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When you’re giving a presentation, it’s crucial that you don’t go over the time limit.

Whether you’ve set it yourself or have agreed to a time limit set by the meeting organizer, you need to prepare so that you can cover your topic within that time limit. No one will usually complain if you end a minute early, but the moment you go past your time limit, people will get restless and impatient.

It’s disrespectful to ignore the time limit. If you go over by ten minutes, what you’re really saying to the audience is, “what I have to say is so important that I really don’t care what it is that you’re missing while you sit here and listen to me.” And that’s not the message that you want to send to your audience and it certainly won’t help you keep their attention.

(Yes, the situation is different if you are running a discussion, negotiation or brainstorming session where everyone decides that more time is needed. But what I’m talking about here is a presentation where you have a fixed amount of time and a fixed amount of information to convey within that time limit.)

Practice

The best way to determine how long it will take to deliver your content is to practice delivering it and time yourself, particularly if it’s the first time you’ve given this presentation.

There is no magic formula about how long it takes to present a certain number of slides. It depends on how much information is on the slides, how long you take to explain it and whether you answer questions during your presentation or at the end. I’ve seen people spend an hour on one slide. I’ve also seen them deliver twenty slides in three minutes.

Cut out what you don’t need

Focus on what the audience needs to know, rather than everything you could possibly tell them. Eliminate anything that’s not related to your message. If it doesn’t support or help the audience understand your message, eliminate it..

Keep extra material in your notes in case you get a question about it. You can also send it to people before or after the presentation, but don’t clutter your presentation with extraneous information that wastes time.

This is a difficult part of the process, especially if you’re an expert in your field. There’s so much that you could say and that you want to share, but you don’t have the time. So you have to be careful at choosing which facts, stories, examples, data, that you’re going to share and which ones you’re not.

Acknowledge that you are not covering everything

During your presentation, you can say, “in the interest of time, I’m not going to go into detail [on the design of this experiment, the process by which gathered this data, etc.]. If you’re interested, see me afterwards and I’ll share it with you.”

If you stay within your time limit when you’re presenting, the audience is more likely to pay attention and remember your message.

Most business people face the inevitability of having to deliver a presentation at some point. Of course, there are several ways in which you can accomplish that; however, at some point, you will probably use PowerPoint, which can be a really good thing. You need to find a way to really engage your audience and to keep them in the palm of your hand.

The most effective tools to use in your presentation–leveraging PowerPoint

When it comes to delivering a presentation, your goal is to engage your audience members and to get them to participate in a discussion with you and with other audience members. Your presentation is only the launching-off point. After that, your hope is that the people with whom you interacted at your presentation will want to continue to interact with you in some form indefinitely after that.

If the people who originally attended your presentation want to continue interacting with all of you (or just you), that will give you your opportunity to work on relationship with the other people and your ultimate goal, once you relationship has developed and become very solid (after building trust, credibility, positioning yourself as a subject matter expert, and building trustworthiness) is to be in a position of selling your offerings.

When it comes to your relying on PowerPoint to help you deliver your presentation effectively, there are ways to use it that will yield very positive results.

