While the short format encourages heightened attention, it can become challenging for presenters to squeeze everything into five minutes of speech, making the format tricky and aspirational.
The 5-minute presentation is gaining a lot of traction for its conciseness. However, presenters need to prepare well to include everything that the presentation needs to be impactful in this short format.
This article will guide you on what the term entails, how you create these presentations, and the key things to include.
What Do You Mean By a 5-Minute Presentation?
These are concise speeches delivered by speakers explaining a new idea/concept, product, or piece of work.
Usually, for formal events like workshops, business meetings, etc., the format entails simple and clean visuals in slides to relay the information as concisely as possible.
How Many Words or Slides Should be Included in a 5-Minute Presentation?
The word count is around 600-800 words, with 120-160 words per minute for an average person. You can calculate your speaking speed (words per minute) by the following methods-
- Record yourself speaking for a minute.
- Get a text version of your speech with a transcription service.
- The number of words that you see are your Words Per Minute.
Now that you have a word count – string them carefully to weave a narrative that leaves people with a clear and singular takeaway.
For slides – 5 or 6 (in total) or 1 per minute is a good number. Depending on your subject or content – you can, however, go up to 20 and spend about 10-15 seconds per slide.
The entire presentation centers on supporting the main idea, as there is no space or time to work on transitions and other elements of a longer format presentation. Keep your slides clean, simple, and focused, reiterating the main message. Use ready-made presentation templates to build slides that best explain the content.
Tips to Create a 5-Minute Presentation
The goal is to build slides that emanate focus, clarity, and relevance. Below are some best practices you can follow to create short-format presentations.
1. Focus on the Most Crucial Element of Your Presentation (What)
Since the presentation is for such a short duration, it is wise to have the utmost clarity on the most critical part of the content. Focus on one idea and build and expand on it.
The clarity will help you include only the relevant content, emphasizing the central theme. Don’t get over-ambitious and stuff your slides with excessive information. Yes, you don’t have a lot of time, so take that time to etch your core message in everyone’s mind.
2. Dive into Thorough Research, Fact Check, and Go for it Again
Since the format is short, you can count on full attention from people, which means your content will be under scrutiny throughout – heard and remembered.
Therefore, similar to longer presentations, you need to be thorough in your research – ensuring all the points you make are factual, credible, and comprehensible.
It will also increase your confidence and put you in a better position to address people’s concerns.
3. It Has to be About Your Audience
Remember, it’s actually the people you present for. So, keep your presentation audience-centric.
If you want a real transformation in that short duration, get a good sense of who you will be catering to, what they know, and their expectations.
4. Go for an Impactful Start
If you fall flat in the beginning or start off with not such a great impression, there won’t be much time for damage control. Before you know it, your time will be up, and the purpose of the presentation lost.
And, that’s why, pay extra attention and exert more effort in creating an opening that grabs attention right from the start.
You can incorporate a thought-provoking statement, a rhetorical question, a catchy fact, poll the audience, or start with anecdotes or a story. The purpose is to make people tune off everything else and remain like that throughout.
5. Use Methods that Facilitate Learning
Incorporate elements that best facilitate learning, retention, and engagement, like physical props, storytelling, interactive slides, illustrations, quick polls, etc.
If used wisely, it can leave an indelible mark in people’s minds, exponentially enhancing the engagement ratio of your short presentation.
6. Finish Strong
Psychology says we remember the end more than the means. It means that if you make an error in the middle, there is a good chance of redeeming your presentation with a solid ending later.
For that reason – pay heed to the last few minutes of your slides and make sure to end on a positive and high note for a memorable presentation.
What you can do is –
- End with something funny and make people laugh.
- Use a relatable quote to highlight the strength and gravity of your presentation.
- Reiterate the key points to etch the content in people’s memory.
- A powerful Call To Action (CTA) if you seek business for your products or services.
- A rhetorical or thought-provoking question.
- Powerful and catchy visuals.
7. Control the Pace
It’s common for people to try to rush themselves due to the short format. The urge is to include and deliver as much as possible in those precious minutes.
