An entrepreneur is always making presentations to prospective clients, business partners, and government officials. In most cases, he or she is under a lot of pressure to deliver and is always looking for a specific response from the audience. As such, the quality of the presentation plays a key role in achieving that. In order to make an eye-catching and captivating presentation of a business plan on PowerPoint, one must follow several steps.
- Select the most appropriate template for the PowerPoint. Given the user-friendly nature of this application, it is easy for one to take a number of charts and pictures and throw them haphazardly in a PowerPoint, completing the business plan. However, a keen audience notices this sloppy work immediately and dismisses it. For a business plan, one should choose a template that relates to the business in question. If the template required is not available, one can look up one on the Internet.
- Select your favored PowerPoint Presentation. After going over the PowerPoint presentations in MS Office and the Internet, it is crucial to pick one that measures up to the requirements of the business plan. Some of the features that one may look for to help him/her make an informed decision include the number of slide layouts that a presentation possesses. Notably, presentations that have a large number of layouts enjoy a high degree of flexibility. Other features that one may look for include the presence of PNG icons (this especially favors individuals who love incorporating visuals into their presentations), as well as whether it is printable and editable. A business plan PowerPoint presentation requires all these features.
- Complete the template. After one has selected or downloaded the most suitable template for the project, it is now time to set up the template. The first step encompasses making a choice on the presentation ratio. It can either be 16:9 or 4:3. Importantly, some templates also have a printer-ready ratio. Even though 4:3 has traditionally been used as the ratio for slideshows, most modern mediums, such as computer screens, televisions, and projectors use the 16:9 ratio. It is, therefore, crucial to take into consideration the medium that one intends to use in order to select the correct ratio. The next step is selection of the PowerPoint mode one plans to use. It can either be PPTX or PPT depending on the program’s version. A PPTX version is suitable for MS Office versions that came after 2007 while the PPT one is suitable for pre-2007 editions. Thirdly, one determines whether they want to make a simple or animated presentation.
- Add images. Incorporate images and graphics into the presentation by clicking on the placeholder icon.
- Reorder the presentation. The main advantage of creating a presentation using a template is that it guides the process as it already has a logical sequence that assists an individual to present the business plan in a convincing way. One can, however, tweak the presentation by reordering it to suit his needs.
- Play it. The final step is to play the presentation in front of the audience.
References:
Abrams, R. M. (2003). The successful business plan: secrets & strategies. The Planning Shop.
Karlsson, T., & Honig, B. (2009). Judging a business by its cover: An institutional perspective on new ventures and the business plan. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(1), 27-45.
Litvin, S. W., Goldsmith, R. E., & Pan, B. (2008). Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management. Tourism Management, 29(3), 458-468.
Tufte, E. R. (2003). The cognitive style of PowerPoint (Vol. 2006). Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
Zimmerer, T., Scarborough, N. M., & Wilson, D. (2005). Essentials of entrepreneurship and
small business management. Pearson/Prentice Hall.