business presentations Archives

3 Ways USPs Make for Successful Business Presentations

Posted on August 24, 2015February 22, 2023 by Rick E

Big ideas are important in business-to-business presentations. The stakes are higher, with both capital and profits on the line. Also called major selling ideas, they act as your pitch’s cornerstone, condensing your offer’s features, advantages, and benefits into an easily understandable and repeatable concept.

A Unique Selling Proposition (or USP) is a marketing concept that allows advertisers to demonstrate a product’s key effectiveness and guides their advertising campaigns’ tone, message, and overall execution. It’s the core that makes any big idea successful. Before stepping into the spotlight, take a step back and analyze if your product is memorable and unique enough to present itself. They may even guide you into becoming a better public speaker.

Here are three ways to use USPs to improve your business presentation technique.

1. It Demonstrates Appreciable Value

People tend to invest in or buy something that either has proven value or improves their daily lives. Examine your potential customers and, if possible, find out their priorities and motivations. Use this information to determine how to best package what you’re selling.

Similarly, focus on figuring out the ideal way of convincing them to buy in or invest. Knowing how your product improves lives is an important part of fine-tuning your message. During your pitch, assert how your product can make your customers’ lives better to grab their attention.

2. It Reveals an Inimitable Quality

Your audience has probably listened to countless unmemorable pitches. If you don’t play your cards right, you could be one of the many failed proposals, especially if you’re presenting to an established business. Pitch yourself as someone who can offer something that no one else can.

Advertisers research on possible competitors to determine their USPs validity and sustainability. Similarly, check out your rivals and figure out how you can get a leg up on them through presentation design. Having a unique and professional-looking deck is a surefire way to impress and engage.

3. It Displays a Strong Hook to Reel Them In

As we’ve discussed before, having the facts is only one part of getting your pitch done. It’s the same with your USP. Flex your creative muscles to craft what you bring to the table into a communicable, understandable, and sellable business proposal.

Package what you must share with your potential investors into a novel idea, and you’ll have the main ingredients to success.

Conclusion

Before you start selling your product, make sure that your product can sell itself.

Pinpointing your USP and fleshing it out requires some intensive research and inspiring creativity. Fortunately, it makes an untold amount of difference in making a simple collection of facts and sentences into an effective marketing strategy.

First, find out how your offer improves your target market’s lives. Second, show them what only you can do, which competitors can’t replicate. Lastly, present your product or service in a creative way. Start applying the concept as an approach to business presentations now and reap the rewards.

References

Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2001). Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective (5th ed.). Boston, Mass.: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
“Fine-tuning Your Presentation’s Core Message.” SlideGenius, Inc.. November 11, 2014. Accessed August 24, 2015.
Reeves, R. (1961). Reality in advertising. New York: Knopf.
“Unique Selling Proposition (USP).” Entrepreneur. Accessed August 24, 2015.

Featured Image: “Apples-Stand-Out” by Flazingo Photos on flickr.com

3 Ways Simplicity Gives Better PowerPoint Presentation Ideas

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Rick E

We’ve mentioned before that giving a presentation is similar to marketing and advertising. This is why you need a simplistic deck for better PowerPoint presentation ideas.

But what exactly makes what Cutting Edge Advertising author Jim Aitchison calls the “less is more” principle effective enough to make ad agency gurus and professional presenters rely on them? Why do professional presenters like those who give the TED Talks make better impressions?

There are three reasons why simplicity gives better presentations.

According to ad veteran Luke Sullivan, all of them rely on a principle made by one of the founders of the ad agency behind the famous Volkswagen ads: “…they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

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1. Simplicity Gets Your Point Across

Aside from being able to sell effectively, Aitchison suggests that an ad needs to be understandable. This is the same requirement that every professional PowerPoint presentation needs in order to sell.

With simplicity, your sales pitch becomes more understandable, accurate and concise, letting you state your main point and tell your clients what they get out of your proposed product from the start.

2. Simplicity Cuts Through The Competition

Everyday, people are being bombarded with a clutter of advertisements. Clients face a similar situation with presenters. With all the other pitches to sit through, they need to sort through every potential partner’s gimmicks and extra bells and whistles.

With simplicity, you get to state what you can do, what clients get out of your offer and what advantages you have to outsell the competition.

3. Simplicity Gives More Creativity

With a simplistic strategy, you have more room to be creative and interesting. Once you know your product and your position in the market (be it an industry leader, an upstart underdog or a company playing second fiddle), start crafting your PowerPoint slide designs and your speech around highlighting your current strengths.

For example, do you want to highlight your achievements as the best company in the industry? Do you want to feature your advantages over the top companies? Do you want to introduce a new product’s advantages and benefits to the client?

It all depends on how you want to present your company to your client. One effective way to do this is to keep it simple enough to be interesting.

The Main Ingredient: Look To Your Product

Those questions are simple strategies that give room to let your presentation visual design ideas do the talking, a specialty of PowerPoint design professionals. The answer to doing all this lies in finding that one thing that makes your product interesting.

To know more about how to highlight your best ideas, take a few minutes to get in touch with us, all for free!