The result is faster delivery, bad enunciation, slides stuffed with extra information, and mental discomfort with constant time-ticking to go fast.
You don’t want to fall victim to this error and diminish the effectiveness of your speech. Therefore, time yourself to deliver with a proper pace and enunciation. Also, try breathing exercises to calm yourself on stage and speak confidently.
8. Venue and Equipment Check Beforehand
Since you don’t have a lot of time on hand, technical glitches could mean death for your presentation. Imagine standing on the podium and spending the precious 5 minutes working on the equipment. It would be a nightmare no presenter wants to see.
Visit the venue beforehand to check the functionality of everything, like positioning and size of the projector screen, microphones, lighting, etc. Since your presentation will involve slides, make sure the screen is visible from all angles and distances.
9. Don’t Over Exceed Your Limit
Owing to the format, it could very well be that you are one among multiple speakers, waiting for their turn to speak. Over-exceeding the time limit could mean disturbing their time, leading to a negative impression.
You can set a timer or an alarm, let’s say at four minutes, to let you know the progress of your presentation and conclude at the right time. Practice in the same manner to train your mind and words so that it comes naturally to you during the presentation.
10. Practice Makes You Perfect
You might be tempted to go impromptu, thinking it’s anyway 5 minutes.
But that approach can quickly take you downhill as 100 things can go wrong. You can forget to mention important data, rely on filler words for help, not know how to manage on-stage nervousness, get mixed up with the content, etc.
Practicing your content and delivery is imperative to keep out of that labyrinth of errors.
It will have the following benefits –
- Make you more confident with the speech.
- Better nonverbal communication (body language and facial expressions) as you don’t have to be overly mindful of the content due to lack of practice.
- Help you tackle pre-speech jitters effectively.
- Enable experimentation with different words, anecdotes, and humor as you have the time and space to see what works better.
- Enhance the effectiveness of your delivery by improvising, refining, and polishing your work.
What you can do is –
- Set a 5-minute timer and practice in front of a mirror and other people (friends, colleagues, mentors) to get timing and delivery right.
- Take feedback, input, insights, and advice from as many people to cover loopholes in your work and enhance the effectiveness of your presentation.
- Record your delivery to work on the tone, pace, pitch, and enunciation.
- Create notes with keywords to take help from later.
What Should You Include in Your 5-Minute Presentation?
To help you go ahead, we have shared an outline that answers critical and key questions like what, how, why, and what next. It will let you organize your slides to maximum efficiency.
a). A Quick Introduction (Who)
Don’t assume that people know who you are because you are on the podium. Include a slide with an introduction. However, keep it short. Don’t delve into a detailed discussion highlighting your past achievements, knowledge, etc.
As you have a time crunch, a quick full name and profession on the first slide will make people aware of you and build a base for further connection.
Note – Don’t stretch your introduction for more than 30 seconds, as you already are short on time. Also, keep your title to a few words that best explain what the presentation is about.
b). The Central Issue (Why)
Outline the main issue you will be addressing in the first few minutes of your presentation. It will give you a clear start and let people set their minds on the topic at hand. Mention the key facts and a basic argument stating your concerns.
c). Your Solution to the Concern (How)
It’s the most critical part and reason for delivering the presentation. Spend the next 3 minutes of your presentation offering a solution to the main issue you shared earlier.
Remember to follow a structure when drafting the body of your presentation by breaking the content (problem, solution) into concepts or another digestible format.
Don’t include an ocean of information/data to support your central theme. Instead, define what’s essential for people to learn and remember and build on that only.
d). Conclusion (What Next)
The last minute would be dedicated to concluding your presentation. Since it’s the ending, it can have a significant impact on the recall value of your presentation, so work on building an impactful conclusion, as mentioned above.
The Bottom Line
Having gone through the thumb rules to create a 5-minute presentation, you already know the tricks to keep it balanced, engaging, and informative.
There’s another element that can elevate the efficiency of your presentation – a professional design. Take the help of pre-designed editable templates for clean and impactful slides suitable to the format.
In the end, remember to keep calm and start with a smiling face. Irrespective of the format, an audience finds it easy to connect with positive energy.
