren’t necessary to eliminate distractions and speed up your desktop or laptop’s performance.

5. Set up a soundproof and clutter-free space

Another essential thing to check when doing a presentation is your background. Most presenters have open cameras, and maintaining a clutter-free background will show your professionalism. Leave the floor space clear and if possible, set up your laptop in a place where the wall is your background. Close the door and windows of your room and keep away from children and pets. If you have roommates with you, ask them not to disturb you and lower any unnecessary noises until you are done with your presentation.

6. Make it conversational

7. end your presentation with a call-to-action.

At the end of every presentation, ask for an evaluation from your audience and determine the things that need improvement. Lastly, make sure to look your best and dress to impress yourself and your audience.

You may also like: How To Choose a Marker and a Presentation Board

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Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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Chapter 18: Business Presentations

Venecia Williams and Olds College

Learning Objectives

• Understand how to use effective interpersonal communication skills in professional presentations
• Learn how to organize a presentation
• Examine how to use visual aids effectively
• Discuss the effective integration of communication and presentation techniques in the delivery of professional presentations

Along with good writing skills, the ability to communicate verbally is vital to many employers today. It is an integral part of the modern business world. People in the workplace spend the majority of their time communicating. Verbal communication in the workplace takes many forms such as staff meetings, discussions, speeches, presentations, informal conversations, and telephone and video conferences. Communicating verbally is more personal and flexible than writing. It allows workers to exchange ideas, information, and feedback more quickly. Verbal communication tends to occur in person, making it easier to negotiate, express emotions, outline expectations, and build trust, all of which are important in today’s workplace. Communication can also occur between people who are not together in person. In these situations, unique skills are necessary to achieve success. Simple conversation skills are also valued in the workplace, but this does not mean using casual or informal language. Rather, what is prized by many employers is the ability to communicate important information professionally but in a meaningful and understandable way. This can be important when making spontaneous presentations as well as more elaborate formal group presentations, which are a part of many work roles today.

What Makes a Successful Speaker?

According to longtime Toastmasters member Bob Kienzle, there are a few key elements that tend to make a successful speaker:

• Voice : Can the person be easily understood?
• Body Language : Does their body support what they’re saying? Are they confident?
• Coherent Structure: Does what they’re presenting make sense? Is it logical?
• Enthusiasm : Do they care about what they’re presenting?
• Expertise: Do they know what they’re talking about? Are they credible?
• Practice : If they haven’t practised or sufficiently prepared, it will likely show up in one or more of the above.

A successful speaker can be inspired by other speeches or speakers but may fall flat if they try to copy someone else. Authenticity and passion can resonate so much with an audience that it can outweigh elements otherwise considered pitfalls. The techniques, tools, and best practices are a guideline, and it’s important to note there is no such thing as “perfection” in public speaking. “Failure” can happen in myriad ways, but it’s more helpful to see them as learning opportunities, or opportunities to make a stronger connection to your audience. The biggest failure, according to Kienzle, is to pass up opportunities to practise your skills in presenting or public speaking.

Preparing a Presentation

Develop your message while keeping in mind the format, audience, style , and tone . First, you’ll need to think about the format of your presentation. This is a choice between presentation types. In your professional life, you’ll encounter the verbal communication channels in Figure 18.1. The purpose column labels each channel with a purpose (I=Inform, P=Persuade, or E=Entertain) depending on that channel’s most likely purpose.

Figure 18.1 | Presentation Communication Channels

There are some other considerations to make when you are selecting a format. For example, the number of speakers may influence the format you choose. Panels and Presentations may have more than one speaker. In Meetings and Teleconferences, multiple people will converse. In a Workshop setting, one person will usually lead the event, but there is often a high-level of collaboration between participants. The location of participants will also influence your decision. For example, if participants cannot all be in the same room, you might choose a teleconference or webinar. If asynchronous delivery is important, you might record a podcast. When choosing a technology-reliant channel, such as a teleconference or webinar, be sure to test your equipment and make sure each participant has access to any materials they need before you begin.

Once you have chosen a format, make sure your message is right for your audience. You’ll need to think about issues such as the following:

• What expectations will the audience have?
• What is the context of your communication?
• What does the audience already know about the topic?
• How is the audience likely to react to you and your message?

Next, you’ll consider the style of your presentation. Analyze your specific presentation styles. Perhaps you prefer to present formally, limiting your interaction with the audience, or perhaps you prefer a more conversational, informal style, where discussion is a key element. You may prefer to cover serious subjects, or perhaps you enjoy delivering humorous speeches. Style is all about your personality!

Finally, you’ll select a tone for your presentation. Your voice, body language, level of self-confidence, dress, and use of space all contribute to the mood that your message takes on. Consider how you want your audience to feel when they leave your presentation and approach it with that mood in mind.

Presentation Purpose

Your presentation will have a general and specific purpose. Your general purpose may be to inform, persuade, or entertain. It’s likely that any speech you develop will have a combination of these goals. Most presentations have a little bit of entertainment value, even if they are primarily attempting to inform or persuade. For example, the speaker might begin with a joke or dramatic opening, even though their speech is primarily informational. Your specific purpose addresses what you are going to inform, persuade, or entertain your audience with the main topic of your speech.

Incorporating Backchannels

Technology has given speakers new ways to engage with an audience in real-time, and these can be particularly useful when it isn’t practical for the audience to share their thoughts verbally—for example, when the audience is very large, or when they are not all in the same location. These secondary or additional means of interacting with your audience are called backchannels, and you might decide to incorporate one into your presentation, depending on your aims. They can be helpful for engaging more introverted members of the audience who may not be comfortable speaking out verbally in a large group. Using publicly accessible social networks, such as a Facebook Page or Twitter feed, can also help to spread your message to a wider audience, as audience members share posts related to your speech with their networks. Because of this, backchannels are often incorporated into conferences; they are helpful in marketing the conference and its speakers both during and after the event.

Developing the Content

As with any type of messaging, it helps if you create an outline of your speech or presentation before you create it fully. This ensures that each element is in the right place and gives you a place to start to avoid the dreaded blank page. Figure 18.2 is an outline template that you can adapt for your purpose. Replace the placeholders in the Content column with your ideas or points.

Figure `18.2 | Presentation Outline

Introduction

The beginning of your speech needs an attention-grabber to get your audience interested right away. Choose your attention-grabbing device based on what works best for your topic. Your entire introduction should only be around 10 to 15 percent of your total speech, so be sure to keep this section short. Here are some devices that you could try:

After the attention-getter comes the rest of your introduction. It needs to do the following:

• Capture the audience’s interest
• State the purpose of your speech
• Establish credibility
• Give the audience a reason to listen
• Signpost the main ideas

Once you have identified an attention-getting, it is time to develop the body of your presentation or speech. In your body, you will focus on the specific points you would like to communicate to your audience.

Rhetoric and Argument:  Your audience will think to themselves, Why should I listen to this speech? What’s in it for me? One of the best things you can do as a speaker is to answer these questions early in your body, if you haven’t already done so in your introduction. This will serve to gain their support early and will fill in the blanks of who, what, when, where, why, and how in their minds.

Organization: An organized body helps your audience to follow your speech and recall your points later. When developing the body of your speech, recall the specific purpose you decided on, then choose main points to support it. Just two or three main points are usually sufficient, depending on the length of your speech. Anticipate one main point per two to three minutes of speaking.

Concluding on a High Note

You’ll need to keep your energy up until the very end of your speech. In your conclusion, your job is to let the audience know you are finished, help them remember what you’ve told them, and leave them with a final thought or call-to-action, depending on the general purpose of your message.

Presentation Aids

Presentations can be enhanced by the effective use of visual aids. These include handouts, overhead transparencies, drawings on the whiteboard, PowerPoint slides, and many other types of props. Once you have chosen a topic, consider how you are going to show your audience what you are talking about. Visuals can provide a reference, illustration, or image to help the audience to understand and remember your point.

Visual aids accomplish several goals:

• Make your speech more interesting
• Enhance your credibility as a speaker
• Guide transitions, helping the audience stay on track
• Communicate complex information in a short time
• Reinforce your message
• Encourage retention

Methods and Materials

There are many different presentation aids available. Before you decide on a presentation aid, think carefully about how you plan on using it and how it will enhance your presentation.

Using Visual Aids

Visual aids can be a powerful tool when used effectively but can run the risk of dominating your presentation. Consider your audience and how the portrayal of images, text, graphic, animated sequences, or sound files will contribute or detract from your presentation. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you prepare yours.

Designing Slide Decks

When you design your slide decks, you might be overwhelmed by the possibilities, and you might be tempted to use all the bells, whistles, and sounds, not to mention the flying, and animated graphics. If used wisely, a simple transition can be effective, but if used indiscriminately, it can annoy the audience to the point where they cringe in anticipation of the sound effect at the start of each slide.

Stick to one main idea per slide. The presentation is for the audience’s benefit, not yours. Pictures and images can be understood more quickly and easily than text, so you can use this to your advantage as you present.

If you develop a slide deck for your presentation, test these out in the location beforehand, not just on your own computer screen, as different computers and software versions can make your slides look different than you expected. Allow time for revision based on what you learn.

Your visual aids should meet the following criteria:

• Big: legible for everyone, even the back row
• Clear: easy for audience to understand
• Simple: simplify concepts rather than complicating them
• Consistent: use the same visual style throughout

In Figure 18.3 the slide deck on the left has a colour combination which makes the information difficult to understand. The list is not parallel and the slide contains a grammatical error. The slide deck on the right is an improved and more professional version.

