How to Create a More Effective Business Plan Presentation

Creating a More Effective Business Plan Presentation

Your business plan presentation is a complementary requirement to your detailed business plan document. A good presentation helps present large chunks of information to potential investors in visually easy-to-understand slides, and is vital to attracting funding for your venture. As challenging as the prospect of bringing your vision to paper for the business plan document sounds, many find the task of actually presenting it to an audience even more daunting. Your presentation must go beyond the thoughts in your head and effectively express what potential investors want to know during the crucial presentation meeting. Investing the time to prepare a good business plan presentation is half the battle won. A good presentation will guide you to make the most of your limited time with investors, and you could save precious time and effort by using a professionally designed template in a popular business software, such as a PowerPoint business plan template. Our Corporate Templates and Presentations are a good place to start.

Here are the top ten tips for creating a more effective business plan PowerPoint presentation

1. Looks Matter: First impressions are critical, so make sure your presentation looks great! By great, we mean not only should the design and layout be consistent and professional, it should also use the right color combinations and font sizes to facilitate an easy and pleasing reading experience. Generally, font sizes between 24 and 30 are acceptable, depending on whether you are writing headings, text or sub-text. In choosing your background colors, ensure they are not distracting or garish, and that text and background colors contrast for optimal visibility. The same goes for any animation you may choose to use – do not go over the top!
2. A Good Template for Clarity: Your business plan presentation is an aide to your business plan document, not a substitute for it. Don’t try to fit everything in your business plan document into your business plan presentation. Use the presentation to bring key highlights of the plan alive – visually, graphically, and where necessary, through text – in a way that you cover all important areas without being verbose or repetitive. Using a pre-defined PowerPoint business plan template will help ensure you don’t miss out on anything of critical importance while limiting you to an optimal number of slides.
3. Smooth Flow of Thought: Structure your presentation in a way that it can be easily connected back to your business plan document. Topics should appear in the same order, and this order should be decided according to their relevancy to investors in the context of your specific industry and idea.
4. Get All the Must-have Elements in: Do not assume that investors will take the trouble to read through your entire business plan document! Your presentation must be as effective when read alone as it is when read in tandem with the document or presented by you in person. This again highlights the need to ensure you have covered all critical areas in your PowerPoint presentation. A professionally made Business Plan template works like a business plan outline PPT, ensuring you cover the must-have elements for a successful VC pitch.
5. Presenting Core Information: Once you have ensured that your business plan outline presentation covers critical topics, give each core area its own slide in order to avoid confusion or clutter. In addition to images and visual aids, use bullet points, short sentences and simple words to remain succinct. While you are creating the business plan, think about how important pieces of information can be presented visually for easy comprehension. For example, using our business plan presentation template entrepreneurs can easily compare their product with the competition and communicate their value proposition.
6. Test Your Presentation: For maximum effectiveness, your presentation should be made in person after sharing a copy of the business plan document. However, if you must email it to potential investors, first run it past someone trusted. Ideally, someone with business acumen who has not read your business plan before. This ensures it can convey crucial aspects of your plan without your physical presence to answer questions or the support of a detailed document.
7. The Devil Lies in the Details! Be extra careful to double check legends and labeling on all charts, graphs and tables. Ensure relevancy and consistency in currencies or any other metric units. Make appropriate disclaimers where necessary and quote data sources. If you are automating slide transitions, make sure all the data on a slide can be easily read within the defined timeframe.
8. Practice: If you are presenting in person, do rehearse several times, not just for clarity of your message but also for timings. Limit your presentation to about 15 slides and distribute handouts so your audience can jot questions and notations along relevant slides and come back to them later.
9. Know your audience! It always helps to keep your audience in mind while creating your business plan presentation. It should appeal to their sensibilities and address areas of most importance to them. Try and study business plan presentations of other ventures they may have funded if possible.
10. Remember, just like you, your business plan presentation is unique. Whether you are presenting in person or sending a copy, your business plan outline PPT represents you and your brand. It should reflect your personality because investors are as are keen to know about you (the business leadership) as the business idea. While using a professional PowerPoint template is useful, do not hesitate to include your own little touches and flourishes to leave a memorable impression on readers and audiences alike.

Get a head start with a sample business plan presentation template today!

Wittten by Chitra Iyer for Chillibreeze