Business

Let’s address it already, Finance presentation has a reputation of being boring and can dread even the most devoted professionals. But as boring as the data is, it holds a huge significance to the industry, which makes it firmly non-negligible.

Whether you wish to present the past performance of an industry, or success rate of a marketing campaign, or maybe competitor data, a creatively designed Finance presentation can serve all these needs. 

In light of the above discussed subject matter, we offer you strategies that work like the Elder wand straight from Harry Potter to make your next finance presentation super professional!

1. Handling Finance and making a presentation on Finance is a complete different matter

Making a Finance Presentation is different from any other presentation. A template can serve purposes for corporate presentations/ charity organizations but definitely NOT for finance. Finance needs more space in the slides to inculcate the hefty amount of data while maintaining the aesthetics. 

So, here is what you can do. Make the data presented so impressive that you don’t have to depend on the template elements. Replace simple bar graphs with graphs of color branding, use animations, use the right typography to highlight things you want your audience’s focus on.

Now, let’s elaborate on the discussed suggestions and see them do the tricks for you.

2. Use of Graphical representation of data, a must for Finance presentation

Making such a presentation requires a careful arrangement of data and creativity. Bits of data and texts supported by images, comprising a large set of facts in a single graphical representation.

What your motto should be?  Inscribe your idea in the audience’s minds! 

It is scientifically proven that the mind memorizes visual representation better than any other form of display of data. But usage of random graphs can alter the results. To make the presentation really gut-stirring and engaging, you need to have a definite rationale for using any graph. So, make sure to use proper graphs for specific presentations.

3. Do not overfeed your presentation

We understand how important it is to showcase your business number to your clients. But let’s face it, in this era of real short attention span you have to find ways to retain their attention till the last slide. And overfeeding it is not going to help it. Period.

So what do you do?

• Do not stuff your presentation with numbers and figures. Don’t go too far using many difficult statistics, it becomes uninteresting. Use data and numbers wisely with a combination of graphical representations.
• Simplify the data you are going to use. Empower your presentation with a well-sorted data depiction.
• Monitor your textual content. Yes, not only the numbers but your words matter too. You might have a great vocabulary but refrain from using heavy words. Make sure your complex ideas shape up into short and clear sentences.

4. Choose the right font

“Type is what meaning looks like ~ Max Phillips”

You might think the variety of fonts available is just for the sake of freedom of choice. But it’s more than that, it lets you bolden your message. Take, for example, if you want to depict a message to scare the audience, you might want to go with something like “The Gypsy Curse” <in Chiller font, bold> rather than “The Gypsy Curse” <in Calibri font>. 

So choose your font intelligently, know what you want your texts to depict.

5. Work on the color combination of those slides

Color combination helps you attract your client’s attention unconsciously. What we advise is to keep the color of the background and the data/ text/ graphs in sharp contrast. Like a lighter color in the background and dark deep tones for the data. Also, make sure not to use tacky colors, you want the focus on data, and not on the eye-hurting colors. 

Another common mistake is highlighting the data rather than the message. Avoid doing this and focus on the vice versa! Trust me, nobody is interested in the numbers. They want to know what exactly it means. 

To encapsulate it all, our mantra : Design the data rather than fitting the data. 

Presentation is an important task in every business, and to do it efficiently you might be wondering which presentation platform to use.

Fortunately, you have us!

In what is to follow, we will present to you the comparison between the most common presentation programs – Google slides and PowerPoint.

PowerPoint has been the most widely used presentation platform and for a long period. Few competitors came into the market but with several limitations. What has been the next successful program would be Google slides.

Paid vs Free

It might seem very brutal of me to start my comparison with affordability, but let’s play it real. For many customers, buying an app isn’t an option. Also, what kind of hardware you can afford and what kind of devices, are a few other points to consider.Unless you are a student or a teacher, PowerPoint doesn’t come free. Once you are done with your graduation or end up your teaching career, you will have to pay for the app. Whereas, Google slides is absolutely free.

Who wins? So keeping it simple, in the context of Price, Google slides is the winner.

Real-time collaboration vs sharing files

Real-time collaboration isn’t really a task you can perform in PowerPoint while it is easier in Google Slides, wherein several people can work simultaneously on a single slide.
PowerPoint comes integrated with OneDrive with sharing options like email, direct link, and social media. You can also collaborate with various online editions of PowerPoint.
And, Google Slides comes integrated with Google Drive with sharing options such as email, direct link, and social media. You can collaborate with various other Google Apps for Work.

Who wins?  In terms of sharing and collaboration, both the program comes integrated with various sharing platforms but, since real-time collaboration is accessible on Google Slides, it wins here.

Templates and Themes

Templates and themes are a very crucial part of your presentation, it makes your slides interesting and makes sure it speaks for itself.
PowerPoint, though it has few templates and third party template provider, it definitely lacks catchy designs and suitable templates for a real professional presentation.
Whereas, Google slides really lacks in this area. Not only does it lack third party template providers but its default template is totally not up to the mark.

Who wins? In terms of Templates and themes, both the programs are at a disadvantage. So, for effective solutions you might consider referring to a designer for amazing templates for your presentation. For references to cool templates and themes for your presentation check out our presentation and pitch deck design portfolio

Embedding videos and web content

Though in the newer editions of PowerPoint adding images and videos from online sources is easier, it is a process is full of bugs. Especially adding a webpage still is a herculean task. Also, the older version of PowerPoint 2010 still doesn’t support embedding YouTube content.
Google slides allow you to embed online content from Google Drive, URL, Google images, YouTube. Though embedding is easier in Google Drive, but inserting any third part web page unless you use Google site which leaves out several important platforms like DailyMotion and Facebook.

Who wins? Embedding is easier on Google slides and can be a daunting task on PowerPoint. Hence, Google slides wins here.

Considering all the above arguments, we conclude, with Google Slides coming up with various new updates and serving the users with almost every contemporary features, Google slides as the winner. But that doesn’t say PowerPoint isn’t worth using, it has a great deal of nostalgic values attached to it. Its looks are still very familiar for a beginner and easy to cope with.

To help you deal with this unnerving task, we offer you a fully FREE presentation design review for any of your existing slide decks. 

We hope you agree with our assessment and keep creating awesome presentations.