Another consideration that you’ll need to make when designing your slide decks is font. As previously mentioned, think about the people at the back of the room when choosing the size of your text, to make sure it can be read by everyone. A common mistake that presenters make is to use decorative fonts or to incorporate many different fonts in their slides. This not only creates a mixed message for the audience but also makes your message difficult to read. Choose legible, common fonts that do not have thin elements that may be difficult to see.

When considering your choice of colours to use, legibility must be your priority. Contrast can help the audience read your key terms more easily. Make sure the background colour and the images you plan to use complement each other. Repeat colours, from your graphics to your text, to help unify each slide. To reduce visual noise, try not to use more than two or three colours. Blue-green colour blindness, and red-green colour blindness are fairly common, so avoid using these colour combinations if it is important for the audience to differentiate between them. If you are using a pie chart, for example, avoid putting a blue segment next to a green one. Use labelling so that even if someone is colour blind, they will be able to tell the relative sizes of the pie segments and what they signify.

Colour is also a matter of culture. Some colours may be perceived as formal or informal, or masculine or feminine. Certain colours have understood meanings; for example, red is usually associated with danger, while green signals “go.” Make sure the colours you use align with your message. If you are discussing climate change or the natural world, for example, you’d be more likely to use blues and greens rather than metallic colours to avoid confusing the audience.

Once you have prepared your visual aid, do not forget to revise. There is nothing more uncomfortable than seeing a typo or grammatical error on your screen in the middle of your presentation. These errors can create a bad impression and affect your credibility with the audience. You want your audience to focus on your message so be sure to revise to maintain the audience’s attention and keep your credibility.

Preparing to Present

You are almost ready to deliver your presentation. What are some final elements you can focus on to ensure a smooth delivery?

To deliver your presentation to the best of your ability, and to reduce your nerves once you take the stage, you need to practise by rehearsing. As you do, try to identify the weaknesses in your delivery to improve on them. For example, do you often misspeak the same words (e.g., pacific for specific; ax for ask) or do your hands or feet fidget? Use your practice time to focus on correcting these issues. These sessions should help you get comfortable and help you remember what you want to say without having to constantly refer to notes. Try practising in front of a mirror, or even recording yourself speaking to a camera and playing it back. It’s also helpful to get feedback from a supportive audience at this stage. Perhaps a few family members or friends could watch you give your presentation and provide some feedback.

Dress for Success

While there are no definitive guidelines for how you should dress for your presentation, your appearance is an important part of your audience’s first impression. If you want them to take you seriously, you’ll need to look the part. While you don’t have to wear a suit each time you present, there are some scenarios where this would be expected; for example, if you are presenting to a corporate audience who wear suits to work, you should do the same. You should dress one step above your audience. If your audience is going to be dressed casually in shorts and jeans, then wear nice casual clothing such as a pair of pressed slacks and a collared shirt or blouse. If your audience is going to be wearing business casual attire, then you should wear a dress or a suit. The general rule is to avoid any distractions in your appearance that can distract your audience’s attention from your message.

Set Up Your Environment

Depending on the circumstances of your speech or presentation, you may have some choices to make about the environment. Perhaps you have a choice of meeting rooms that you can use, or, perhaps you have only one option. If you have some flexibility, it is helpful to think about what sort of environment would best help you get your message across. For example, if you are running a workshop, you might want to assemble participants in a circle to encourage collaboration and discussion. If you are holding a webinar, you’ll need a quiet location with a strong Internet connection and a computer system. It is imperative that you think about what facilities you need well before the day of your presentation arrives. Arriving to find that the equipment you expected isn’t available is not a nice surprise for even the most experienced speaker!

If you have access to the location beforehand, you may need to move tables or chairs around to get things just the way you want them. You might choose to have a podium brought in, if you are aiming for a formal feel, for example, or you may need to position your flip chart. Double-check that you have all the equipment you need, from whiteboard markers to speakers. It is far better if you can get comfortable with the room before your audience arrives, as this will make you feel more prepared and less nervous.

If you are using technology to support your presentation (i.e., PowerPoint slides or a projector), test everything before you begin. Do a microphone check and test its volume, view your slides on the computer you will be using, check any weblinks, play videos to test their sound, or make a call to test the phone connection prior to your teleconference. Your audience will get restless quickly if they arrive and are expected to wait while you fix a technical problem. This will also make you seem disorganized and hurt your credibility as an authoritative speaker.

During the Presentation

You’ve organized your presentation with great visuals and you are ready to present. You now have to deliver your presentation. How do you effectively deliver your presentation calmly and clearly?

Managing Anxiety

Studies have been done to assess how nervous or stressful people typically get during presentations, by examining people’s physiological responses at three intervals: one minute before the presentation, the first minute of the speech, and the last minute of the speech. They discovered that nervousness usually peaked at the anticipation stage that occurs one minute before the presentation. They further found that as the speech progresses, nervousness tends to go down. Here are some things you can do to help you manage your anxiety before the presentation:

• Practice/rehearse in similar conditions/setting as your speech
• Be organized
• Think positively
• Analyze your audience
• Adapt your language to speaking style

During the presentation, there are four main areas where you can focus attention in order to manage your anxiety:

• Your body’s reaction
• Attention to the audience
• Keeping a sense of humour
• Common stress management techniques

Your Body’s Reaction

Physical movement helps to channel some of the excess energy that your body produces in response to anxiety. If at all possible, move around the front of the room rather than remaining behind the lectern or gripping it for dear life (avoid pacing nervously from side to side, however). Move closer to the audience and then stop for a moment. If you are afraid that moving away from the lectern will reveal your shaking hands, use note cards rather than a sheet of paper for your outline. Note cards do not quiver like paper, and they provide you with something to do with your hands. Other options include vocal warm-ups right before your speech, having water (preferably in a non-spillable bottle with a spout) nearby for dry mouth, and doing a few stretches before going on stage. Deep breathing will help to counteract the effects of excess adrenaline. You can place cues or symbols in your notes, such as “slow down” or “smile”, that remind you to pause and breathe during points in your speech. It is also a good idea to pause a moment before you get started to set an appropriate pace from the onset. Look at your audience and smile. It is a reflex for some of your audience members to smile back. Those smiles will reassure you that your audience members are friendly.

Attention to the Audience

During your speech, make a point of establishing direct eye contact with your audience members. By looking at individuals, you establish a series of one-to-one contacts similar to interpersonal communication. An audience becomes much less threatening when you think of them not as an anonymous mass but as a collection of individuals.

Keeping a Sense of Humour

No matter how well we plan, unexpected things happen. That fact is what makes the public speaking situation so interesting. If things go wrong, try to have a sense of humour and stay calm. The audience will respond better if you stay calm than if you get upset or have a breakdown.

Stress Management Techniques

Even when we use positive thinking and are well prepared, some of us still feel a great deal of anxiety about public speaking. When that is the case, it can be more helpful to use stress management than to try to make the anxiety go away. Here are two main tools that can help:

• Visualization: imagining the details of what a successful speech would look and sound like from beginning to end; a way of hypnotizing yourself into positive thinking by using your mind’s eye to make success real.
• Systematic desensitization: Gradual exposure to the thing that causes fear—in this case, giving a speech—can ultimately lead to decreased anxiety. Basically, the more practice you get speaking in front of people, the less fear and anxiety you’ll have about public speaking. Organizations like Toastmasters that help people confront their fears by providing a supportive environment to learn and practise is a good option if you have a true phobia around presenting or public speaking.

Focus on Verbal Communication Techniques

• Pitch : Use pitch inflections to make your delivery more interesting and emphatic. If you don’t change pitch at all, your delivery will be monotone, which gets boring for the audience very quickly.
• Volume : Adjust the volume of your voice to your environment and audience. If you’re in a large auditorium, speak up so that people in the back row can hear you. But if you’re in a small room with only a few people, you don’t want to alarm them by shouting!
• Emphasis : Stress certain words in your speech to add emphasis to them, that is, to indicate that they are particularly important.
• Pronunciation : Make sure that you know the appropriate pronunciation of the words you choose. If you mispronounce a word, it could hurt your credibility or confuse your audience. Your pronunciation is also influenced by your accent. If your accent is quite different from the accent you expect most members of your audience to have, practise your speech in front of someone with the same accent that your audience members will have, to ensure you are pronouncing words in a clear, understandable way.
• Fillers : Avoid the use of “fillers” as placeholders for actual words (like, er, um, uh, etc.). If you have a habit of using fillers, practise your speech thoroughly so that you remember what you want to say. This way, you are less likely to lose your place and let a filler word slip out.
• Rate : The pace that you speak at will influence how well the audience can understand you. Many people speak quickly when they are nervous. If this is a habit of yours, practice will help you here, too. Pause for breath naturally during your speech. Your speaking rate should be appropriate for your topic. A rapid, lively rate communicates enthusiasm, urgency, or humour. A slower, moderated rate conveys respect and seriousness.

