Don’t Use Overly Technical Jargon
If you’re in an industry that has a lot of jargon and shorthand, then of course you’ll need to use what’s appropriate, but you should avoid “business jargon” (such as ‘blue sky thinking’) – be clear and concise about what you mean, and don’t try to wrap it in fancy sounding terms that leave people wondering what on earth you’re on about.
Provide Visuals Often
Lines and lines of data, facts and figures, can be very difficult to visually digest – and people are, generally, very visual creatures. Break up your presentation with visuals that aid in making your point, especially if it’s more complex or a particular highlight (graphs can be a wonderful encouragement to an audience when you’re highlighting just how much something has increased or decreased over time).
You’re not just breaking up the content to help your audience understand your point – you want to make an emotional connection, and you also need to give them a breather from the wall of information, so they have time to digest what you’re saying to them.
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Match Your Content with Your Audience
If you’re delivering your presentation to a room of your peers, then you can match the content with your experience, safe in the knowledge that they will understand what you’re talking about – but if you’re dealing with an audience who are only peripherally involved, or looking to get involved (such as first time investors), then you must be understandable – you need to find that balance between giving them the information in a way they understand (whilst not being seen as talking down to them) and remaining professional.
Identifying the experience level of your audience is crucial – if you get it wrong you could be seen as an incompetent (at one end of the scale) or completely unintelligible (at the other).
Putting together a great presentation is more than just handling data, it’s understanding your own goals, what the presentation needs to achieve, and who the target audience are – once you’ve nailed down this information, you can create a financial presentation that specifically caters to your audience, and reaches them appropriately.