I usually present 100 to 150 presentations every year so I have some experience. I don’t say I’m the No.1 presenter buy I hope my presentation skill might be average or hopefully slightly better than average.
I have my own style of business presentation. I think each businessman has their own style. I don’t want to say, my style is better than yours. I think we can improve our own style based on your preference and strength.
But I think there are common mistakes that everyone has to avoid. If we can avoid that pitfall, we can get at least an average score then get more scores based on your style and strength.
I would like to introduce 11 common mistakes in business presentations.
1. Not know agenda
If we don’t know the agenda, how do we prepare a presentation?
We can’t prepare it. If we can’t prepare anything for a meeting, we can’t attract the customer and may waste some time on unnecessary topics which the customer may not be interested in. Then finally we may lose the opportunity to introduce our product which results in lose some business. No agenda, No meeting.
In order to avoid such a situation, we should make sure the agenda in order to know the customer’s interest and our intention for this meeting and we will prepare the presentation slide to address the agenda.
So the agenda is useful to make sure what we will talk about and avoid misunderstanding and control expectation.
2. Not know attendee
If we don’t know about the customer’s attendees especially the number of attendees, job function, and title. We can’t prepare the slide to address customer interest.
If we know that one of the attendees is a purchaser who is responsible for purchasing components, we can prepare some market info to explain supply & demand status and also price trend as well as product roadmap to show the longevity support of the product. And when some engineers join the meeting, we can prepare some technical slides such as common issue & technology trend of the industry, new function & feature adopted in the market, a performance spec comparison between old product and new product.
3. Not know slides we already showed
If we don’t know which slides we showed in previous meetings, we may show the same slides again without any update. That’s boring for the customer and they won’t join for next meeting. Or if there is a slide we showed twice, we and the customer waste some time because it’s unnecessary at all for both sides to explain the same slide again.
The meeting should be productive and we need to provide useful information that will satisfy our customers and make them want to participate in the next meeting. So we have to check the slide deck used in the previous meeting and to know what is new for the customer.
4. Death by Powerpoint
The most important thing is NOT to use a presentation tool such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides before you make a clear plan. You will waste so long time to make slides because you need so many iterations to make a plan.
If you have a clear plan, you can finish slides for a short time because you know what you need to make. It’s much faster to use a pen and note or whiteboard rather than Powerpoint to make a plan.
5. Use the same slide deck
I used to use the same presentation deck for all customer meetings without any consumerization! I thought I could skip the slide that each customer was not interested in. But the reality was I spent a long time on unnecessary slides and I run out a time for necessary slides. This was a painful result since I spent a lot of time and money on a business trip and I couldn’t get the necessary info and lost the opportunity to discuss.
If we prepare or modify a slide deck based on the customer’s interest or agenda, we can avoid this mistake and focus on the necessary slides.
6. Small text
If the text is too small, attendees can’t read the message, which may lead to the attendee’s frustration. Attendees may lose attention to a presenter.
From my experience, it was advised that 18-point of font size is a minimum. If you use a larger font size than 18-point, I think the attendee can read it. Although we may need a larger font size in case of a big meeting room or a big conference.
7. Too many messages
If there are so many texts on a slide, the attendee may read the text message without listing to my talk. Because attendee want to know what’s next and it’s much faster to read the text than listening to my talk. Then I lose the attendee’s attention. And also it’s not easy to digest too many messages.
I believe it’s better to provide 1 message in 1 slide to keep the attendees’ minds organized and focused.
8. Ask vogue questions
I think the unclear questions may lead to unclear answers. When we ask the following open question we can not get any feedback from customers.
“Do you have any issue with your future product?”
The point is to try to be specific. I usually make a slide to draw a scenario about an issue or challenge that a customer may face in the future based on our assumption. Then we ask
“Do you agree on this scenario or have another scenario?”
If possible I try to put some value in the scenario. I prefer to have a quantitative discussion with some value rather than a qualitative discussion.
9. Surprize other attendees
If you go to the customer meeting without reviewing your slides with other attendees and you may surprise them. When other attendees have different understanding or opinions there might be some internal discussion. Customers don’t want to see it and lose their attention and trust in your company.
If we did the review with other attendees we can confirm we have the same understanding and then we can deliver the correct message to a customer.
10. Small voices
If your voice is too small, attendees can’t understand what you speak. If your voice is small, attendees may feel you are not so confident.
I think voice volume is a basic but very important factor. If we check the voice volume and speak up enough big we can communicate well with attendees.
11. Enjoy speaking and not ask & discuss
If you enjoy speaking for almost meeting time, we can provide our information but can not get customer information and lose the opportunity to discuss something.
I think the business presentation should be interactive. Even if the main purpose of the meeting is to provide our information we can ask something to confirm customer understanding. Many people want to talk, so I think it’s good to have attendees talk more and we can make the atmosphere of the meeting friendly.
Thank you for reading this post.
Please check how to prepare a business presentation to know the detail of each step.