Focus on Non-verbal Communication Techniques

• Gestures : You can use your hands or head to help you express an idea or meaning, or reinforce important points, but they can be distracting if overused. If the audience is busy watching your hands fly around, they will not be able to concentrate on your words.
• Facial Expression : Rehearse your speech in front of a mirror to see what facial expressions come across. If you are speaking about an upbeat topic, smile! Conversely, if your topic is serious or solemn, avoid facial expressions that are overtly cheerful, because the audience will be confused by the mixed message. In North American culture, the most important facial expression you can use is eye contact. Briefly catch the eye of audience members as you move through your speech. If you can’t look your audience members in the eye, they may view you as untrustworthy. You’ll want to avoid holding eye contact for too long with any one person, as too much can be unnerving.
• Posture : Try to stay conscious of your posture and stand up straight. This gives the audience the perception that you are authoritative and take your position seriously. If you are slouching, hunched over, or leaning on something, this gives the impression that you are anxious, lacking in credibility, or not serious about your message.
• Silence : Silence is a powerful technique if used well. Pauses are useful for emphasis and dramatic effect when you are speaking. Some speakers are reluctant to pause or use silence because they become uncomfortable with the dead air, but sometimes your audience needs a moment to process information and respond to you.
• Movement : You can use your body movements to communicate positively with the audience. Leaning in or moving closer to the audience helps to bridge the space of separation. Moving from one side of the room to the other in a purposeful way that supports your content is a useful way to keep your audience engaged; their eyes will track your movements. However, pacing rapidly with no purpose and no support to your message may quickly distract from your message.

Coping with Mistakes and Surprises

Even the most prepared speaker will encounter unexpected challenges from time to time. Here are a few strategies for combating the unexpected in your own presentations.

Speech Content Issues

What if a notecard goes missing or you skip important information from the beginning of your speech? Pause for a moment to think about what to do. Is it important to include the missing information, or can it be omitted without hindering the audience’s ability to understand your speech? If it needs to be included, does the information fit better now or in a later segment? If you can move on without the missing element, that is often the best choice, but pausing for a few seconds to decide will be less distracting to the audience than sputtering through a few “ums” and “uhs.” Situations like these demonstrate why it’s a good idea to have a glass of water with you when you speak. Pausing for a moment to take a sip of water is a perfectly natural movement, so the audience may not even notice that anything is amiss.

Technical Difficulties

Technology has become a very useful aid in public speaking, allowing us to use audio or video clips, presentation software, or direct links to websites. But it does break down occasionally! Web servers go offline, files will not download, or media contents are incompatible with the computer in the presentation room. Always have a backup plan in case of technical difficulties. As you develop your speech and visual aids, think through what you will do if you cannot show a particular graph or if your presentation slides are garbled. Your beautifully prepared chart may be superior to the verbal description you can provide. However, your ability to provide a succinct verbal description when technology fails will give your audience the information they need and keep your speech moving forward.

External Distractions

Unfortunately, one thing that you can’t control during your speech is audience etiquette, but you can decide how to react to it. Inevitably, an audience member will walk in late, a cell phone will ring, or a car alarm will go off outside. If you are interrupted by external events like these, it is often useful and sometimes necessary to pause and wait so that you can regain the audience’s attention. Whatever the event, maintain your composure. Do not get upset or angry about these glitches. If you keep your cool and quickly implement a “plan B” for moving forward, your audience will be impressed.

Reading Your Audience

Recognizing your audience’s mood by observing their body language can help you adjust your message and see who agrees with you, who doesn’t, and who is still deciding. With this information, you can direct your attention—including eye contact and questions—to the areas of the room where they can have the most impact. As the speaker, you are conscious that you are being observed. But your audience members probably don’t think of themselves as being observed, so their body language will be easy to read.

Handling Q&A

Question-and-answer sessions can be trickier to manage than the presentation itself. You can prepare for and rehearse the presentation, but audience members could ask a question you hadn’t considered or don’t know how to answer. There are three important elements to think about when incorporating Q&As as part of your presentation:

1. Audience Expectations

At the beginning of your speech, give the audience a little bit of information about who you are and what your expertise on the subject is. Once they know what you do (and what you know), it will be easier for the audience to align their questions with your area of expertise—and for you to bow out of answering questions that are outside of your area.

2. Timing of Q&As

Questions are easier to manage when you are expecting them. Unless you are part of a panel, meeting, or teleconference, it is probably easier to let the audience know that you will take questions at the end of your presentation. This way you can avoid interruptions to your speech that can distract you and cause you to lose time. If audience members interrupt during your talk, you can then ask them politely to hold on to their questions until the Q&A session at the end.

3. Knowing How to Respond

Never pretend that you know the answer to a question if you don’t. The audience will pick up on it! Instead, calmly apologize and say that the question is outside of the scope of your knowledge but that you’d be happy to find out after the presentation (or, suggest some resources where the person could find out for themselves). If you are uncertain about how to answer a question, say something like “That’s really interesting. Could you elaborate on that?” This will make the audience member feel good because they have asked an interesting question, and it will give you a moment to comprehend what they are asking. Sometimes presenters rush to answer a question because they are nervous or want to impress. Pause for a moment, before you begin your answer, to think about what you want to say. This will help you to avoid misinterpreting the question or taking offense to a question that is not intended that way.

A final tip is to be cautious about how you answer so that you don’t offend your audience. You are presenting on a topic because you are knowledgeable about it, but your audience is not. It is important not to make the audience feel inferior because there are things that they don’t know. Avoid comments such as “Oh, yes, it’s really easy to do that…” Instead, say something like “Yes, that can be tricky. I would recommend…” Also, avoid a bossy tone. For example, phrase your response with “What I find helpful is…” rather than “What you should do is…”

Good presentation skills are important to successfully communicate ideas in business. Make sure your presentation has a clear topic with relevant supporting details. Use verbal and non-verbal communication techniques to make your presentation engaging, and don’t forget to practice!

End of Chapter Activities

18a. thinking about the content.

What are your key takeaways from this chapter? What is something you have learned or something you would like to add from your experience?

18b. Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

• How can a speaker prepare a presentation for a diverse audience? Explain and give some specific examples.
• How can an audience’s prior knowledge affect a presentation?
• Think of someone you have met but do not know very well. What kinds of conversations have you had with this person? How might you expect your conversations to change if you have more opportunities to get better acquainted? Discuss your thoughts with a classmate.
• While managing a Q&A session following a presentation, if you find yourself unable to answer a question posed by one of the audience members which tactics can you use to maintain control of the session?

18c. Applying chapter concepts to a situation

Presenting for success

Akhil works at a software development company in White Rock called Blackball Technologies. It is a medium-sized company that allows its employees to dress casually and occasionally work from home. Akhil likes this because his preference is to wear t-shirts and jeans to the office or work from home in his pyjamas.

Blackball recently created a new software program that has the potential to make a huge profit. However, they need investors to fund their latest innovation. The new software was developed using one of Akhil’s ideas; therefore, the company chooses him to present their proposal to a diverse group of investors from several countries.

Some of the investors are not fluent in English as it is their second language. Additionally, they each have a busy day ahead as they have to listen to proposals from multiple companies. Akhil fears that the investors will not understand him. He is also nervous about the presentation due to its significance to his career. If he is successful, he will get the promotion that he has wanted for the past two years and a pay raise.

What are some of the things that Akhil should consider when presenting to the investors? 

18d. Writing Activity

Watch this video from TED.com on The Secret Structure of Great Talks . Summarize the video. What is the most interesting point made by Nancy Duarte in your opinion?

Attribution

Content attribution.

This chapter contains information from Professional Communications OER by the Olds College OER Development Team used under a CC-BY 4.0 international license.

This chapter contains information from Business Communication for Success  which is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the  University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing  through the  eLearning Support Initiative .

Media Attribution

Presentation icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com .

Whiteboard icon made by Phatplus from www.flaticon.com .

Handout icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com .

Demonstration icon made by Ultimatearm from www.flaticon.com .

Chapter 18: Business Presentations Copyright © 2020 by Venecia Williams and Olds College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Effective Presentation Skills for Business Communication

Professional presentation skills matter, and not just in the obvious way that you stand in front of the class and give your presentation. They matter even more in business communication, where you must be able to get your point across, persuade your audience and move them to action.

Your presentation skills can make or break your success as an entrepreneur, whether it’s getting investors on board or closing a high-stakes contract with another company.

These are the top 10 reasons why presentation skills matter in business communication and why they should be front and centre in any business communications strategy.

Why Presentation Skills Matter in Business Communication

1) you have to be clear.

You may have heard the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. This could not be more accurate than when you are trying to communicate with your audience.

The power of visuals can convey the message you want to share and demonstrate how your product or service solves its problem in seconds.

A presentation should be thought of as a conversation, where you are talking with your audience. You want them to feel engaged and excited about what they see and you want them to know that there is a solution for their need. But if they don't understand what's being communicated, it can be confusing and frustrating for everyone involved.

2) You have to be concise

In business communication, presentation skills are vital. This is because you only have a short window of time to make a lasting impression on your audience.

With this being the case, it is important to ensure that you use your words and body language to convey your message. To do this, you need to be concise with your words as well as ensure that your posture and gestures match up with what you're trying to say.

Doing so will help ensure that the person listening will understand what you're trying to convey and feel confident in making a decision based on it.

3) You have to be credible

This may seem like a no-brainer, but credibility is crucial to everything you do. If you're not credible, your business will never get off the ground.

There are many ways to build credibility, and you can start by being honest with yourself and others about what you don't know.

Honesty earns trust and leads to opportunities for growth. It's also important to avoid blaming others when things go wrong; instead, use it as an opportunity to learn how you can improve.