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References

“Ad Agency Tricks: Outsell Competitors in Sales Presentations.” SlideGenius, Inc. 2015. Accessed August 21, 2015.
Aitchison, Jim. Cutting Edge Advertising: How to Create the World’s Best Print for Brands in the 21st Century. 2nd ed. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.
Great Volkswagen Ads. Accessed August 21, 2015.
Sullivan, Luke. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. 3rd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Four Types of Feedback for Improving Business Presentations

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Rick E

Giving a presentation doesn’t stop when you’ve finished speaking or addressing client concerns.

Staying relevant to your audience means being aware of how people receive your pitch. You need feedback and criticism to learn how to improve your business presentations’ speech tone, slide content, and delivery style.

In an anthology on integrated marketing, Dawn Iacobucci and Bobby Calder compile a collection of marketing wisdom. One of the chapters presents four types of feedback to sort through and learn from, similar to how companies use feedback to improve both their credibility and customer relationships: the disgusters, delighters, annoyances, and frills.

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Sorting the Four Types of Feedback

After giving your sales pitch, remember how the audience reacted.

Did they agree with some parts of your presentation? Did they look bored with lengthy explanations? Were there times that they laughed along with your jokes?

Group these reactions into positive and negative groups, then sort the four types:

1. Delighters

Reactions like nodding in agreement, applauding and laughing at compelling visuals are all part of the delighters category.

This is a type of positive feedback that contributes the most to a successful presentation. It defines what you’re good at doing and tells you what works and what you should retain the next time you give the presentation again.

2. Disgusters

The polar opposite of the first item, the disgusters are parts of your presentation that form the bulk of your negative impressions. These are important issues that need to be addressed if you wish to improve your presentation style.

If your listeners seem bored because of text-heavy slides, complicated graphs and a heavy reliance on note cards, sort through these to find out what to avoid next time.

3. Annoyances

While not as serious as the second type, annoyances are minor inconveniences that can be overlooked but should also be considered as points for improvement.

Seemingly simple habits like pausing too often or linking your sentences with filler words might go unnoticed, but can be problematic if done too often and not curbed with practice.

4. Frills

Your presentation’s extra bells and whistles are pleasing to see but only act as support to the PowerPoint and yourself.

Appropriate ambient music and fancy fonts are nice touches, but these must be properly used with the delighters to make your presentation effective.

To maximize this, define your main idea and supporting points first, then know your client’s expectations.

The Takeaway

While these four types of feedback help identify your strengths and weaknesses as a presenter, be aware of how your words and actions affect your audience.

Making a great impression of yourself, your company and your brand plays a big part in selling your products and services.

To help you maximize these positive impressions, all you need to do is get a reliable presentation partner to help you out.

Download free PowerPoint templates now.

Get professionally designed PowerPoint slides weekly.

References

“A Presentation Expert’s Guide to Knowing the Audience.” SlideGenius. April 28, 2015. Accessed July 21. 2015.
“Avoiding Filler Words in Your Corporate Presentations.” SlideGenius. May 11, 2015. Accessed July 21. 2015.
Iacobucci, D., Calder, B. J., J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, & Medill School of Journalism. (2003). Kellogg on integrated marketing. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
Royston, Mary. “What Is Values-Based Marketing?” CreditUnions. August 28, 2006. Accessed July 21. 2015.

Developing an Introduction for Your Business Presentations

Posted on July 20, 2015April 21, 2024 by Rick E

Introductions are crucial parts of business presentations, capturing the crowd’s attention before the presenter proceeds to his main topic. Your introduction should fulfill two purposes: to win your audience’s attention and clarify your topic and purpose.

Favorable Attention Step

Communicologist Eugene White (1960) suggested the following tips on how to receive favorable attention:

Point out your subject’s significance to raise the stakes and demonstrate how your topic affects important factors. Attaching a sense of urgency to your presentation, directly or indirectly, makes your audience listen intently.
Use pleasantry, wit, and humor. This is a classic oratory flourish of master presenters who entertain while informing listeners.
Make a stimulating statement, refer to a famous quotation, or ask a provocative question to stimulate thoughtfulness and curiosity.
Mention common bonds with your listeners. People like speakers they can relate to. Bring out mutual traits, beliefs, life experiences, and goals to build common ground between you and your listeners.
Pay the crowd a sincere compliment. A happy crowd is a crowd that listens.

Using one or a combination of the previous methods can guarantee total audience engagement.

Clarification Step

After you have their eyes and ears, connect your opener with what you need to say. Clarify and link your introduction to your main topic with the following tricks:

State your speech’s point or purpose. Directly referring to your intentions immediately connects your introduction to your objectives and to your whole presentation.
Explain how you plan to develop your topic to give your audience a clue on your presentation’s length. This prepares them to gauge the amount of time you’ll be taking.
Provide necessary preliminary definitions and explanations, especially if your topic requires a technical approach. When dealing with a lot of unavoidable jargon, get it out of the way before proceeding.

This phase acts as a transition that guides your listeners’ initial curiosity into rapt attention. You can’t simply jump from attention-grabbing straight into your presentation’s main body.

Tying Them Together

When used in conjunction, these two processes make for effective introductions that attract and engage while keeping in line with your message and purpose. They’re like a one-two punch combination, where you set up and measure the range before dealing the most significant blow.

Open your discussion with a favorable attention step that suits your audience, occasion, and topic. Afterwards, ease your listeners into the body of your speech by proceeding to the clarification step.