You came into the meeting room excited, expecting to see a short 20 minutes presentation from a vendor that might have a solution to an existing problem—a problem that you have been trying to solve for the longest time. Having spoken to the vendor a week ago, you had expected a presentation that directly addresses the problem.

The presentation lasted an hour and you came out confused. Sounds familiar?

What had happened?

I am sure many of us faced similar situations before. A common approach by most presenters is to spend the first 10-15 minutes introducing the company—facts, history, size, organisation structure, product line, global presence, etc., and leaving the most important part of the presentation towards the end.

To make things worse, visuals with complex technical information follows the company introduction. Plenty of very busy visuals are almost illegible with irrelevant images incorporated to make the slides look pretty.

Put yourself in the presenter's shoes. How many times have you done the same? We should ask ourselves if it is necessary to talk about the company. Is that important? Are we wasting valuable time and opportunities to get our message across faster and to capture our audience attention early while they are still fresh?

Many of us think that our clients would like to hear about the company in every presentation before hearing the solution. The truth is that company facts are available on the company's website and in the handout that we would have handled out prior to our presentation. It is therefore, not necessary to repeat this in our presentation. In the airtime that we have for the presentation, we should get straight to the point.

Here are a few pointers that we should note.

1. Present important information first. In most cases, if you are presenting a proposal, it's the solution that you want to present first.
2. Next, present information that supports the solution. Also remember not to be too technical. Try to simplify technical information and make it easy to understand.
3. Break up complex information and present it in smaller chunks so to allow your audience to follow you.
4. If you need to talk about your company, present it at the end. If you feel more comfortable to present it at the beginning of your presentation, then keep it short. 2 minutes is about the right amount of time to spend on company introduction.
5. Explain in non-technical terms, why your solution works. Give a short success story if available. Use images if appropriate.
6. Do not present too many options in your solution. Two is good, and three is the most. It's usually confusing and difficult to make a decision when too many options are being presented.

Always remember that it's not about you (or your company). It's about your clients. Design your presentations for the benefit for your clients. And your clients usually do not have a lot of patience. So get to the point.