If possible, provide feedback that doesn't hurt feelings. Lastly, be realistic about where you're at in life and your career so that you stay motivated rather than discouraged.

4) You have to be able to connect with your audience

No matter how good your product or service is, if you can't effectively communicate the value proposition to a potential customer, you're not likely to make a sale. To do this, you'll need to have excellent presentation skills so that people can connect with what you're saying and understand why they should buy from you.

To start with, your message must resonate with your audience. This means understanding their background knowledge on the topic and what interests them so that you can speak to these interests.

You should also be able to draw similarities between your product or service and something of interest to them - such as showing how it benefits both parties involved in a transaction.

5) You have to be able to control the room

Presenting your pitch is an opportunity to show the world what you're made of. It's not just a way to get your ideas across; it's a chance to sell yourself, and show people why they should believe in you.

You have to be able to control the room and make them understand what you're saying. The best way to do that is with strong presentation skills.

That means speaking, succinctly, and without rambling or going off on tangents. You also need to know how to handle objections: What if someone brings up some flaw in your business plan? How will you counter their point?

Know how to answer these questions before you start presenting so you can keep the conversation on track while still addressing their concerns.

6) You have to be able to handle questions

You will always be faced with questions about your business. There is no way to avoid it. You have to be able to handle them so that you can maintain your composure and control of the conversation. If you answer with confidence, you'll come across as confident and professional, which will make the prospect more likely to buy from you.

Another important skill is being able to close a sale: When a prospect comes into contact with your company, they're already interested. But not all prospects are going to buy right away. A good salesperson knows how to close a sale at just the right time so that they can get their commission and leave happy knowing they've sold something.

Presentation skills in general are crucial for any profession: These days, presentation skills matter for any profession--not just public speaking or marketing, or teaching--to attract potential clients or customers to hire you or visit your company or class.

7) You need to know your material

Knowing your material is a big part of having strong  professional presentation skills . This is one of the most important skills to develop as it shows you have confidence and know what you're talking about.

For example, if you're presenting at an event and someone asks a question that you don't know the answer to, this will show. You want to practice answering all questions so that you feel comfortable and confident when speaking about your topic or company.

And it's always best to have some backup facts handy just in case someone throws a curveball at you! You need to be able to effectively communicate with people: For communication to happen, you need good listening skills and verbal communication skills.

It's easy for us humans to get carried away with our thoughts and not listen to what the other person is saying, but successful communication requires active listening - hearing and understanding both verbal language (words) and nonverbal cues (body language).

Sometimes we find ourselves caught up in our own emotions or thoughts and forget about others' feelings too. To communicate successfully, try asking open-ended questions that invite conversation like what do you think instead of closed-ended ones like do you agree?

8) You need to be passionate about your topic

Whether you're presenting to a small group or a large crowd, your ability to capture and maintain the audience's attention is crucial. Communicating effectively is all about getting your message across.

The way you deliver that message, with enthusiasm and the appropriate tone of voice, will have a direct impact on how well people can understand what you have to say. You want them to walk away from your presentation feeling empowered and excited about what they've learned – not confused or bored.

And when it comes down to it, isn't that really what any good speaker wants? A big part of being an effective presenter is understanding the needs of your audience.

How much background knowledge do they have on the subject at hand? What are their questions and concerns? Do they need to know more about a certain topic before diving into your main idea?

That requires deep research before going into an important meeting or speech - as does tailoring content specifically for an audience, whether it's adapting some existing material to fit their needs better or coming up with new examples that speak directly to their challenges.

9) You need to be prepared for the worst

You never know what will happen during a presentation, so it's best to be prepared for anything. You may need to speak on your feet and inform the audience of something that just happened, or you may need to step back from the podium and take an important phone call.

Whatever the scenario, you'll want to be able to handle it as smoothly as possible. That's where presentation skills come into play.

They're essential for anyone who needs to get their message across in a public setting - whether that means delivering an oral report or giving a speech at a conference.

10) Practice, practice, practice!

Practice, practice, practice! In the words of the famous American football coach Vince Lombardi, Practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Practice your  presentation skills with a friend or in front of a mirror to get feedback and see what parts need more work.

You'll also want to rehearse your slides and make sure they work on your computer before you present them to an audience. Avoid reading from the slides, as this can lead to a lack of eye contact with your audience.

Effective Presentation Skills Every Business Person Needs to Know

Do you have an upcoming presentation at work? Whether it’s in front of your boss or customers, giving a great speech can be nerve-wracking, but it doesn’t have to be. By being prepared, taking control of your fears, and engaging with your audience, you can give yourself the best possible chance of nailing that presentation! Here are 10 skills that will help you do just that.

1) The ability to capture and hold the attention

The ability to capture and hold attention is essential for any presentation. This can be done through the effective use of PowerPoint slides, voice inflection, and eye contact.

Slides should be designed with a clear message in mind and they should be kept simple so that the audience doesn't get bored or confused. Voice inflection is important because it allows the speaker to emphasize certain words or sentences which helps keep the audience engaged.

Eye contact is key because it allows the speaker to make a connection with those watching and makes them feel like they are being heard.

Effective communication skills are needed for this type of interaction because there need to be good listening skills as well as the ability to understand how another person is feeling based on their tone, body language, and facial expression. Good communication also means being able to say no without offending someone if necessary.

2) Strong eye contact

Strong eye contact is one of the most important things you can do in a presentation. Making eye contact with your audience will make them feel like they are being listened to and respected. It will also help keep their attention on what you're saying.

One way to maintain strong eye contact is by looking at the person who asked the question first and then glancing around the room before answering so that others can see that you're acknowledging their presence.

3) A clear, strong voice

To have a strong, clear voice, it is important to use proper breathing techniques and speak from the diaphragm.

This will allow you to speak loudly without straining your voice. To practice speaking with a strong voice, try this exercise: Stand up and place both hands on your stomach. Now exhale all of the air in your lungs (don't force the air out).

As you inhale, push your stomach out against your hands as though you are inflating a balloon. Keep pushing until you feel that your lungs are full of air and not empty. When you are ready, start speaking in an assertive tone.

If this exercise doesn't seem like it is working for you, try reading aloud from a book or magazine for about five minutes.

4) Enthusiasm

Many skills are important for business success. Knowledge of the industry, excellent negotiation skills, and knowing how to navigate a tricky situation can all come in handy. However, there is one skill that trumps them all:  effective presentation skills .

There is nothing more important than being able to communicate clearly and effectively with others. You need to be able to speak with confidence and sound like you know what you are talking about even if you don't have a clue what's going on!

What should I do? I'm so nervous! What's my audience going to think about me? These are just a few of the thoughts that run through one's mind during the lead-up to a presentation.

It's understandable and important that people should be nervous when it comes time for them to present, but it can be detrimental if they let those nerves get the best of them. For this reason, here are some tips on how you can help your business presentation go off without a hitch.

Practice  oral presentations   in business communication in front of friends or family before presenting. Make sure you have all your materials and notes in order beforehand so you don't have any distractions while presenting.

6) Confidence

One of the most important aspects of  presentation skills in business communication is being confident. It's not enough that you have a well-thought-out idea and are prepared to back it up with facts and figures, if you don't believe in your presentation, then why should anyone else?

To make a great first impression, stand up straight with your shoulders squared. Smile when you make eye contact with people, even if it feels fake at first. When speaking, don't mumble or rush your words. Speak clearly and slowly so that people can follow along easily.

Poise is the most important aspect of a presentation. It's what keeps the speaker calm, confident, and in control. Here are a few tips for maintaining poise:

• Stand up straight with your shoulders back, looking at the audience instead of your notes. This will make you feel more confident and poised. 
• Try not to shift around too much and keep your hands at your sides or on the podium unless they're gesturing while you talk. 
• Use an even tone of voice that is neither too loud nor too soft. -Don't move around excessively and avoid distracting movements like fidgeting or chewing gum. Practice making eye contact with the audience, but don't stare them down since this can make people uncomfortable or nervous.

8) The ability to handle questions with ease

No matter how well you have prepared, there is always a chance that someone will ask a question you haven't anticipated. This is where your presentation skills come in handy.

Be sure to always have an answer and be able to present it confidently. You don't want your audience wondering if you know what you're talking about. Furthermore, if someone asks a question that is outside the scope of your topic, redirect them back with a solid response.

9) Preparation

Before you can even begin the presentation, your preparation will determine the quality of your message and how it resonates with your audience. To ensure that you are ready for any situation, we recommend:

• Doing some research about the company or organization to which you are presenting. Understanding their core values and what they do makes a big difference in how you deliver your message. 
• Practicing in front of a mirror or with friends and family until you are comfortable enough with what you want to say and how you want to say it. 
• Dressing appropriately for the occasion by wearing clothes that won't distract from what you're saying but also fit into the culture of where the event is being held.

10) Naturalness

It's important to be natural when you present. Practice your presentation in front of friends and family members and get their feedback on how you're coming across.

When delivering a presentation, make sure that you are making eye contact with the audience, not looking down at your laptop screen or phone screen, standing up straight, and projecting your voice so that the audience can hear what you are saying.

There is nothing worse than a presenter who walks around the stage or fidgets in place during their presentation because it distracts from the message that they are trying to convey.

It is also important to have good posture when presenting as it will help make you look confident and authoritative. If you find yourself feeling nervous before a presentation, try practicing some deep breathing exercises before going on stage.

