Category: PowerPoint

Three Mistakes to Avoid in Making Your Elevator Pitch

elevator business pitch

elevator pitch

elevator pitch mistakes

Rick Enrico

sales pitch

May 22, 2014

An elevator pitch is a short but persuasive speech that aims to spark interest in what your business does. It is also used to generate interest in a particular project, concept, or product. Ideally, an elevator pitch shouldn’t last longer than a short elevator ride (about 30-45 seconds).With that very small window of opportunity, it may seem hard to get a pitch right. There are several ways Entrepreneur contributor Dwight Peters provides on perfecting an elevator pitch. It would also help, however, to be aware of the most common elevator pitch mistakes.Apart from avoiding such mistakes, you’d be able to project a more confident front once you finally make your pitch. So, let’s get started with these three mistakes:

Focusing on Yourself

While your professional success can be a good thing, talking about it for too long would only alienate your audience. It will make you sound like an arrogant know-it-all who believes he’s better than them.Don’t lose sight of your main goal, which is to establish a connection with your listeners. Remember that like any human being, they’re mostly interested in how you can help them, not amaze them with your numerous credentials. You can establish this much-needed connection by linking what you do with an existing need or problem. A good problem slide can help you explain this part.When you explain to your audience what it is that you do, do not be too general in your approach. It is best to be specific. It will make your elevator pitch as relevant as possible.

Using Technical Lingo

In making your pitch relevant, see to it that you avoid jargons and buzzwords that only you or someone in your industry understands. Otherwise, you will only succeed in creating a communication gap between you and your audience. As a result, you will lose their attention quickly.Remember, the goal of the elevator pitch is not to show how extensive your vocabulary is. Using words a potential investor or customer don’t understand will not impress them. It will only backfire on you.

Bragging about Your Company

Similar to talking too much about yourself, people aren’t that interested in hearing you brag about your company. While presenting your product or service’s unique features may be essential in highlighting your advantage over the competition, your audience won’t speculate on the process you use to get results.Ultimately, the only thing that matters to them is what’s in it for them. So focus more on explaining the benefits that you offer, not on your process of doing things.

With these things out in the open, you can now focus better on the right steps to take. Keep in mind, though, that there are still some challenges that you might encounter. But as long as you position your business as the one who can provide the best solution to a pressing need, you are off to a good start.

Reference

Peters, Dwight. “6 Tips for Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch.” Entrepreneur. August 27, 2013. Accessed May 22, 2014.

The Big Tease: Sparking Curiosity with Teaser Slide Decks

slide presentation

teaser

teaser presentation

teaser slide deck

teaser slides

May 19, 2014

A teaser slide deck is a powerful tool used to spark curiosity and engage your audience before a full presentation, proposal, or pitch. These decks give a high-level overview of your topic without revealing all the details, creating intrigue and encouraging your audience to seek more information. By offering just enough information to pique interest, you can build anticipation and leave your audience wanting more.Here’s how to create an effective teaser slide deck:

1. Start with a Strong Hook

Your first slide should grab attention immediately. Whether through a bold statement, surprising statistic, or thought-provoking question, the goal is to hook your audience from the very beginning.Why It’s Effective:

  • Captures Attention: A strong opening sets the tone for the rest of the deck and gets your audience curious.
  • Builds Anticipation: An intriguing opening slide makes the audience eager to learn more.

How to Do It:

  • Open with a bold question or statement that relates to the problem you’re addressing.
  • Use a striking visual or data point to immediately engage the audience.

Example: “Did you know that 70% of businesses are leaving money on the table with outdated marketing strategies?”

2. Focus on the Problem, Not the Solution (Yet)

Teaser decks are about building intrigue, so instead of jumping straight to the solution, focus on the problem your audience faces. Highlight the pain points or challenges, and leave the solution for later.Why It’s Effective:

  • Creates Curiosity: Focusing on the problem without immediately providing a solution makes your audience eager to hear how you’ll resolve the issue.
  • Engages Emotionally: Highlighting pain points creates an emotional connection with your audience, making them more invested in your solution.

How to Do It:

  • Describe the problem clearly and concisely.
  • Use visuals or data to reinforce the severity of the issue.

Example: A slide showing the cost of inefficiencies or lost opportunities creates a compelling reason for the audience to stay engaged.

3. Offer a Glimpse of the Solution

While you don’t want to give everything away in your teaser deck, you should offer a hint of the solution to further build anticipation. Show your audience that you have the answer but keep the details under wraps.Why It’s Effective:

  • Keeps the Audience Curious: A glimpse of the solution teases what’s to come without revealing too much.
  • Builds Trust: Demonstrating that you understand the problem and have a solution reassures your audience that you’re capable of solving it.

