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Recently, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback about our monthly newsletter and how it focuses on providing presenters with strategic advice on how to produce winning presentations, rather than on vague, unclear tactics. That’s because very few people ever learn the basics of presentations, and executives with the potential to produce brilliant presentations commit severe strategic errors. Three of the most common mistakes are:

1. Misconceptions about the focus (it’s not the presenter – but your audience’s need to know),
2. Giving too much information to the audience, instead of structuring it to guide decision-making
3. Violating the presenter’s own gut feelings about what to present.

The most frequent reason executives “resist” calls for public speaking, is lack of self-confidence in the ability to deliver a message powerfully. It’s usually NOT because the person isn’t able to speak clearly in public; most executives are fine conversationalists, and a great presentation is no more than a focused-conversation. Public Speaking jitters arise because speakers try to conform to other’s standard of what material should be presented and how to present it – and they aren’t comfortable with those decisions.

This results in a lack of authenticity and self-doubts which erodes one’s comfort level. Worse, when a speaker starts focusing on his/her own internal cues of discomfort in front of a group, this creates a domino effect and downward spiral of self-doubts, leading to making strategic errors, such as focusing on the presentation slides rather than relating to the audience with a persuasive story.

Everything’s sorted. You’ve cleared your desk, Payroll have finally sent through your P45 and you’ve switched on your ‘Out of Office’ for the last time. All that’s left are the leaving presents and the obligatory farewell drinks at the pub next door.

It’s at this point, just as you’re getting stuck into your second Fosters, that your manager steps forward to make the dreaded speech. Your toes slowly start to curl as she reels off the list of fantastic qualities you’ve brought to the role. Qualities, it seems, that have moved the department onwards and upwards. And qualities that, she says with an almost believable regret in her voice, won’t easily be replaced. “Funny”, you think to yourself, given their refusal to award said efforts financially.

And then, just when you think she’s finally winding it down, she throws in the grossly embellished story involving you, the Christmas party and an immaculately carved ice sculpture. People laugh. Not real laughs, mind, but the sort of polite laugh born out of a fear of future streamlining.

And yet still you sit there, smiling in an effort to feign appreciation. Not that it matters – there’s light at the end of the tunnel. All that’s left are the leaving presents. First the card, signed by the team and including copious best wishes. “Thanks everyone” you say, “I’ll read it properly later.” Now onto the business end of things – the leaving gifts. Here’s your chance to recoup, in some small way, time lost sending last-minute, deadline-day Blackberry messages from your holiday sunbed. You’re nearly excited. Odd then, that what you’re being given isn’t even wrapped. Then you realise, this is what it’s come to – a golden handshake in the form of a £20 voucher for HMV.

What’s most annoying about it all though, is just how easy it would’ve been to get you something vaguely meaningful. Surely they could’ve spent five minutes brainstorming a few ideas for leaving presents?! They could’ve done it all from the comfort of their own desks – all it needed was for someone to go online and find a gift site.

Had they bothered, they’d have seen they could even have organised a personalised leaving present for you. An engraved hip flask perhaps. Maybe some sort of spoof calendar. Anything really. And that’s what gets you – it wasn’t a money thing. It was an effort thing. They didn’t bother because they simply didn’t care.

And now all you can think of is how much collection cash you’ve handed over – birthdays, babies, weddings and, most gallingly of all, leaving presents. You could’ve kept that money and bought yourself a boxset with everything you’d have saved. At least that’ll be something to put the voucher towards.

But then, just as you’re midway through making a mental note of who’s going to be ‘defriended’ on Facebook, it dawns on you – it’s you who no longer cares. You never have to go back. And okay, the leaving gifts you’d hoped for never materialised. But you’ve already had the best leaving present possible – freedom. It’s not freedom and a personalised bottle of wine, granted, but it’s freedom nonetheless.

Presentation folders – a must in today’s marketing:

The business world has become very competitive, and to stay in the run you need to market yourself with more effort and competence. Presentation folders can do incredible things for you if you take care to present your information clearly and purposefully for the interest of your prospects. Marketing your products or services would need you to put things in an organized way by putting things together with professionalism which reflects the credibility of your company. The information contained in your presentation folder needs to convey facts regarding your organization and what you offer. It should be in the interest of your customers, and the facts that you relate should point out how your products or services are beneficial to your prospective customers. Not only that, the presentation folder itself should be impressive enough for your customers to open it and find out more about your company.

What should presentation folders carry?

Your presentation folder should be able to tell your customers everything they want to know. They should be able to understand your business success, along with the products and services you offer. The information provided by you should be easily grasped by your prospects, and it should easily be translated into the benefits that they can get. The initial impression of your presentation is very important in order to get your prospective clients interested in what you do. Your presentation folder will have all the necessary information that your customers need and learn about you without having to flip through the review notes or hand-outs.

You can have your presentation folders customized to your requirement if you are purchasing in large quantities. This reduces cost drastically and you can have your company name and logo printed on these. Folders with your logo gets immediately recognized, and your customers know you by the logo on the presentation folders. Customization of presentation folders can also be done by adding a label or any other information, and even you could have the binding modified to your liking.

Presentation folder – an asset in your marketing campaign:

For any business, presentation folder is no doubt a requisite in any marketing campaign. You need to create an everlasting impression on your customers’ mind, and presentation folders are one of the best marketing tools available to put forward your credibility to your target customers. It is the best way to have your documents collated, and presented in an organized way for your prospects to take interest in what you are offering

No matter how you have your presentation folders designed, what is crucial is the information contained inside the folder. It is crucial since the key to your success is how you have put the information together, and how well it has been presented to your prospects. They are one of the key marketing tools that are used today in business representations. A presentation folder differs from a brochure in which you have a limitation of space. Presentation folders allow you to present your company and what you offer in greater detail, keeping in mind that whatever you convey must be in the interest of your customers.