The gap between what you say and what your audience hears can be a chasm and make the difference between success and failure of your message or project.

The additional hurdle of presenting data online can mean that you quickly lose the very people who can make all your effort worthwhile.

Presenting – is this you?

• You’re passionate about your topic
• You’ve been researching & working on the information for quite a while
• You’re excited and focused on the detail
• You’re committed to getting the business to share your vision and understanding
• You’ve colleagues are fully on-board and impressed with your summary

Then you make your presentation to the business and … it falls flat or fades from their memory all too quickly. That’s a lot of time and effort wasted. Why does that happen?

We’ve all sat through bad presentations. No-one sets out thinking their presentation is going to be poor, boring or forgettable. Do you remember watching a great presentation, one that sticks in your mind or inspired you to take action? Why did it stand out?

From many years in the data space, including training data leaders to present data effectively, we’ve put together some top tips to improve the impact and success of your data presentations to stakeholders and clients alike;

Top 5 Tips – presenting to a business audience;

1. Talk their language to engage them. Think about their drivers. The way you present to the business should be very different to how you present to your peers.
2. Focus on the high level facts that are easy to digest and remember. Don’t turn them off with lots of technical detail and jargon.
3. Create a memorable story around your key insights or main message for them to connect with and buy in to. Otherwise it will all be forgotten as soon as you finish.
4. Understand the nuances and restrictions of online presentations. There’s different techniques and structure compared to being in the room with them.
5. Define the action you want your presentation to elicit from that particular audience. Don’t leave it open to interpretation or you’ll confuse them about what to do with the information.

That’s 5 top tips that, if done right, will increase your effectiveness and help your message stick … and I haven’t even touched on how to improve your presentation visuals yet.

If you want to see communication at its finest, here’s the Two Ronnies – Four Candles sketch URL: youtube.com/watch?v=gi_6SaqVQSw

Alternatively, we’ve packaged up all you need to know in our “Perfecting Data Presenting” workshop that you can check out here: Perfecting Data Presenting – Training Masterclass