1. Target problems: Don’t talk too much about your background. That is not the way to gain credibility. You should focus on your abilities: what value can they add? You are not supposed to talk about your company or department; you are there to solve a set of problems. That means your target audience has an issue and is prepared to spend time and money in order to fix it.
2. Target objections: Always be targeting any objections that you are aware of. Is what you are proposing expensive? Provide evidence of value. Does your audience perceive you as a risk? Make sure you exude stability and reliability.
3. Fresh start each time: Don’t just recycle old presentations. Moreover, nobody will be impressed by overgeneralised information.
4. Be creative and stand out: Aim at some originality and humour. Work with topical references or give your presentation a theme. Don’t be forgotten after the presentation before you've even got back in your car.
5. Never encourage them to ‘read’: If the audience is reading, they are not listening to you. For that reason large blocks of text in the presentation definitely won't help you; on the contrary, you will only lose the audience's attention.
6. Don't be afraid to digress: Feel free to move away from the structure of your PowerPoint in favour of an engaged conversation if it is good for selling your idea. Healthy dialogue and active conversation are great when you need to persuade people.
7. Encourage dialogue in other ways too: Create places to pause. A dialogue should not - and, indeed, cannot - be an entirely one-way process. Nervous presenters often sprint to the finish. Allow conversation to develop. No matter how convincing your presentation is, you need to create stopping points within it in order to provoke two-way interactions.
The expertbusinessadvice.com website recommends following these basic rules whenever you need to persuade someone.
-jk-