As a business person, you know how important is  professional presentation skills to your employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Of course,  professional presentation skills can also be useful in everyday life, whether you’re selling yourself on the job market or asking your partner to babysit the kids for one more night so you can go out with friends.

Our School of Meaningful Experiences (SoME) creates and delivers transformative communication programs designed to meet the workplace challenges of the post-pandemic 21st century. Effective communication is an essential skill for today's modern professionals and leaders. With it, you can confidently manage conflict, collaborate with others and successfully develop yourself.

We offer both onsite and online training programs based on the needs of your organization; from one-day workshops to three-month diploma programs. Our instructors are highly experienced professionals with extensive backgrounds in different industries such as law enforcement or even diplomacy! They will teach you how to handle difficult conversations in a way that is respectful but also gets results. Whether it's dealing with an argument with a spouse or having difficult conversations at work—we have something for everyone!

What are effective presentation skills?

Effective presentation skills are what every businessperson needs to know. They are a crucial aspect of the business world, and without them, someone may not be able to succeed or thrive in their field. While there is no one right way to give an effective presentation, there are some basics that can help make it as successful as possible.

Why is presentation skill important in business communication?

If you are a business person, you must have strong presentation skills. A presentation is a way for you to tell your story, and it's an opportunity for you to establish credibility with the people in the room. You want them to feel engaged and entertained, but most of all, you want them to feel like they can trust what you say.

What is a presentation in business communication?

A presentation is a short speech delivered in front of an audience. Depending on the type of presentation, the audience may be composed of your coworkers or clients, or a mixture of both. Effective presentations are well-organized and planned with an objective in mind.

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Chapter 10: Developing Business Presentations

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.     –Mark Twain

Being in the right does not depend on having a loud voice.     –Chinese Proverb

Getting Started

Introductory exercises.

1. Complete the following self-inventory by brainstorming as many items as you can for each category. Think about anything you know, find interesting, or are involved in which relates to the topics below. Have you traveled to a different city, state, or country? Do you have any projects in other classes you find interesting? List them in the questions below.

• What do you read?
• What do you play or do for fun?
• What do you watch (visual media)?
• Where do you live or have you lived?
• What places have you visited (travel)?
• Whom do you know?
• What’s important to you?
• If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?

Choose your three favorite categories from the list above and circle them. Then ask a friend what they would be most interested in hearing about. Ask more than one friend, and keep score of which item attracts the most attention. Make sure you keep track of who likes which category.

Introductory Exercises (cont.)

2. What do you know about the world?

• What is the most populous country on the planet?
• The United States is home to more foreign-born residents than any other country. Which country has the next-highest number of foreign-born residents (Bremner, J., et. al., 2009)?
• As of 2008, what percentage of the world’s population lived in an urban setting?
• The world’s population was about 6.5 billion in early 2009. In what year is this figure expected to double to 13 billion (Rosenberg, M., 2009)?

Answers: 1. c, 2. a, 3. c, 4. c.

Mark Twain makes a valid point that presentations require preparation. If you have the luxury of time to prepare, take full advantage of it. Speeches don’t always happen when or how we envision them. Preparation becomes especially paramount when the element of unknown is present, forcing us to improvise. One mistake or misquote can and will be quickly rebroadcast, creating lasting damage. Take full advantage of the time to prepare for what you can anticipate, but also consider the element of surprise. In this chapter we discuss the planning and preparation necessary to prepare an effective presentation. You will be judged on how well you present yourself, so take the time when available to prepare.

Now that you are concerned with getting started and preparing a speech for work or class, let’s consider the first step. It may be that you are part of a team developing a sales presentation, preparing to meet with a specific client in a one-on-one meeting, or even setting up a teleconference. Your first response may be that a meeting is not a speech, but your part of the conversation has a lot in common with a formal presentation. You need to prepare, you need to organize your message, and you need to consider audience’s expectations, their familiarity with the topic, and even individual word choices that may improve your effectiveness. Regardless whether your presentation is to one individual (interpersonal) or many (group), it has as its foundation the act of communication. Communication itself is a dynamic and complex process, and the degree to which you can prepare and present effectively across a range of settings will enhance your success as a business communicator.

If you have been assigned a topic by the teacher or your supervisor, you may be able to go straight to the section on narrowing your topic. If not, then the first part of this chapter will help you. This chapter will help you step by step in preparing for your speech or oral presentation. By the time you have finished this chapter, you will have chosen a topic for your speech, narrowed the topic, and analyzed the appropriateness of the topic for yourself as well as the audience. From this basis, you will have formulated a general purpose statement and specific thesis statement to further define the topic of your speech. Building on the general and specific purpose statements you formulate, you will create an outline for your oral presentation.

Through this chapter, you will become more knowledgeable about the process of creating a speech and gain confidence in your organizational abilities. Preparation and organization are two main areas that, when well developed prior to an oral presentation, significantly contribute to reducing your level of speech anxiety. If you are well prepared, you will be more relaxed when it is time to give your speech. Effective business communicators have excellent communication skills that can be learned through experience and practice. In this chapter we will work together to develop your skills in preparing clear and concise messages to reach your target audience.

Bremner, J., Haub, C., Lee, M., Mather, M., & Zuehlke, E. (2009, September). World population highlights: Key findings from PRB’s 2009 world population data sheet. Population Bulletin, 64 (3). Retrieved from http://www.prb.org/pdf09/64.3highlights.pdf .

Rosenberg, M. (2009, October 15). Population growth rates and doubling time. About.com Guide . Retrieved from http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/populationgrow.htm .

Business Communication for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

18 Best Presentation Topics for Business Communication

Table of Contents

Delivering effective presentations is a vital component of successful business communication. Whether you are presenting to your team, clients, or stakeholders, choosing the right topic can make all the difference in the success of your presentation.

However, with so many potential topics to cover, it can be challenging to know where to start. In this blog post, we will provide you with 15 presentation topics for business communication that are relevant and engaging for a variety of audiences.

What is a business presentation in business communication?

A business presentation is a formal presentation given to a group of people in a business setting. Business presentations are commonly used to inform stakeholders, investors, employees, or customers about various aspects of a business such as company performance, products or services, and marketing strategies.

It is often delivered using visual aids such as slides, charts, and graphs to enhance the clarity and effectiveness of the message. Business presentations can take many forms, such as sales presentations, product demonstrations, project proposals , financial reports, or company overviews. They can be delivered in person, through video conferencing, or even in written form. 

A successful business presentation should be well-structured, clear, and engaging, with a clear focus on the audience’s needs and interests.

18 Best Topics for Business Communication Presentation 

1/ the importance of emotional intelligence in business communication.

Emotional intelligence, or the ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions, is a critical factor in effective communication. Having this ability is crucial for developing robust connections, handling disputes, and guiding groups effectively. This topic will explore the principles of emotional intelligence , as well as techniques for improving emotional intelligence in the workplace. Additionally, it can highlight the essentiality of emotional intelligence in business communication and how professionals can develop this skill.

2/ The Role of Nonverbal Communication in Business Communication

In a professional environment, nonverbal cues like gestures, facial expressions, and vocal intonation can carry significant weight in determining how messages are perceived. In this topic, you could explore the various types of nonverbal communication and how professionals can improve their ability to read and use these cues.

Related Reading: What are the pros and cons of non-verbal communication

3/ Workplace Health and Wellness In the Business Environment

Promoting workplace health and wellness is becoming increasingly important for businesses, as research shows that healthy employees are more productive , engaged, and less likely to take sick leave. In addition, a workplace that prioritizes health and wellness can attract and retain top talent, which can give the business a competitive edge.

One of the key topics to cover in a presentation on workplace health and wellness is stress management. Stress is a major contributor to employee burnout, which can lead to decreased productivity. Additionally, other topics that can be covered include workplace ergonomics, and creating a culture of wellness.

4/ The Art of Persuasion in Business Communication

Persuasion is a valuable skill in the business world, whether you are trying to sell a product, convince a colleague to support your idea or negotiate a deal. Persuasion involves understanding the needs and motivations of your audience and tailoring your message to their interests. This topic will explore the principles of persuasion and provide tips for crafting persuasive messages.

5/ Writing for Business- How to Create Effective Business Documents

Business writing requires a unique set of skills and techniques that differ from other forms of writing. In this topic, you could explore the elements of effective business writing, such as tone, structure, and formatting, and provide examples of best practices.

6/ Writing Effective Business Emails

An email is a critical tool for business communication , but many people struggle with crafting clear and effective messages. Effective business emails are professional, concise, and to the point, and they convey important information in a way that is easy to understand. This topic will provide tips and best practices for writing professional, concise, and effective business emails.

7/ Business Communication Ethics

To communicate effectively, it is not enough to simply convey your message. You must also take into account ethical principles such as integrity, transparency, and consideration for others. This topic will explore the ethical principles of business communication , as well as techniques for avoiding ethical pitfalls and building trust and credibility with stakeholders.

8/ How to Give and Receive Constructive Feedback

Constructive feedback is feedback that is framed in a positive, helpful way, with the goal of helping the recipient improve. Feedback is essential for growth and development in the workplace. However, it can be difficult to give and receive constructive feedback. This topic will cover the best practices for giving and receiving feedback, including how to frame feedback in a constructive and productive way along with the feedback communication process .

