We’ve got you covered when it comes to delivering a business presentation live. In our own startup experience, being a part of several accelerator program alumni and raising funds for our business, we’ve come across a diverse list of business presentation scenarios. It’s out of those experiences that we love compiling our most useful pieces of advice. Today, we bring you three successful presenting tips to complement your pitch deliveries. 

Back in October 2019, we already presented our best five tips on presenting and public speaking. In it, our summarized suggestions turned into the following list:

1- Show, don’t tell.

2- Rehearse it.

3- Kiss it.

4- Eye contact is here to save you

5- Use your voice and speak up!

If you could use the refresher on any of those, or you’d like to learn more about giving an effective business presentation, make sure to complement this reading with that article we mention above. For now, though, let’s expand our business pitch horizon. 

1- It must be said: overcome your fear

Overcoming your fear of public speaking has got to be a part of the work you integrate as you move along in your business pitch experience. That’s why we start with this as a critical factor in the three successful presenting tips we’re sharing with you today. 

For comfort, please note there are plenty of tricks to let you ease into your reality as you need to walk up on stage. 

Our CEO made a long list of bright pieces of advice you can follow. Head on to that read above to go more in-depth as to how to best deal with this. For now, please take into account that you need to tackle your fear of going up in public for a business presentation to be top-notch. Working on your glossophobia (yes, there’s a term for that - also mentioned in that reading) is indescribably beneficial to your brand and business. 

Though at a high personal cost, working through this fear brings excellent returns in your business presentation success. Please take it as room for growth from which you will profit endlessly in life as you become more open and confident to face others around you. 

In reality, just like you could have expectations when you’re in the safe spot of the audience, the minute you start speaking, others will be willing, interested, and excited to see and hear you. This fact is especially the case if they’ve come to see you present out of a specific calling to that respect. If they’re in the audience, they’ve shown great interest already.

In the business case of pitching in front of VCs, rest assured they’ll also be responsive to your message. Investors work on defining if what you present is a great business opportunity for them, one upon which they could profit in the long term, or not. What better room for attention than that? 

If the above is what raises anxiety, work on channeling that dread through concise steps, and preparation. 

All in all, try your best not to give the option of pitching and visibility away so easily with a hindrance through personal fear.

2- Never let a good story out

And we should say never leave storytelling out of the equation, instead. Previously, we covered why storytelling in presentation design matters. 

Coupled with the narrative structure of great presentations that our co-founder and CDO Vinicio wrote, there are good chances you will fully internalize why you need to make your business presentation an act of storytelling. 

The above applies to any public display in front of an audience. Yet, in front of investors, looping your entire business pitch into a single story with a great hook and introduction, a rising action, climax, and a perfect final punch to wow your potential business partners. 

By the way, we also put out a few ideas for pitch deck hooks that will get your audience’s attention. If you can still work a more engaging start to your pitch, please take some time to go over those suggestions we give. Also, in case it helps, Caya drafted a read on storytelling for pitch deck presentations you might find beneficial. 

3- Polish it until it’s perfect

Just like with writing, editing is a valuable part of the creative process. We can’t leave this out as part of our three successful presenting tips. Any art we craft whatsoever always goes through a stage of revision. Whether we incorporate new thoughts and ideas, a brand new perspective and way of presenting items are part of the decisions we should make as we relate to our business creations. And a business pitch is no different.

On the contrary, practice makes perfect in business pitches—especially elevator pitches at that. The amount of work it takes to put a startup’s 20-minute business pitch is such you might be exhausted and sick of your reference material by the time you go in front of investors. Typically, by the time you’re out of your rounds of funding, there’s a whole different sense to your pitch deck altogether. 

All we’re saying is make the best of your diverse startup stages to work on even better business pitch material. Update what you come up with and try new innovative ways of enhancing the same product communication. 

If you were too visual for one presentation, work on your script. If your slides are full of text, consider where to best insert videos, images, or graphs. If your hook is now grand, but the end of your pitch isn’t killing it, then please go back and polish. 

Edit your material or your lines to make the best of your business presentation. This simple exercise of constant revision and updates will add up in time, we promise. And nailing a perfect 20-25 slide pitch deck is already such a promising endeavor that we could not expect this to backfire for you in any way. 

Why so many references, did you wonder?

We love putting all sorts of valuable material out for you so you can craft genuinely winning pitch decks right here at Slidebean. It takes much work in lots of different angles to put a successful pitch deck together. 

What we mention here is why we do everything we’re about, including our pitch deck design services and the full offer of startup pitch deck templates along with so much more! 

In case it doesn’t come through, we genuinely care about the stuff we know. And we hope you can make the best of it. If we can be of help, give us a nudge.