How to Do It:

  • Provide a brief summary of the solution without going into too much detail.
  • Use phrases like “What if there was a way to…” or “Imagine if you could…”

Example: “Imagine reducing inefficiencies by 30% with one simple solution…”

4. Use Visually Engaging Slides

Teaser decks should be visually appealing to keep the audience’s attention. Use clean, impactful visuals, and limit the amount of text on each slide. The goal is to create an emotional response rather than overload your audience with information.Why It’s Effective:

  • Maintains Interest: Visually engaging slides keep the audience focused and intrigued.
  • Enhances Emotional Impact: Powerful visuals can evoke emotions and make your message more memorable.

How to Do It:

  • Use high-quality images, infographics, or icons to illustrate your points.
  • Limit text to a few key points and let the visuals do the talking.

Example: A teaser slide showing a visual comparison of “before” and “after” scenarios can powerfully convey the potential impact of your solution.

5. End with a Call to Action

Every teaser deck should end with a strong call to action (CTA). The CTA should encourage the audience to take the next step, whether it’s scheduling a meeting, requesting more information, or attending a full presentation.Why It’s Effective:

  • Drives Engagement: A clear CTA encourages the audience to take action and learn more about your solution.
  • Provides Next Steps: Your CTA gives the audience a clear path forward, ensuring they remain engaged after the teaser.

How to Do It:

  • End with a slide that includes a compelling CTA, such as “Contact us for a full demo” or “Join us next week to see how we can help.”
  • Make the CTA specific and actionable.

Example: “Want to learn how we reduced costs by 25%? Contact us for the full case study.”

6. Keep It Short and Sweet

Teaser decks should be concise—just enough to spark curiosity without overwhelming your audience with information. A teaser deck should typically contain no more than 5-7 slides, each focusing on the most important elements.Why It’s Effective:

  • Builds Anticipation: By keeping it brief, you create a sense of urgency and leave the audience wanting more.
  • Prevents Information Overload: Too much information can dilute the intrigue and make your teaser less effective.

How to Do It:

  • Limit your teaser deck to 5-7 slides, focusing only on the essentials.
  • Stick to one key point per slide to keep the message focused.

Final Thoughts

Teaser slide decks are a powerful way to spark curiosity and engage your audience without giving away too much. By focusing on the problem, offering a glimpse of the solution, and using visually engaging slides, you can create intrigue and encourage your audience to seek more information. With a strong call to action and a concise, impactful approach, your teaser deck will leave your audience eager to learn more about what you have to offer.

Adobe Programs for Enhancing Presentation Designs

Adobe programs for PowerPoint

Illustrator

Photoshop

ppt tips

presentation tips

Rick Enrico

SlideGenius Blog

Apr 28, 2014

As we all know, PowerPoint presentations are highly useful for sharing information. We use it to educate, train, motivate, or even to sell. Not all pitch deck presentations are created equal, though. To be effective, your slide decks should be well organized and carry strong visuals. And when it comes to creating visual elements, practically no other tools are as powerful as the Adobe programs.Below are some of the Adobe applications that can enhance your next presentation design:

Adobe Photoshop

Microsoft PowerPoint is considered the industry standard for presentation tools. Adobe Photoshop, on the other hand, continues to set the bar for image editing. When you combine the features of these programs, you have a great chance of creating an effective presentation.Custom backgrounds are among the great things that presenters can create with Photoshop. While you can always use PowerPoint’s preloaded templates, your presentation will only end up looking bland and generic. A Photoshop-created background, on the other hand, will allow your presentation to stand out and look professional.To create your own background, simply choose an image that you want to use. Open it in Photoshop and edit it accordingly. After saving your personalized background image, insert it into the PPT by right-clicking on the slide and then selecting “Format Background.”  One reminder, though. Make sure that the image you use is appropriate to the theme of your presentation design. Otherwise, it will distract your audience.

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator can produce just about any type of images, making it perfect for web graphics, marketing collateral, and, of course, PowerPoint presentations. A vector-based tool, Illustrator is quite different from Photoshop (which is raster-based). This means it works using lines and curves unlike Photoshop, which does its job on a pixel level.Using vectors created in Illustrator has some advantages over Photoshop-edited images. For one, vector objects are scalable. You can change their size without worrying about quality loss.When you create an image in Illustrator, make sure to save it for PowerPoint. To do this, click File and then select “Save For Microsoft Office.” Choose a location for the file, then enter a filename before clicking Save. This command allows you create a PNG file that can be used not only in PPT but also in other Microsoft Office applications.If you need to customize the PNG settings to improve resolution, transparency, or background color, you can just choose Export instead of the Save for Microsoft option.

