There are several ways to prevent numbers from becoming too boring during a presentation. One possibility is to produce charts to make clear the relationship between two variables. Pie charts show percentages at a fixed point in time. For instance, you can use them if you want to look at what products customers buy most frequently. Horizontal or vertical bar charts can be used to compare or contrast several numbers, for example, the sales numbers in different locations of the company. Segmented bar charts are useful to signalize proportions, for example if you to compare the market share of the company and its competitors in the passage of time.
To refer to the financial standing of the company, you can use a line chart for the profits. Line charts are the best way to show a development in time. As the profits are up, you can use this to your advantage by depicting the profit’s development throughout the year. You can also use conceptual visuals to show the reasons that lead, for example, to sinking costs. Visuals show the relationship between several variables and depending actions. Through meaningful color choices, like green for earnings and red for losses, and different shapes and illustrations, it is easier for the audience to understand complex models and numbers without having to read a lot of text. Therefore, only keywords or bullet points should be in a conceptual visual. Another way to present numbers in an interesting way is to change the media. Variation in the use of media extends the audience’s attention span and makes it less likely for them to become bored or distracted. After talking about costs and profits on PowerPoint slides, you can now turn to a flip chart to talk about the company’s growing real-estate portfolio. Using sketch notes might be very useful here and you do not necessarily need to be able to draw very well. Drawing a few houses while speaking about the buildings and streets the company has in its portfolio would make the presentation less monotonous and would contribute to the visual learners in the audience. Dollar signs and moneybags could underline your statement of how much money the company earns from the real-estates portfolio, and house keys could symbolize the new buildings and streets that were added lately. Reducing numbers to only one for each of these categories right next to the sketches would make it very overseeable, appealing, and memorable for everyone in the audience. To demonstrate that the market is booming, you can use a table showing all products your company offers that have increased in sales. Again, use colors wisely and highlight only what is important and what you want the audience to remember. Do not try to be complete or include all the information you have, but only concentrate on how you can reduce the information to make it more memorable. There is no need to write down the exact amount of sales. It is much better to relate it to other numbers, for example, the sales in the last year, and to highlight the changes. Numbers are abstract. Therefore, it is important to make them more meaningful to the audience. Pictures, images, and words are easier to remember because people can associate ideas with them. Hence, you need to tell a story and talk about the benefits for the audience linked with the numbers. This would contribute to the Aural processors in the audience. If the pension fund is largely in profit, don’t just recite the numbers, but make clear why it is significant to the shareholders personally. For instance, you could say that if the portfolio has grown by 14%, it would mean for the persons receiving the money that they could spend one whole week longer each year having holidays. This is much more memorable because the audience has now a clearer picture in mind when it comes to evaluating the numbers. Moreover, people might remember the holiday example even a few days after the presentation is over while giving only the number would not stick to their minds.

What is important for all of these presentation methods is to be mindful of a sensible color choice and to break down numbers to make them more memorable. Always modulate your voice interestingly and use gestures to involve the audience or otherwise even the best presentation method will fail. Try also to find patterns for the audience to make the numbers easier to remember.