You’ve been asked by your boss to make a presentation for the end of the week, and you’re not sure where to start. This is more than just talking about numbers and plans; you have to make it interesting sot hat your boss and your coworkers will find what you have to say interesting. Employ these six helpful tips, and you’ll become a master of making presentations in no time.

Focusing On Your Audience

Your audience is likely to be half introverts and half extroverts, meaning that they’re going to react to information differently. An online Myers Briggs test can determine which category you fall into. In order to achieve a balance, your presentation shouldn’t lean in either direction. Some studies have shown that workshops and activities are geared more towards extroverts, while introverts are more drawn to lectures.

Narrow it Down to Three Points

Boil down your presentation to three basic points; any more, and you’ll start to lose your audience. Having three basic points to talk about also makes it easier for you to remember your own content so that if anyone has any questions, you can answer them easily without having to refer back to your notes. Concise presentations are more memorable in the audience’s minds so that they can easily discuss the contents with those who weren’t at your presentation too.

Telling a Story

Create a narrative for your presentation so that it’s more interesting to listen to. You don’t need to make your audience cry or laugh our loud, but there’s nothing wrong with use light emotional language to get your point across and making it actually fun to listen to. Add your own personal anecdotes to make your content more relatable as well.

Using the Storyboard

The first thing people do when they create a presentation is to open PowerPoint and start filling in slides. However, this can lead to mistakes, a lack of flow, and a disjointed presentation. Before you start, you should start in a word document instead and write out what your presentation is going to be about. This is called storyboarding, where you can see everything in a bigger picture and stay on task as you create your slides.

Choice of Template

It may be easy to go with the stock templates that PowerPoint already comes with, but if it looks stock, then your audience will believe that you didn’t put much effort into creating your presentation. It’s not that hard to change up the colours and font, as well as adding other elements to actually make your slides interesting.

Focus on Selling Ideas

Whether you’re talking about a product or a service, the point of your presentation is to sell ideas. You can do this by asking who your audience is and what it is that they want. You want to plant the seed of an idea in their heads so that they come to their own conclusions about what you’re selling, through the story that you’re creating through your slides.

Don’t jump headfirst into a presentation without doing some research and preparation first. If you want your audience to be interested in what you have to say, you have to put in the effort to make it interesting in the first place.