9/ Cross-Cultural Communication in Global Business

As businesses become more global, professionals must learn to navigate communication barriers in business that arise in multicultural settings. In this topic, you could explore the unique challenges of cross-cultural communication in a global business context and provide strategies for improving communication effectiveness.

10/ How to Manage Conflict in the Workplace

Although conflict is a normal occurrence in any workplace, managing it in an efficient manner can be quite difficult. Effective conflict management involves understanding the underlying causes of conflict, identifying potential solutions, and working with others to find a resolution that is mutually beneficial. This topic will cover strategies for identifying and addressing conflict, as well as techniques for resolving disputes and building stronger relationships.

11/ Building Strong Business Relationships

Strong relationships are the foundation of any successful business. Whether you are working with customers, employees, or partners, building trust and rapport is critical for long-term success. This topic will explore the key principles of relationship-building, including communication, trust, and mutual benefit.

12/ Using Data Visualization to Communicate Business Insights

Data visualization is a powerful tool for communicating complex business insights in a clear and compelling way. This topic will explore the principles of data visualization, including choosing the right charts and graphs, using color and typography effectively, and avoiding common visualization pitfalls.

13/ Managing Virtual Communication Challenges

Virtual communication can present unique challenges, including technical difficulties, lack of face-to-face interaction , and time zone differences. This topic will cover techniques for managing virtual communication challenges, including using virtual collaboration tools, establishing clear communication protocols, and building rapport with remote team members.

14/ The Art of Negotiation in Business

Negotiation is an essential skill for achieving successful outcomes in business, from closing deals to resolving conflicts. This topic will explore the principles of negotiation, including preparing for negotiations, identifying common negotiation tactics, and building win-win solutions.

15/ The Impact of Technology on Business Communication

Technology is changing the way we communicate in business, from email to social media to virtual collaboration tools like instant messaging or  online presentation makers . This topic will explore the impact of technology on business communication , including the benefits and challenges of different communication channels and the future of business communication.

16/ The Role of Communication in Change Management

Effective communication is essential for managing change in the workplace, from introducing new products or services to implementing organizational changes. This topic will explore the principles of change management communication, including identifying key stakeholders, creating messaging guidelines, and managing resistance to change.

17/ Communicating with Confidence-B uilding Assertiveness in Business Communication

Assertiveness is an essential skill for effective communication in the workplace, from managing conflicts to presenting ideas effectively. This topic will explore the principles of assertiveness, including identifying communication styles, using “I” statements effectively, and managing challenging conversations.

18/ Communicating During Times of Crisis

When a crisis occurs, effective communication is essential to manage the situation and mitigate any potential damage. In this topic, you could explore the elements of effective crisis communication, including transparency, empathy, and quick response time.

Usefull Insight: We chose these topics because they cover a wide range of communication skills and are relevant to today’s business environment. Each topic provides practical strategies for improving communication and achieving business success. Additionally, these topics are evergreen and can be adapted to a variety of industries and organizations.

General business topics for presentation

General business topics cover a broad range of subjects related to the world of business, including management, marketing, finance, economics, and entrepreneurship. These topics are essential for understanding how businesses operate and how they can be successful in their respective industries. Examples of general business topics include:  

• General business topics for presentation 
• Supply chain management and logistics
• Human resources management and talent development
• International trade and globalization
• Leadership and management development

Business communication skills topics for presentation 

Business communication skills topics refer to the skills and techniques necessary to effectively communicate within a business environment. These skills involve the ability to effectively and persuasively convey information, ideas, and messages in a business setting. Here are some examples of topics related to business communication skills:

• Sales Communication: Techniques for Persuasive and Effective Sales Communication
• Business Etiquette: Best Practices for Professional Behavior in the Workplace
• Networking: Building Professional Relationships through Effective Communication
• Effective Presentation Skills: Techniques for Engaging and Persuading Audiences
• Business Storytelling: Using Narrative to Communicate Business Messages Effectively

Must Read: Top 10 business communication skills

Management topics for presentation 

Management topics for presentation focus on the principles and practices of effective management in a business setting. They cover a wide range of topics, including leadership, team building, decision-making, organizational behavior, and performance management. Some examples of management topics for presentation include:

• Innovation Management: Strategies for Fostering Innovation in Organizations.
• Strategic Planning: Developing a Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Your Organization.
• Performance Management: Strategies for Managing Employee Performance and Engagement.
• Project Management: Best Practices for Successfully Managing Projects.

Business communication topics for college students

• Social Media and Business Communication: Best Practices for Using Social Media to Build Relationships and Brand Awareness.
• Leadership Communication: Strategies for Effective Leadership Communication.
• Virtual Communication: Best Practices for Communicating Effectively in a Remote Work Environment.
• What are the Methods of Communication in Business ? 

Presentation topics for professional communication 

• Effective public speaking for business and career success.
• Delivering effective feedback to colleagues and team members.
• Navigating difficult conversations in the workplace.
• Cultivating a positive company culture through effective communication.

5-minute business presentation topics

• How to create a successful business plan
• Creative methods for marketing and advertising.
• How to improve customer retention through effective customer service
• Tips for successful project management

What is a good business presentation? 

A good business presentation should be clear, concise, and engaging. It should effectively convey the main message or idea, and be structured in a logical and easy-to-follow manner. Here are some key elements that contribute to a good business presentation:

1/ Clear and concise message: A good business presentation should have a clear and concise message that is easy for the audience to understand. The presentation should stay focused on its main topic and avoid unnecessary details.

2/ Audience-focused: For a business presentation to be effective, it should be customized to suit the requirements and concerns of the audience. The presenter should use language and examples that are relevant to the audience and take into consideration their level of knowledge and understanding.

3/ Confident and professional delivery: A good business presentation should be delivered with confidence and professionalism. The presenter should maintain eye contact with the audience, use appropriate body language, and speak clearly and audibly.

4/ Engaging and visually appealing: A good business presentation should be visually appealing and use multimedia elements such as images, videos, and graphs to help convey information and keep the audience engaged.

What is the importance of business communication presentation and style

Business communication presentation and style are important because they can greatly impact the effectiveness of communication in a business setting. Here are some reasons why:

• Clarity: An effective presentation and communication style can help ensure that the message is clearly understood by the audience.
• Professionalism: A professional presentation and communication style can help to establish credibility and build trust with the audience. 
• Persuasion: A well-designed and well-delivered presentation can be a powerful tool for persuading an audience to take a particular course of action or to support a particular idea or proposal.
• Branding: A consistent presentation and communication style can help to reinforce a business’s brand identity and messaging. 

What are the 5 types of business presentations? 

The five commonly used business presentations are, sales presentations, financial presentations, training presentations, project proposal presentations, and company overview presentations. The type of presentation chosen will depend on the specific goals and objectives of the presenter and their audience.

1/ Sales presentation: A sales  presentation is used to convince prospective customers to buy a particular product or service. It usually includes information about the benefits of the product or service, the pricing, and any other relevant details.

2/ Financial presentation: This form of presentation is utilized to communicate financial data with stakeholders, such as investors. It may include financial statements, projections, and analysis of financial performance.

3/ Training presentation: A training presentation is designed to teach employees a new skill or provide them with important information. These presentations may include interactive elements such as quizzes or hands-on exercises.

4/ Project proposal presentation: This type of presentation is used to pitch a project or idea to stakeholders, such as investors or management. It typically includes information about the project’s goals, timeline, budget, and potential benefits.

5/ Company overview presentation: This type of presentation provides an overview of the company’s history, mission, values, and current operations. It may be used for onboarding new employees or introducing the company to potential partners or customers .  

What are the uses of PPT in business communication? 

Business communication is a crucial aspect of any business, and presentations are a key tool for conveying important information, ideas, and messages to an audience. It helps businesses communicate more effectively, both internally and externally, and it is an essential part of modern business communication. 

One of the primary uses of PPT is to create and deliver presentations that convey information to an audience. PPT allows presenters to create visually appealing slides with images, graphics, and text that help to reinforce key points and keep the audience engaged.

Organizations also facilitate collaboration through PPT as it can be used among team members for creating collaborative presentations where multiple team members can contribute content and ideas.  At the same time, management can also simplify complex ideas and pass clear instructions that can easily be understood by the employees.

Additionally, PPT can be used to enhance branding by creating presentations that are consistent with a company’s branding guidelines, including the use of logos, colors, and fonts.

Advantages and disadvantages of presentation in business communication

Advantages of presentation in  business communication.

• Clear and Concise Communication: Presentations are an effective way of conveying complex information to a large group of people. The use of visual aids, such as graphs and charts, can help to clarify complex data and concepts.
• Showcase expertise: Presentations allow business professionals to showcase their expertise on a particular topic. This can help to build credibility and establish the presenter as an authority in their field.
• Foster teamwork: Presentations can be a great way to foster teamwork among a group of individuals. It provides an opportunity for team members to collaborate on the presentation and work together towards a common goal.
• Professionalism: Presentations can enhance the professionalism of business communication. It shows that you have put effort and thought into your message, which can reflect positively on your business.

Disadvantages of presentation in  business communication

• Technical difficulties: Presentations often rely on technology, such as projectors or audio systems, which can sometimes fail. Technical difficulties can disrupt the flow of the presentation and cause frustration for both the presenter and the audience.
• Time-consuming: Preparing and delivering a presentation can be time-consuming. It may require a significant amount of research, planning, and practice to ensure that the presentation is effective.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q1) what are the topics of business communication .

