Much of the advice given in relation to successful presentations seems to focus on not only what you are saying but also on what you use to enhance it. We are told to use props to make it more exciting, and to use PowerPoint to make it more interesting but while attending a presentation recently I realised that it is very easy to go too far with this.

PowerPoint is a very useful and powerful tool which can be used to sum up what you are saying in useful bullet points, show graphs or charts to back up statistics or figures, and show simple diagrams, etc., but unfortunately it is also often used as the main focus of the presentation and can in fact work against the speaker.

It should be a prop and not the main character in your presentation.

I myself once made the mistake of putting almost everything that I was saying into my bullet points, and was told that my audience had read it all before I had said it, which was great because they were paying attention but also not good because it made the purpose of the presentation pointless. They weren’t actually even listening to me. I could have handed out leaflets and said nothing at all.

The other error that seems to be made quite often is the overuse of PowerPoint tools. A bright, colourful, and eye-catching background might make it stand out more but it also draws too much attention away from the speaker. The swirly texts are fun, but if the audience is struggling to read what is on the whiteboard/screen then they aren’t listening to what you are saying. The presentation that I recently attended had a very annoying cartoon character jumping around the screen, a mixture of different fonts and text sizes, and a bright yellow background. I remember the PowerPoint presentation but I missed so much of what the speaker was saying because I was focusing too much on the wall; even when I tried to look away it kept drawing my attention back to the slide-show.

It is fun to have a character, it definitely makes things more interesting, but keep things basic and try not to overdo it, have a character and plain slides. Or have colourful slides but a plain black typeset.

And if I could give one tip only, it would be to find out if it is possible to view the PowerPoint slide-show in the room you will be presenting in before you actually present; and do so from the back of the room so that you can see that the text is readable, that your backgrounds aren’t too bright, and that your little characters do not steal the limelight from you.

Sharren L Bessant

If you have a lot of information to show, or a concept to get across then one example may be a target segment chart.

It is a bit like a pie chart, but has a number of segmented rings around it.  It could be used for something such as a go-to-market, or a sales strategy chart, or to show the way that a customer base is segmented.

We have produced it in versions of 3 to 6 segments.  These have been designed so that you can change the colours, scale in size, or add pictures to the charts.

Again, these are all editable and printable so you can tailor them for your individual rewards!

Click here to see our other certificate templates.

They could be used as a teaching aid to show some of the concepts of geometry.  All of the shapes have been created using PowerPoint and they can all be coloured or scaled to size.

Here is a water bubbles template.  It was taken under water in the sea in Greece by our Editor with his underwater camera.  It took quite a lot of shots to get this right.

It could be used for a presentation on the underwater world, fish, the sea, oceans, liquid or the song ‘Blowing Bubbles’.

That’s the situation we find ourselves in at the leaving presentation, of course. This is something that comes to us all in the end.

But if you follow a few simple pointers, it needn’t fill you with terror.

First, keep it brief. Nobody expects you to talk for twenty minutes: three to five minutes would be more like the right length.

Second, keep it informal. Although there might be a little sadness, especially if you’ve been with the company for many years and have lots of friends, the occasion is basically about wishing you well and celebrating your achievements. You’ll probably have just listened to a brief address by your boss in which he or she paid tribute to your good qualities – but also mentioned an amusing memory or two. You could do the same about your colleagues, as long as your story is funny and inclusive.

Third, talk about some memory, something that brings a smile to everyone’s face.

Fourth, say how much you’ve enjoyed being part of the team, working on shared projects, experiencing the camaraderie.

Fifth, say a little about your future plans, what you’ll be doing.

Sixth, thank everyone for the present and tell them how much you’ll miss them.

Those are all good things to do. Now here are a few things you definitely shouldn’t do.

Don’t waffle, ramble or drift off the point into some interminable and boring story that no one wants to hear. The key word is punchy (not punch-drunk).

Don’t criticise the company or anyone there; even if your boss makes Attila the Hun look compassionate and caring, now is not the time to mention it. In fact, there is probably never a time for that, because you might need a reference from that very place. You might even want to use the services of your old company in your new role elsewhere. Not burning your boats is always good advice (even on dry land).

Don’t brag. Even if you’ve landed a dream job, earning in a month what you used to work a year for, keep it to yourself. There’s something to be said for downplaying your prospects rather than beefing them up.

If you stick to these suggestions, your leaving speech should be enjoyable for all concerned. And one last word of advice: rehearse it before you actually give it. Practice may not make perfect, but it does eliminate horrible bloopers.

By David Vickery

We have included a transparent stamp framework so that you can make your own postage stamps.  To keep with the theme we have also added some bullet points in the shape of an envelope.

This would work well as a fun template to send a message to your loved ones who are overseas (you can email it so that it will arrive faster).  It could also be used for a presentation on the post, the postal service, stamps, philately the history of communications, air mail or aviation.

The shapes come in a range of different colours and sizes including a manila packing box and shapes with isometric views. They can be given 3D-type effects by colouring in the different sides.

So far in our series on investor presentations, you’ve told a compelling and interesting story as to why you started your company.  That introduction flowed into a clear description of the problem.  You have also described the size of the problem.  Now it’s time for Tim Taylor to share presenting your solution.

When you describe your solution it’s important to stay on track, keeping it simple.  Remember, you’ve got them engaged because you’ve kept the attention of as many people in the audience as possible because it’s understandable.

When you talk about your solution you have to keep it in the context of the problem that you presented on the problem slide.  Too frequently, the entrepreneur wants to get into deep and wide descriptions of why their solution works.

It’s understandable, of course, because you are at the point in the presentation where you are talking about what makes you great.  It’s also understandable because when you are in front of a group of investors you are making a presentation that may determine the livelihood of the company you started.

A few items to consider when presenting your solution:

1. Life after your solution:  I LOVE the idea of presenting your company in the context of what life is like before and after your product.  If you’ve articulated the problem clearly enough on the first slide then flowing to the solution should be easy.

Describe how much time and wasted effort might be saved with your software.  Describe how much safer and more effective your medical device is.  Anything to hook the audience as to why you make a difference.

2. Stay away from technology/science:  Describing how you solve a problem does not need to include a detailed description of how exactly you solve that problem.  I’ve found that when entrepreneurs endeavour to explain how they solve the problem early in the presentation it’s almost certain to get detailed and confusing.

3. Talk about how you solved problems before:  If this is your first start-up consider sharing with the audience how you’ve seen and solved problems for companies before in this market.  It’s not unusual for the start-up to be in a market that the entrepreneur is very familiar with.

This is often where it’s most difficult for the entrepreneur to step back and crisply and clearly articulate the value the company provides.  I understand that in start-ups the solution that you provide often has a long list of benefits that it either already does or will do.

Most often there are one or two major problems that your company solves, and the ones beyond that just aren’t as compelling.  For example, I worked with a company that solved a problem in the project management space.  Their main focus was on solving the way commitments were agreed upon and monitored.

The key to the solution was that the software created mutual accountability as well as increased visibility into the commitments.  There were a number of additional smaller items that were solved with the product but these were the two main ones and the ones the entrepreneur focused on.

In my consulting I find that when we get to the point where we’ve clearly articulated the problem and solution the entrepreneur begins to feel the confidence of a compelling investor proposition.  It’s empowering to know that you’ve actually made it through two of the most important slides of the presentation by articulating that there is a large problem and you have a unique solution.

However, when you get to that point, the investor is going to want to know how you are different from what’s already out there.  That’s why the next slide in the presentation that I will describe is how to describe the competition.

Tim Taylor

Tim Taylor is the founder of My Pitch Coach (www.mypitchcoach.com)