Saving Files

Graphics imported into PowerPoint usually fall into two main categories: The Bitmap or Paint-Type and the Object-Oriented or Draw-Type.It’s recommended that you choose widely used Bitmap types such as .JPG, .BMP, or .TIF files. Unusual files like QuickTime compressed, PICT, and EPS don’t often translate very well. So when you save or export images, determine the file type carefully to ensure a great looking final image.

References

Akhter, Aquil. “60 Beautiful Logo Design Tutorials And Resources.” Smashing Magazine. April 30, 2009. Accessed April 28, 2014.Bear, Jacci Howard. “What Is the EPS File Format?” About.com. Accessed April 28, 2014.

Maintain Audience Attention With This One Technique

audience

Business Overview Presentation

Custom Designed Presentations

PowerPoint Agency

PowerPoint Design

PowerPoint design experts

PowerPoint Experts

PowerPoint specialist

Powerpoint tips

Presentation Agency

Presentation Company

Presentation Consultation

Presentation Designers

Presentation Firm

Rick Enrico

SlideGenius

Jan 07, 2014

Catching someone’s attention is one thing. Keeping them interested is another.

So here’s your challenge: What can you do to maintain audience attention? It’s almost an unmanageable task due to different factors. For one, every audience member analyzes and processes information differently. This makes appealing to all types of thinkers quite a daunting task.

Another issue is that people have this aversion to sales talks, even if you are simply selling them a particular idea, not a product. So above everything, it’s imperative that your audience learns something interesting about your message instead. There is one rule of thumb that can help you make sure your presentation is above all, understandable….

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

 

A confident man in a suit and glasses presents in a conference room, gesturing towards a screen displaying various data charts and graphs. Seated around the table are attentive colleagues, engaged in the discussion about how to convert data sheets. The room is well-lit with large windows.

 

When drafting up a presentation ask yourself this very simple question throughout the preparation of your PowerPoint. Will my points and train of thought be able to hold audience attention and keep them interested? Is this information useful to them? Is there too much content on this slide? Will they comprehend my message?

But placing yourself in the role of your audience will help guide you to think outside the box. Putting everything in their perspective, when you are outlining and creating your presentation, will not only help you cut down excess (and useless) information but also allow you to design a better PowerPoint.

Selfishness Hinders Audience Connections

While most of us subconsciously create our work in the mindset of thinking about us – think about them instead. Take this theory and apply this to your next presentation, you can practice it by going over your finished presentation and jot down notes at places you may think could use some editing and re-designing.

See if you are wholly interested throughout your PowerPoint presentation, and if your mind seems to wander at moments where information isn’t digestible or understandable. Take that into account because it is likely that your audience’s mind would wander at those exact same moments.

Conclusion

To maintain audience attention for a designated period of time does seem almost impossible. With breakthrough statistics categorizing the average adult attention span at a mere 5-12 minutes long, it makes sense for any professional presenter to panic. Sure, there are a few steps that you can take to enhance  your professional PowerPoint presentations. However, they don’t offer a real guarantee that you will be able to capture audience attention or make them comprehend your ideas completely.

Being able to communicate effectively is the single most important factor in presentation science, regardless of your topic or message, your audience needs to be on the same page as you.

References:

“4 Types of Audience Members You Need to Present For.” SlideGenius, Inc. November 13, 2013.
Vidyarthi, Neil. “Attention Spans Have Dropped from 12 Minutes to 5 Minutes — How Social Media Is Ruining Our Minds [Infographic].” SocialTimes. December 14, 2011.

How to Think Like $5.99 and Not Like $6.00

audience

Custom Designed Presentations

data

Focus

Hans Rosling

Jonah Berger

PowerPoint Agency

PowerPoint Design

PowerPoint design experts

PowerPoint specialist

Presentation Agency

Presentation Company

Presentation Consultation

Presentation Designers

Presentation Firm

presenting

TED

Sep 06, 2013

Imagine you own a clothing store. Now you decide to begin a sale for that store. Let’s say a particular type of shorts usually costs $20 per short, but for the purposes of the sale you’re going to mark them down to $15 a piece.

