Creating a compelling business PowerPoint requires more resources than you think.

To convince your investors, you need sales and market data from your accounting teams. Thoroughly pitching your products requires having to talk to your sales and marketing divisions. Meanwhile, you’ve got to coordinate with your creative teams to make your presentation more visually engaging. That’s not counting the coffee, snacks, and energy drinks to keep yourself awake long enough to put all of these together.

Indeed, making your PowerPoint impressive requires considerable effort, but with the right supplies, you’ll survive the worst and power through to the end. Let’s take a look at three tips to make stockpiling your resources easier.

1. Have a Dedicated Information Source

Resources are always a necessity for any business. The question is, how much of them do you need? (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 16).

The same applies to the information you’ll be using for your presentation. Luckily, there’ll always be someone in your company who can give it to you, be it the marketing team, sales department, or even the middle managers. The trick is to know who holds which information. That way, you’ll avoid asking people who can’t help you or, worse, people who only give blank zombie-like stares, saving you time when gathering information.

Aside from your marketing and sales departments, you could glean insights from your customers to make your presentation more convincing. This information could come from your in-house or partnered research group. It could even come from your customer care people if you have them.

Once you find out who has the info, get to these people… fast.

Other companies are on reconnaissance for bits of info. Like hungry scavengers, they want to find them before you do.

2. Delegate Your Tasks

Everyone in the company will be skilled at something (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 23) in order to survive.

Simply tossing the entire presentation deck to your admin assistant won’t cut it. Because each of your teams will have their own specialties, it’s best to collaborate when you can.

Better yet, make a quick list of who edits what. This is vital for getting your facts and talking points straight. Your finance team could lay out the data in a more understandable format, your marketing team could simplify the technical words, and your creative team can make the designs more appealing.

By splitting the work between your departments, you’ll end up finishing the deck faster. With different people and departments adding to the presentation, this will familiarize yourself with each person’s specialized knowledge.

Knowing more about your topic from different perspectives makes you more confident. In effect, you’ll avoid sounding like a droning, aimless zombie when presenting.

3. Communicate Regularly with Your Teams

Every business grows. Even your competitors.

This is why you have to safeguard your sources while improving your team’s collaboration.

Information isn’t meant to be holed up in a prison. It should be free to spread and grow stronger. There will always be new updates: higher sales figures and projections, new images and designs from your creatives, and new products from your marketing department. In order to keep offering the best for your clients, keep yourself well-stocked with these developments.

Stay ahead of the competition as much as possible. To do that, safeguard the backbone of your business (Michaelson & Michaelson 2010, 87). In this case, this means your information sources. You’ll never know when someone will eventually surround your base and steal your business right from under your nose.

Survival is The Key

In a fast-paced, dog-eat-dog environment, those who allocate and use their resources wisely reach the top of the pile. Your presentation bug-out bag should include all the necessary information to survive any speaking engagement.

Keep yourself updated with everything about the competition, and be on alert for new insights you can use to improve your company. This will keep you ahead of the game, long enough to establish a profitable relationship with your business partners.

To help give you the extra edge, you can even get in touch with a presentation partner. It’ll only take a few minutes for a FREE quote!

Check out and share our infographic with your teammates!

References

Michaelson, Gerald A., and Steven Michaelson. Sun Tzu the Art of War for Managers, Second Edition: 50 Strategic Rules Updated for Today’s Business. 2nd ed. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 2010.