How to Present a Network?
This post will analyze how to present an efficient presentation at our network meeting.
In general networking groups, there is always the chance to introduce our business. The timeline for this ranges anywhere from 10 and 25 minutes. It is a precious time and a fantastic opportunity to educate our assistant networkers about us, our business, and who we are searching to connect with.
And still, we often see people shying away from grabbing this chance and running with it.
They are unsure what to say or how to present and are generally fearful of public speaking.
Step by step, we’ll break down and discuss all of these aspects, but for this post, let’s move into some realistic tips when preparing for presentations for our networking meeting.
The more we are ready and get the answers to the questions and points we list below, the calmer and more comfortable we will be on the presentation.
Here are our ten tips to help get people started and on the right track around how to deliver an efficient presentation at our networking meeting:
Prepare Presentation Materials
It’s essential to go to war fully armed. Images, statistics, videos, and documents are your equipment for a successful attack. Traditionally a PowerPoint file is necessary. But a representative video is better and more enlightening for the best result. We introduced a perfect tool to create a presentation video here. Suppose you know the basics of After Effects. In that case, you can make many presentive videos fast and efficiently, or you can ask a freelancer to prepare a video using Smart Chart Builder or another explainer tool like these.
Read more about: Smart Chart Builder | Presentation Toolkit
Time Available In Network Presentation
First, how much time do we have for the presentation? Ten minutes, 20 minutes? Does this include the Q&A, or is it the primary presentation time? Check this out in advance.
Network Presentation Room Setup
It’s a good idea to be aware of our room set, so we can visualize ourselves in the room performing the presentation. It will help take some of the fear out of the plan.
Remember that we must be facing the room and not always looking at the screen. We are taking this time to allow people to get to know our company and us. We’ll find that the networking participant will be very supportive and want to see us succeed. They are interested in learning furthermore and will attract.
But if we turn back to the screen to read the slides, they will look at us, end up being distracted, and completely miss our great content and main subject.
Try to position the laptop correctly so that we have a sight of what slide is coming up next and that will act as a help note for us and help us prevent putting our back to our audience.
Tip: Technology happens to all of us. We never know when it might fail us, so it’s a great idea to have a backup plan. We suggest printing a copy of the presentation, two slides per A4 paper, so we have an excellent reference to refer to if the technology fails us, the laptop explodes, or the broadband dies. Having a printed copy can also help if we can’t position the laptop in a way to allow us to see the screen, to perform as that all-important hint for what is coming up.
Network Presentation Equipment
Ensure to check whether we need to bring our laptops or whether there is one provided system in the room as part of the networking meeting. If we are working from a MAC and the computer used for the networking meeting is a standard laptop, we suggest arriving early to check everything out. Make sure we have the right cables and adaptors also. Like if we use a Surface laptop, we always need an adaptor.
Content is King
Keep our message clear and short. We would suggest storyboarding our presentation in advance. Don’t use fancy stuff. Just get a piece of paper and mark it out in squares. Start putting in our ideas. It will help us order what we want to say and get a current. Be clear about our end-game.
Text For Network Presentation
Try to keep regular fonts and font size throughout the slides where we can use images and pictures to highlight a point, rather than lots of text, if possible.
If we have a lot of text, we are more likely to get caught out and become confused. When we start to present, we shouldn’t read it fast enough to process the information and relay it to the audience.
Using words or images to display what we want to say more clearly is better and more accessible.
Practice
The adage says that practice makes us perfect. Even if we are seasoned presenters, it’s a great idea to do a trial run and give time to ourselves, mainly if it’s a new presentation we’ve developed or changed around. Be sure to display a passion for what we are presenting. No one else in the room can speak to our content, product, or service, so own it.
Call to Action (CTA)
In the “Room Setup” part, we should have a CTA or a call to action around referrals and who we speak to.
We also request that people like us on our social media platforms when we finish. By having these visible icons on our closing slide, people will be aware if we are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. So be specific about asking for a like, follow, and comment to help support our digital and online presence.