Ans: Some of the most common topics of business communication include business plans and strategies, sales and customer service, financial reports and analysis, corporate social responsibility, and crisis communication. The choice of topic largely depends on the context of the communication and the goals of the organization.

Q2) How to do presentations in business communication?

Ans: To create an effective presentation in business communication, you should:

• Define your objective and audience
• Plan your content and structure
• Choose appropriate visuals and media
• Practice your delivery and timing
• Engage your audience with interactive elements
• End with a strong call to action or conclusion

Q3) How do I start a business presentation? 

Ans: A good way to start a business presentation is by introducing yourself and your role in the company, stating the purpose and objective of the presentation, providing a brief overview of the content and structure, and previewing any key points or takeaways. 

Q4) What is the good rule of a business presentation? 

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Business Jargons

A Business Encyclopedia

Presentation

Definition : A presentation is a form of communication in which the speaker conveys information to the audience. In an organization presentations are used in various scenarios like talking to a group, addressing a meeting, demonstrating or introducing a new product, or briefing a team. It involves presenting a particular subject or issue or new ideas/thoughts to a group of people.

It is considered as the most effective form of communication because of two main reasons:

• Use of non-verbal cues.
• Facilitates instant feedback.

Business Presentations are a tool to influence people toward an intended thought or action.

Parts of Presentation

• Introduction : It is meant to make the listeners ready to receive the message and draw their interest. For that, the speaker can narrate some story or a humorous piece of joke, an interesting fact, a question, stating a problem, and so forth. They can also use some surprising statistics.
• Body : It is the essence of the presentation. It requires the sequencing of facts in a logical order. This is the part where the speaker explains the topic and relevant information. It has to be critically arranged, as the audience must be able to grasp what the speaker presents.
• Conclusion : It needs to be short and precise. It should sum up or outline the key points that you have presented. It could also contain what the audience should have gained out of the presentation.

Purpose of Presentation

• To inform : Organizations can use presentations to inform the audience about new schemes, products or proposals. The aim is to inform the new entrant about the policies and procedures of the organization.
• To persuade : Presentations are also given to persuade the audience to take the intended action.
• To build goodwill : They can also help in building a good reputation

Factors Affecting Presentation

Audience Analysis

Communication environment, personal appearance, use of visuals, opening and closing presentation, organization of presentation, language and words, voice quality, body language, answering questions, a word from business jargons.

Presentation is a mode of conveying information to a selected group of people live. An ideal presentation is one that identifies and matches the needs, interests and understanding level of the audience. It also represents the facts, and figures in the form of tables, charts, and graphs and uses multiple colours.

Related terms:

• Verbal Communication
• Visual Communication
• Non-Verbal Communication
• Communication
• 7 C’s of Communication

Reader Interactions

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October 2, 2022 at 11:33 pm

Thank you so much for providing us with brief info related to the presentation.

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it was helpful👍

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Small-business owners wear many hats and juggle numerous responsibilities. They’re passionate about their business, but the overwhelming number of tasks can leave them feeling stretched too thin.

One of the tasks that can sometimes get lost while running day-to-day operations is also one of the most crucial: effectively managing the business's online presence.

Imagine a potential customer searching for a service or product you offer. They go online and find several options. In fact, a 2021 survey of 500 U.S. consumers found that 76% of consumers will search for a company website before visiting their physical location. Without a robust online presence, your business might not even show up in their search results.

Let's explore some practical strategies that every small-business owner should explore.

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Desperate to save pokrovsk, the ukrainian national guard has deployed one of its few offensive brigades, novak djokovic follows carlos alcaraz out of the u.s. open as stunning upsets continue, 1. creating a user-friendly website.

Early on, my business’s website was outdated and difficult to navigate. We noticed that potential customers were visiting but not converting into clients. After revamping the site to be more user-friendly and mobile-responsive—with clear and concise content about our services—we saw a significant increase in customer inquiries and conversions.

Your website often gives potential customers the first impression of your business. Make sure it reflects the quality and professionalism of what you offer. Focus on ease of navigation, mobile optimization and clarity of information.

2. Leveraging Social Media

Social media can feel overwhelming with so many options to choose from, but focusing on the right platforms can make a big difference.

My company initially tried to maintain a presence on every platform, which spread our resources too thin. Once we concentrated on just two platforms where our audience was most active, we saw a dramatic increase in engagement and brand awareness.

The first step is to understand your target audience. Once you know what they want, focus on the social media platforms where you can best serve them. For instance, Instagram works well for showcasing our products visually, while LinkedIn helps to connect with other businesses.

Then it's important to commit to regular, quality content. Engage with your followers, respond to comments and use ads to broaden your reach.

3. Investing In SEO

When we first launched our website, we didn’t see much traffic, and it was challenging to compete with larger companies in search results. After investing time in understanding search engine optimization (SEO basics)—like optimizing for relevant keywords and improving site speed—we started ranking higher in search results. This led to a steady increase in organic traffic and new business inquiries.

SEO can seem daunting, but it’s crucial for visibility. Even basic SEO practices can significantly improve your website’s ranking, making it easier for potential customers to find you.

4. Creating Valuable Content

Initially, we weren’t sure what topics would resonate with our audience. But once we started blogging about industry trends, answering common customer questions and sharing success stories, we noticed a substantial increase in website traffic and customer engagement.

Think about what your customers want to know and create content around that. Whether it’s blog posts, videos or social media updates, focus on providing value. For example, as a fitness trainer, you might create content around home workout routines or nutrition tips, which can position you as an expert in your field.

5. Engaging With Your Audience

It wasn’t until we started actively responding to comments, asking for feedback and sharing user-generated content that we noticed a stronger connection with our customers. This not only built trust but also fostered a loyal community around our brand.

Engagement is key to building relationships with your customers. Make it a priority to interact with your audience online—respond to their questions, thank them for their support, and encourage them to share their experiences about your products or services.

6. Utilizing Online Reviews

I used to fear negative reviews, worried they might tarnish our reputation. Over time, I learned that encouraging reviews—both positive and negative—was invaluable. Positive reviews boosted our credibility, and constructive criticism helped us improve. In fact, I've found that addressing negative feedback professionally can show a business's commitment to customer satisfaction.

Encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Trustpilot, Google My Business or Yelp, and handle any negative feedback with care and professionalism. This approach not only builds trust but also helps improve your services based on real customer experiences.

7. Email Marketing

Initially, I underestimated email marketing's power, but once we started sending regular newsletters with promotions, updates and valuable content, we saw a significant increase in customer retention and repeat business.

Building an email list and maintaining regular communication with your customers through personalized emails can keep them engaged and informed about your offerings. This direct line of communication can lead to higher customer loyalty and repeat purchases.

Taking The First Step

As a small-business owner, you might feel frustrated by the time and effort required to maintain a strong online presence. You may worry about keeping up with digital trends or fear that your efforts won't yield results.

By implementing these strategies one step at a time, though, you can gradually build a robust online presence that attracts and retains customers. This doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process. Start by focusing on one strategy at a time, and then gradually expand your efforts.

Also, remember: Your online presence is an extension of your business—treat it with the same care and attention you give to your in-person operations.

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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Purdue’s online data science master’s addresses burgeoning demand for trained data scientists

The interdisciplinary degree is accessible for working professionals from both technical and nontechnical backgrounds

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Data scientists who can make sense of today’s epic floods of data to generate actionable insights and communicate them to a variety of audiences are in demand in almost any field, from retail business and industry to health care, government, education, and more.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that jobs for data scientists will grow 36% by 2031. Nationally, there were nearly 125,000 data scientist jobs added from 2013-2023. Yet many of those jobs — with many more openings coming — went unfilled for a lack of trained data scientists. The bottom line: Nearly every industry today requires data scientists, and the number of these positions is expected to grow.

Purdue University’s new 100% online Master of Science in data science degree addresses the need and the high demand for a trained data science workforce that can harness the power of data to drive innovation, efficiency and competitiveness. The interdisciplinary master’s program is designed for working professionals with a technical background but includes a pathway to entry for professionals from nontechnical fields.

“This data science master’s program is specifically designed for online delivery and optimal online learning, making it accessible to professionals around the world,” said Dimitrios Peroulis, Purdue senior vice president for partnerships and online. “The interdisciplinary curriculum is diverse, customizable to a student’s needs and tailored for practical application immediately.”

Purdue’s online master’s in data science features core courses covering foundations of data science, machine learning and data mining, big data technologies and tools, data analysis, and data visualization and communication.

Students do a capstone project pairing them with an industry mentor and a collaborative team to manage a data science project from inception to completion. That includes developing project timelines, allocating resources and adapting strategies based on the project’s evolution. The capstone, modeled after curriculum from The Data Mine , Purdue’s award-winning data science learning community, is an opportunity to apply knowledge acquired throughout the master’s program to solve complex, real-world problems.

The online master’s program also features the opportunity to earn industry-aligned certificates along the way to earning a master’s degree. Options include education, leadership, and policy; smart mobility and smart transportation; data science in finance; spatial data science; geospatial information science; managing information technology projects; IT business analysis; and applied statistics.

The program was developed by an interdisciplinary cohort of expert faculty from Purdue’s flagship campus, including the colleges of Agriculture, Education, Engineering, Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, Pharmacy, Science, and Veterinary Medicine, along with the Mitch Daniels School of Business, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, the Purdue Libraries, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars.

