In the marketplace of ideas, it’s not the best ideas that win, but the best communicated ideas that win. Looking back at my career, the big moments were often defined by big presentations.

Presentations are powerful opportunities, yet few put in the work to make truly great presentations. We’re all busy, so it’s tempting to throw something together quickly or just wing it. That’s fine if isn’t particularly important, but when it counts, don’t squander the chance to make a big impact.

In the past six months or so, I’ve spent a lot of time, not giving presentations, but helping my teams prepare for important presentation opportunities. I’m going to use this article to share some of my common tips.

Before I get into that, I want to point you to an article I wrote over four years ago, entitled 10 Public Speaking Hacks for Geeks. I’ve written 220 articles. That was article #2. Check it out, then continue on here.

Preparation

In my opinion, it’s really hard to over-prepare for a presentation. Most under-prepare, or at best, they prepare as much as they can, but eventually run out of time and go for it. Preparation is key. Here are the items to consider when preparing a presentation.

What is the outcome?

Over 20 years ago, I read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Habit #2 is “Begin with the end in mind.” Before you start making slides, focus on the outcome you are trying to create. Are you trying to get approval, funding, or strategic alignment? What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation? They won’t remember everything, so be sure to create focus on the vital few objectives. If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, then your audience won’t either. Figure that out first.

Introduce yourself

Introductions are often a place I see people stumble. Some are too short. “Hi, I’m Zach” isn’t an introduction. It’s important to state your role, and quickly give a little background to establish your credibility to speak to the topic. Some introductions are too long. Sometimes people get on a roll and start telling their life story. That bores the audience, wastes precious time, and makes you look self-absorbed.

Tell a story but give away the ending

Everyone loves stories, but we don’t often know how to write them. Good stories have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Make your slides and speaking parts have a great flow and move at an appropriate pace.

However, unlike the latest blockbuster, you don’t need plot twists. Tell your audience your main point right away in the introduction. It may seem anticlimactic to do so, but here’s the reason why: Your audience will interact with you. Don’t confuse them. It will cause more interruptions and questions than necessary.

Slides and speaking

Don’t just plan your slides, but also plan your speaking parts that go along with each slide. Make those two things complementary, not redundant. Obviously, don’t read your slides to your audience. The purpose of slides is to give visual impact and clarity to what you are saying.

Be creative

Powerful visuals make presentations memorable and impactful. It’s worth spending time on this. Use your branded PowerPoint template and experiment with different slide layouts. Using the same (or default) layout over and over is bland and forgettable.

Rehearse with a stopwatch

It is impossible to get your timing down if you don’t rehearse. All presentations are timebound. Rehearse your presentation to the point where it is memorized. I don’t recommend reading your speaking parts from notes because it can seem quite wooden and awkward. Instead memorize what you are going to say and know how long it will take.

This is especially important if there are multiple presenters. I’ve often witnessed an early speaker in a lineup use more time than they should, leaving their co-presenters in a scramble. That’s not fair. Don’t do it.

Leave time for interaction and distraction

Your presentation will not go how you planned it. That’s why you memorize and rehearse it. When you have your content memorized, that gives you the mental capacity to deal with whatever is going on in real time.

Perhaps the a/v tech is glitching. Perhaps a key participant showed up late. Perhaps you received more questions early on that you expected. When you are well prepared, you can roll with all of this. When you aren’t, these things will trip you up.

Leave time on the clock

Many presenters use up their entire timeslot. At worst, they get the hook before they even get to their end of their presentation. At best, they land it right at the end of their slot. Ideally, I like to plan for a lot of buffer. 25-30% is about right. You are relaxed because you know you have plenty of time.

You also get the opportunity to receive real-time feedback right in the moment. If you run out the clock, you need to exit stage left, and probably have no idea how your presentation was received. If you leave some buffer, you can get some feedback, or worst-case scenario, give some time back. Nowadays, everyone loves that too, so that’s not a bad outcome either.

Dry runs

This is where I come in. I love giving presenters a chance to dry run with me before the main event. We often do a few iterations of this. It’s helpful early in the creative process to make sure teams don’t waste time building irrelevant content. It’s helpful at the end to make final tweaks and to boost confidence.

Those are my presentation tips. I hope you’ve found them helpful. If you have a few tips of your own to share, please add them in the comments below.

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