There are two ways you could present that discount. The first would be as a percentage. Going from $20 to $15 would be 25% off. The second would be as an absolute number with $5 off. Which way is better? Both discounts amount to the same final price. 25% off $20 and $5 off $20 both result in the customer paying $15 for the shorts. So both representations of the discount should have the same effect, right? Wrong. Jonah Berger, author of Contagion, explains to us that the consumers find the 25% discount more attractive than the 5$ off. While the two discounts are the same economically, they don’t trigger the same psychological effect. One feels like a larger discount than the other.Accordingly, the next time you’re reporting numerical information, pay attention to how you are presenting it. The way changes are represented can have a big impact on how they’re perceived.

Focus on the final number.

Like the story above, most people seemed to be more enticed by the offer when the discount number was larger. Rule of thumb would be whenever you are offering a discount under $100 display it as a percentage, and when the offer is greater than $100 display it as an absolute number. This will make sure you are always maximizing your psychological impact. Simpler is better. No one cares about a page of numbers and figures that look like the green screen display from the matrix. You need to simplify your results, and then simplify them again. Think of your raw data as a pile of freshly picked vegetables. People don’t want to eat them when they still have dirt and leave stems on them. People want a quick and painless way to stay healthy, so what do you do? You take those vegetables, clean them, cut them, put them in a blender and make a smoothie. Then you take that smoothie and turn it into a wheatgrass shot. Quick and to the point. So yes, your data should be reduced to the size of a wheatgrass shot! After all, the simpler your can represent your findings, the easier it will be for your audience to understand you, which will in turn make your call-to-action more successful.

Tell a story.

Everyone knows the best stories are the ones told with pictures, so use them. Portraying data graphically reveals patterns in the data that are hard to notice otherwise Visual depictions of data are almost universally understood without requiring knowledge of a language. It is also useful to alter your tone and speed as you approach the finding of any given graph. Much like when telling a story, the storyteller tends to get really excited toward the climax or “best part” of the story; it is not only useful but critical to draw attention to the most important features of the data.I’ll leave you with Hans Rosling’s fascinating TED talk revolved around displaying data effectively, which you can watch here.

References:

Berger, Jonah. “Fuzzy Math: What Makes Something Seem Like A Good Deal?” linkedin. August 28, 2013.Kakutani, Michiko. “Mapping Out the Path to Viral Fame.” The New York Times. February 25, 2013.Rosling, Hans. “The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen.” ted.com. February 2006.

Transform Your Presentations with Expert Design – SlideGenius PowerPoint Pros

audience

Design Experts

Powerpoint

PowerPoint Design

presentation

SlideGenius

Sep 18, 2009

PowerPoint presentations and business conferences are successful only when presenters or hosts convey their messages effectively. Powerful PowerPoint Design Templates will make your presentation impactful even before you start talking. With the right design, your audience, including business partners and clients, will stay engaged and focused.Often, clients attend multiple presentations in a day. Even if your content is impressive, a lackluster design can make them lose interest. A well-designed PowerPoint is essential for capturing and maintaining audience attention.

Why Design Matters

The experts at SlideGenius create custom designs tailored to your company’s needs, allowing you to focus on delivering your message. The design should complement the content and purpose of your presentation. For instance, a medical presentation benefits from a calming, professional theme with ample white space, which can capture audience attention from the outset.Consider the seminar setting when designing your presentation. A detailed, well-designed slide deck ensures your message is understood clearly and effectively. Leave the design to the professionals at SlideGenius, so you can concentrate on delivering valuable content.

Benefits of Professional Design

Professional designers ensure that your presentation:

  • Is free from cluttered bullet points.
  • Uses contrasting colors and text that stand out against the background.
  • Features large, readable text for all audience members, even those in the back row.
  • Avoids overuse of animations.
  • Maintains logical transitions between slides.
  • Has a balanced, aesthetically pleasing design with adequate white space.
  • Utilizes graphics instead of bullet points to clearly convey information.

Why Choose SlideGenius?

At SlideGenius, our experts handle all aspects of PowerPoint design, including legal issues related to design templates, saving you time and money. We ensure your presentation is designed to respect and engage your audience, proving your professionalism and dedication.Let SlideGenius create your next presentation. Focus on your content, while we ensure your design captures and holds your audience’s attention.

