How To Make Financial Presentations More Exciting

Financial Presentation

Financial presentations often have a reputation for being boring, mundane, or uninteresting in terms of content. At the same time, financial presentations are very important whether they are being given in an organization or for a business of any size. 

As financial presentations tend to revolve around numbers they can often be hard to keep track of and the audience may miss valuable chunks of information simply because of repetitive slides. Here is how you can make financial presentations a bit more exciting and interesting so that your goals are easier to achieve. 

Organization Counts

One of the key components of a well-made finance related presentation is the effective organization of information. If the audience cannot really tell one slide from the next or is not able to immediately deduce a pattern or sequence, they will lose interest very quickly. 

When handling data always organize it into a sequence, chapters, or some other form of organization. Having a clear structure such as starting with the objectives of a business regarding sales or profit and then going strategy by strategy is a better approach. 

You can also make an agenda and give it to the audience beforehand as a paper handout so that they know what to expect and the general sequence of the information. While financial presentations can seem formal and dull, you can definitely impart a dramatic and almost theatrical component to your presentation by unveiling certain ‘shocking’ figures at chosen moments. An element of surprise will keep the audience riveted and invested in your presentation. 

Some Facts Are More Important Than Others

When you were gathering the data for your financial presentation you will undoubtedly have realized certain figures are more important than others. Most businesses use the SWOT analysis technique among other analytical decision-making tools and this enables them to see the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any potential strategy, financial investment, or expansion goal. 

Isolate the main facts you are trying to communicate and make them stand out in your presentation by using design tools such as PowerPoint SWOT templates. This has an immediate effect of showing the audience the relevance of various types of data and figures but inside of a conceptual framework so they can process information and make decisions quicker. 

Depict Goals

Financial data and figures are useful because they can help business owners, managers, and other financial experts make decisions or accurate forecasts. If you model your financial presentation in a goal-oriented fashion showing the options that arise after a careful analysis of the data, your work is half done as your audience will already be more interested in hearing what you have to say. 

Use Visualization To Communicate Data

A great deal of financial data exists in Excel sheets or long documents filled with numbers or in digital versions of traditional bookkeeping formats but these forms are hard to communicate in a presentation. Rather than attempting to communicate large scores of data, make summarizing diagrams that effectively show the important figures as well as their forecasts. Using graphs, pie charts, bar charts, infographics or other types of tables can help the audience quickly make sense of the data being presented as well as later use it for problem-solving. 

Changing colors or fonts for certain icons or infographics depicting specific data can also communicate to the audience which information is more important and therefore requires more attention. There are many PowerPoint templates for various tables and other diagrams that can be used for financial presentations.

Allow For Discussion, Feedback, And Queries

When giving an effective financial presentation you need to invite interaction from your audience so that they feel it is a two-way conversation in which they can ask questions, seek solutions or discuss new ideas and possible strategies. Always have a slide or two designed for a group activity of sorts so that your audience is even further invested in your presentation. 

Communicate Length And Key Takeaways Early On 

Most masterful speakers communicate to their audiences early on how long their talk will be and what are the main points they will express. This has the effect of keeping the audience’s interest piqued because they have a clear idea of the beginning and end. Furthermore, make sure your key takeaways are mostly communicated verbally with only short phrases in slides or a single diagram at a time. If you write too much content on the slide regarding any important takeaway of the presentation, the listener will develop a deaf ear and will instead become busy reading the written content. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of The World Financial Review.