• Get your audience members to engage with each other and with you: As you are presenting your material, it is very important for you to encourage the members of your audience to interact. If you manage to make that happen, using PowerPoint becomes much less of a crutch. Instead, it becomes a nice tool to help you along. However, the real catalyst in that situation is the actual discussion itself. You should use your slides as discussion points. They will help you to keep your thoughts organized and it will drive your discussion in an organized fashion.
• Asking thought-provoking questions is an effective approach: Your questions (as long as they are interesting) will be a starter for your discussion. Everyone likes to feel as though their opinion matters to other people and that is exactly how you make them feel if you ask a question and make it clear that you value whatever they share with you in response. In fact, on the opposite side of the coin, there is nothing worse than asking a question, hoping to engage people and get them to respond to what you are saying, and they say nothing at all. It makes you feel as though they have absolutely no interest in what you are doing and in what you are sharing with them. It makes you feel as though they don’t value you and your business.
• Use PowerPoint in your Web-based presentation: It is certainly not uncommon for you to give a presentation in a WebEx or some other Web-based meeting. In that case, you can make your meeting interactive, just like you would have an interactive meeting if you were in the same room (physically) with your audience. However, the one limitation that you will have in that particular environment is that because you can’t see your audience in person, it may be more difficult to figure out how they are feeling (and thus, reacting) to whatever you are saying. That is about the body language. It is totally acceptable in that situation to recognize and work around the limitation of your audience not actually being in front of you in person. It is probably best not to wait until the end of your presentation to ask your audience if they have any questions or comments.
• Make use of PowerPoint’s interactive capabilities: Just because when you use PowerPoint, you present slides to your audience does not mean that it has absolutely no interactive capabilities. In fact, what you can do is embed links that lead to other information from your LinkedIn presentation. That is extremely easy to do and you can get a great deal of mileage from using back links to other valuable content. If you can manage to establish an interactive relationship and build that aspect into your presentations, you will be able to solidify your relationships and you will see positive results before too long.

Conclusion

Delivering presentations is an important and necessary part of your business (at least, in most cases). It is important that you recognize the significance of your presentations being compelling and engaging. Your short-term goal is to engage people. Make sure that your sincerity and your genuineness comes through every time and that you give your audience a clear idea of what they will gain by attending your presentation. It is a wonderful incentive for them. Your long-term goal is to eventually sell your offerings to those people with whom you have been able to establish a connection.

One of the best ways to convert prospects or to make an impressive statement in your next meeting, is to use custom-designed presentation folders. These marketing elements are incredibly effective in promoting a brand identity, making it the perfect tool for professionals networking with leads, prospects, investors or potential partners. These folders are especially effective when their purpose is to educate. They can be filled with brochures, reports, business cards, and even CD or DVD presentations.

Any folder can be improved with a little conscious design. If you want to make an impressive statement and come across as a competent, capable professional, spend some time really thinking about the identity and brand that you want to promote. By using the right design options, you can fully encapsulate the emotional experience you want people to have when you hand them your eye-catching sales folder.

1. Custom Colors and Designs

When printing folders, there are literally no colors or graphic designs that are off-limits. If you have experience with Photoshop or think you have the creativity to create graphics yourself, you can easily email your completed design to your printer. If you are not as confident in your design abilities, you may want to consider hiring a graphic designer to make your folder graphics more appealing, and project the right emotional experience to the recipients of this vital piece of marketing collateral.

2. Unique Shapes

When it comes to folders, your design can be as wild and complex as you can dream. While standard folders are easily the cheapest option, many creatives or event promoters prefer to have their folders printed and cut into custom shapes. Multiple tabs or pockets can be added to your folder to hold the various pieces of your marketing and education packet.

3. Cutouts and Folds

One graphic designer created a sales folder for his professional services with an overlying front flap cut to resemble the face of a tiger. A business-card sized cutout in the interior pocket is an industry standard, and many companies are choosing many front flap cutouts to showcase a graphic printed on the underlying documents. While the bi-fold folder is by far the most popular, tri-fold or single sheath options are also available.

4. Unique Details and Finishing Elements

Printing operations have become so advanced that nowadays there is literally no folder design option that is out of reach. Consider adding a custom ribbon closure to your folders, or weave a ribbon around the border. Use an enlarged braille or embossed font. Add metal studs or even pop-up elements similar to what you might find in a children’s book.

5. Give Your Audience Something of Value

Consider designing your folder in a way that your audience will want to hold onto and use for other purposes. For instance, a well-designed folder can be designed and printed so the end recipient can use it in other ways, such as a unique poster or door hanger. This gives your prospects the opportunity to interact with your marketing material, and thus your brand, multiple times.