“Purdue’s new online MS in data science program leverages the real-world experience of faculty working across several distinct disciplines,” said Timothy Keaton, assistant professor of practice in Purdue’s Department of Statistics, who was involved in developing the new degree. “This cooperation between experts in the application of data science in diverse fields provides a great opportunity to create engaging and meaningful coursework that incorporates many different potential areas of interest for our students.”

Students will develop expertise in programming languages, gaining the ability to design and implement data-driven solutions; learn to apply advanced technologies, including cloud computing and big data frameworks, to effectively handle and process large-scale datasets; gain a deep understanding of machine learning algorithms and models, applying them to real-world scenarios; and become proficient in collecting, cleaning, and analyzing diverse datasets.

The curriculum also is designed to teach learners data visualization and communication methods for creating compelling visual representations of complex data to effectively convey insights, along with the application of storytelling techniques to communicate findings clearly to both technical and nontechnical audiences. The program covers adherence to ethical standards in data science, privacy, transparency and fairness as well.

The program draws on Purdue’s expertise in myriad aspects of data science. Known for its emphasis on practical programs with proven value, Purdue has been rated among the Top 10 Most Innovative Schools for six years running by U.S. News & World Report and is the No. 8 public university in the U.S. according to the latest QS World University Rankings.

“The breadth and depth of topics that data science encompasses necessitate graduate programs that incorporate expertise from a variety of disciplines and then integrate this into a curriculum to meet the needs of its students,” said John Springer, a Purdue computer and information technology professor who was involved in developing the new degree. “Purdue’s unique approach to the development and delivery of its new online master’s program wholly fulfills these requirements by utilizing a highly interdisciplinary team of Purdue faculty backed by Purdue’s outstanding team of instructional designers.”

For more information about Purdue’s 100% online Master of Science in data science degree, visit the program website .

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives .

Media contact: Brian Huchel, [email protected]

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Press Releases

Altice USA to Present at the 2024 Bank of America Securities Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Altice USA (NYSE: ATUS) today announces that Dennis Mathew, Chairman and CEO, and Marc Sirota, CFO, will present at the 2024 Bank of America Securities Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference in New York on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, at 1:10 p.m. Eastern Time. A live webcast will be available online on the Altice USA investor relations website or by following this link .

Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2024 Time: 1:10 p.m. Eastern Time Presenters: Dennis Mathew, Chairman & CEO and Marc Sirota, CFO

About Altice USA

Altice USA (NYSE: ATUS) is one of the largest broadband communications and video services providers in the United States, delivering broadband, video, mobile, proprietary content and advertising services to approximately 4.7 million residential and business customers across 21 states through its Optimum brand. We operate Optimum Media, an advanced advertising and data business, which provides audience-based, multiscreen advertising solutions to local, regional and national businesses and advertising clients. We also offer hyper-local and international news through our News 12 and i24NEWS networks.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240827037904/en/

Investor Relations John Hsu: +1 917 405 2097 / [email protected] Sarah Freedman: + 631 660 8714 / [email protected]

Media Relations Lisa Anselmo: +1 516 279 9461 / [email protected] Janet Meahan: +1 516 519 2353 / [email protected]

Source: Altice USA

Released August 27, 2024

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USDA Invests Nearly $4.1 Million in Risk Management Education for Farmers, Including Underserved and Organic Producers

  Back to News Releases

WASHINGTON, August 8, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced it is awarding nearly   $4.1 million to organizations and outreach efforts to educate underserved, small-scale, and organic producers on farm risk management and climate-smart farm practices. The funding from USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) provides assistance through its Risk Management Education Partnerships for organizations, such as nonprofits and land grant universities, to develop training and resources for producers about risk management options.  

“This funding and these partnerships are key to the success of our outreach and education efforts in communities that historically have not had access to training about risk management options. Our Risk Management Education Partnerships are part of USDA’s broader efforts to ensure equity and access to programs,” said RMA Administrator Marcia Bunger during a virtual event announcing the 2024 recipients. “We need to work with growers, and livestock producers to provide them with the training and resources about risk management options and how to apply them to their farming businesses, and these partnerships will help us do just that.” 

This nearly $4.1 million investment builds on the $13 million that RMA has already provided in partnerships since 2021. RMA advertised available funding in January 2024 and reviewed 41 applications. 

This year’s partnership projects will reach every state in the nation, including eight state-specific, four regional, and three national programs. Out of the 15 organizations receiving funding, six are new partners and nine are current or former partners, including non-profits and university extensions, among others. 

One of the 2024 awardees, Right Risk, LLC, a non-profit group dedicated to providing top notch risk management education will continue their outreach work. “The funding we’ve received through our Risk Management Education partnership will allow us to continue outreach to Alaskan producers,” said Jeff Tranel, Owner and Chief Financial Officer for Right Risk, LLC. “We use on-site trainings, recorded presentations, newsletters, one-on-one coaching, printed materials, and the Right Risk Alaska-specific website to educate producers in Alaska about risk management options.” 

The 2024 awardee organizations and their projects include:  

• Cross Over Community Development – Provides comprehensive educational sessions on production, marketing, financial, legal and human risks geared to small-scale immigrant farmers. 
• Georgia Organics – Offers outreach and educational programing to organic and underserved farmers in Georgia about risk management options, business strategies and record keeping.  
• Napa Valley Grapegrowers – Provides risk management education to 500 Napa wine grape producers on: climate smart agriculture, organic and specialty crop farming, Crop Insurance 101 and water conservation.  
• Oregon Tilth – Increases awareness, understanding, and use of crop insurance and risk management tools by organic producers and those transitioning to organic production.  
• Northeast Organic Farming Association – Supports Vermont farmers by increasing their knowledge of climate-smart agriculture, risk management tools and crop insurance. 
• Right Risk, LLC – Develops multi-faceted approach to assist Alaskan producers understand and implement crop insurance and risk management strategies to improve their opportunities for success.  
• Rural South Institute – Builds resilient farm operations through increased participation in crop insurance and adoption of value-added and climate-smart agricultural practices.  
• University of Arkansas – Delivers workshops that support young Native American beginning farmers and ranchers by equipping them with culturally appropriate risk mitigation strategies focused on climate resilience and strengthening local Tribal food economies.  
• University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture – Provides online and in-person Train-the-Trainer workshops, including all 1890 Land Grant Institutions on the fundamentals of federal crop insurance.   
• University of Connecticut –  Delivers program designed to mitigate financial and production risks through on-farm tours, online classes and a crop insurance decision application tool for producers.  
• University of Maine – Educates farmers about mitigating risks due to climate events, pest outbreaks, market changes and poor business skills through increased awareness and understanding of federal crop insurance programs. 
• University of Nevada, Reno – Assists producers understanding of existing and emerging federal crop/livestock insurance programs in Nevada and throughout the West while focusing on local and regional food systems.  
• RMA Southeast Ambassador – designed to strengthen the agency’s outreach, engagement, and impact within the agricultural community by creating channels for two-way communication and feedback, ensuring programs meet the needs of underserved agricultural communities in 13 states in the Southeast region.  
• Tribal Ambassador – designed to strengthen the agency’s outreach, engagement, and impact to better meet the unique agricultural needs of farmers and ranchers within Tribal communities.
• Navigator Learning Platform – partnership with Custom Ag Solutions to strengthen technical assistance to underserved producers by training specialists tasked with providing outreach and technical assistance on key topics related to crop insurance.  

More Information

Crop insurance is sold and delivered solely through private crop insurance agents. A list of crop insurance agents is available at all USDA Service Centers and online at the  RMA Agent Locator . Learn more about crop insurance and the modern farm safety net at  rma.usda.gov or by contacting your  RMA Regional Office . 

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. Under the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit  usda.gov .  

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                                       USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender.

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How a Law That Shields Big Tech Is Now Being Used Against It

A Massachusetts professor has filed a lawsuit against Meta using a novel interpretation of Section 230, a law known primarily for shielding social media companies from liability.

By David McCabe

Reporting from Washington

Facebook, X, YouTube and other social media platforms rely on a 1996 law to insulate themselves from legal liability for user posts. The protection from this law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act , is so significant that it has allowed tech companies to flourish.

But what if the same law could be used to rein in the power of those social media giants?

That idea is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in May against Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The plaintiff has asked a federal court to declare that a little-used part of Section 230 makes it permissible for him to release his own software that lets users automatically unfollow everyone on Facebook.

The lawsuit, filed by Ethan Zuckerman, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the first to use Section 230 against a tech giant in this way, his lawyers said. It is an unusual legal maneuver that could turn a law that typically protects companies like Meta on its head. And if Mr. Zuckerman succeeds, it could mean more power for consumers to control what they see online.

“I see and appreciate the elegance of trying to use a piece of law that has made user-generated content possible, to now give users more control over those experiences and services,” he said.

Section 230, introduced in the internet’s early days, protects companies from liability related to posts made by users on their sites, making it nearly impossible to sue tech companies over defamatory speech or extremist content.

Mr. Zuckerman has focused on a part of Section 230 that spells out protection for blocking objectionable material online. In 2021, after a developer released software to purge users’ Facebook feeds of everyone they follow, Facebook threatened to shut it down. But Section 230 says it is possible to restrict access to obscene, excessively violent and other problematic content. The language shields companies from liability if they censor disturbing content, but lawyers now say it could also be used to justify scrubbing any content users don’t want to see.

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