A Professional PowerPoint will Help you Sell More!

audience

Design Experts

Powerpoint

presentation

Sound Track Sound

Video Files Used

Sep 16, 2009

PowerPoint presentations together with all the bells and whistles are increasingly used in business and other venues where presentations are given. Do you know that PowerPoint presentations that are professionally designed increase your revenue? It does not matter what kind of business you are in, a professionally designed PowerPoint Presentation is an effective tool to win over your prospects. People retain and comprehend more when they are able to hear and see the information. Therefore, a professional PowerPoint will generate higher revenues for your business.PowerPoint is the latest technology that is being used in the business world to drive sales by explaining their services and products to their prospective clients using it to present slideshows. With PowerPoint a multi – dimensional sales pitch can be created and then, duplicated and sent to several locations where it can be explained to prospective clients by good speakers. These professional PowerPoint presentations can also be emailed to your clients or can be integrated with your web site, if your company owns one, for all visitors to see. Putting static text is not even 10% as effective as a PowerPoint presentation that contains carefully designed presentation of sounds, images and animation.Most businesses that don’t use a professional PowerPoint presentation don’t realize its power to convey information. Professionally made PowerPoint presentations will have all the things such as a premium design, pictures, text and so on, in the right place to produce a strong impact. Professional PowerPoint presentations may be automated and they will contain Excel and Word components, interactive controls, embedded sounds and special effects to make your presentation more appealing to the audience.Three characteristics of a Professional PowerPoint presentation are:Video Files – Used to increase sales and revenue, by visually enticing the potential buyer. To make this possible the professional PowerPoint presentation will contain flash, MPEG, WMV or QuickTime video files. These will be inserted in key places throughout the presentation.Sound Track – Sound is important to motivate your potential clients to purchase from you. Professional PowerPoint presentations will have embedded sound tracks that will be played at the right times. They may also have a sales dialogue embedded in them as this is more effective than text because readers may miss some important points visually, but pick them up through means of audio.Interactive Experience – Professional PowerPoint presentations make the seminar interactive which is more productive and increases the sales of your product.A PowerPoint presentation created by a novice is extremely boring and misses the important points. But, a Professional PowerPoint presentation will be exciting and interesting. The audience will be drawn to you from the time of displaying the first slide till the time you say “Thank You”.Our expert team at SlideGenius will ensure that your presentation is exciting, motivating, interesting and interactive. It will contain video files, sound tracks and many more components that don’t allow the audience to take their eyes and ears off you.Contact SlideGenius today to get a quote for a new PowerPoint presentation for your company.

Powerful Presentations: Unleashing the Expertise of SlideGenius, the Global PowerPoint Design Leaders

Anderson Consulting

presentation

SlideGenius

US

Sep 11, 2009

Microsoft Corporation has several solution providers offering support for their applications; one that stands out is SlideGenius. This solution is used to design PowerPoint presentations and has helped many mid-level enterprises to make huge improvements with their presentations. The company bases all its activities on the premise that first impressions are the most important. The presentations are custom created with engaging content and graphics which have the greatest impact on the viewer. A presentation created by SlideGenius will involve the creation of branded templates, animation, and additional images, as well as any other consultation regarding presentations.This is the PowerPoint age and majority of presentations use this platform to put across certain subject matters in form of a presentation. Many companies and individual entrepreneurs may not have established the power of effective presentations and SlideGenius greatly advocates the use of the services to stimulate sales. According to their research, a number of enterprises have already registered up to a 25 percent increase in sales just by having an effective presentation. Anderson Consulting did a survey that indicated that most sales people indicated that their lack of sufficient PowerPoint skills had contributed to fewer sales than they are capable of.A SlideGenius supported PowerPoint presentation is able to greatly improve a company’s reputation thus, boosting the confidence that customers have in an enterprise.  Sales leads can further be increased which in turn raises the volume of sales. Business people and other corporate entities need to recognize that passing the right message across is one of the most important steps in reaching the intended objectives. With the amount of work that SlideGenius has done so far, they have amassed great experience in producing individual slides or full presentations and the intellectual property from the client is never published. The end result that is produced by SlideGenius is able to appropriately fit a company’s profile in addition to making sure that the message being put across is fitting.A major advantage with SlideGenius is that for them to begin any work for a client the appropriate staff will have to carry out a consultation to know the nature of the presentation to be formulated. Furthermore, this consultation is free of charge. SlideGenius as an entity is always putting in sufficient effort to advance the trade and recently they enhanced their service by integrating BringIt technology which will improve the appearance of presentations. The technology blends PowerPoint messaging and online video streaming technology. The resultant product is an optimized PowerPoint messaging platform that enhances the presentation experience.SlideGenius has received plenty of accolades as a result of its superior performance and the latest one was the Slideboom presentation contest where it received a bronze medal for the PowerPoint design competition. As a result of all the good work done by SlideGenius the service has been used by many corporations to help in the improvement of their presentations, marketing drives and sales pitches. The positive response from clients is a testament of a superior service.