Don't blow it. Presentations to important people are, well, important.

Let's look at how you can make sure your presentations to important people are not trainwrecks.

If you follow these step-by-step pointers you will increase the chances of keeping the attention of your audience.

Unfortunately, when it comes to presentations, most people will create a (far too long) powerpoint deck, which is ugly, and has way too much copy in each slide.

Good presentations don't happen by accident. Stick to a carefully formulaic read-out.

There are many times in your working life where a pitch presentation will be critical for your career. It could be to a c-suite if you're pitching an idea upwards in your organisation. It could be that you're pitching and looking for new funding for your venture.

Some things to consider when preparing your presentation:

• Start with a problem. Outline the pain - immediately.
• Emphasise the pain again. Build a sense of urgency in the audience.
• Problem established, you need to prove your idea will not only solve it - but grow business.
• Show how your solution will solve the pain, and be very quickly a self-funding initiative.
• Don't over explain. You might be nervous, or intimidated even, by the audience, but don't over-explain.
• Leave time for interaction. Again, you may be intimidated, but leave 50% of your allotted time for Q+A.
• The Q+A session is gold. If you're audience are asking you rapid, blunt, questions then they are interested in your idea.
• If you don't get many questions - sorry - you blew it. That is NOT a good sign.