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Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience. Artificial Intelligence can help us significantly reduce the content arrangement time when you work with tools like our AI Presentation Maker (made for presenters by experts in presentation design). 

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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Business Presentations, Presentation Approaches, Presentation Skills Filed under Education

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What are presentation skills?

The importance of presentation skills, 6 presentation skills examples, how to improve presentation skills.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety

Learn how to captivate an audience with ease

Capturing an audience’s attention takes practice. 

Over time, great presenters learn how to organize their speeches and captivate an audience from start to finish. They spark curiosity, know how to read a room , and understand what their audience needs to walk away feeling like they learned something valuable.

Regardless of your profession, you most likely use presentation skills on a monthly or even weekly basis. Maybe you lead brainstorming sessions or host client calls. 

Developing effective presentation skills makes it easier to contribute ideas with confidence and show others you’re someone to trust. Although speaking in front of a crowd sometimes brings nerves and anxiety , it also sparks new opportunities.

Presentation skills are the qualities and abilities you need to communicate ideas effectively and deliver a compelling speech. They influence how you structure a presentation and how an audience receives it. Understanding body language , creating impactful visual aids, and projecting your voice all fall under this umbrella.

A great presentation depends on more than what you say. It’s about how you say it. Storytelling , stage presence, and voice projection all shape how well you express your ideas and connect with the audience. These skills do take practice, but they’re worth developing — especially if public speaking makes you nervous. 

Engaging a crowd isn’t easy. You may feel anxious to step in front of an audience and have all eyes and ears on you.

But feeling that anxiety doesn’t mean your ideas aren’t worth sharing. Whether you’re giving an inspiring speech or delivering a monthly recap at work, your audience is there to listen to you. Harness that nervous energy and turn it into progress.

Strong presentation skills make it easier to convey your thoughts to audiences of all sizes. They can help you tell a compelling story, convince people of a pitch , or teach a group something entirely new to them. And when it comes to the workplace, the strength of your presentation skills could play a part in getting a promotion or contributing to a new initiative.

To fully understand the impact these skills have on creating a successful presentation, it’s helpful to look at each one individually. Here are six valuable skills you can develop:

1. Active listening

Active listening is an excellent communication skill for any professional to hone. When you have strong active listening skills, you can listen to others effectively and observe their nonverbal cues . This helps you assess whether or not your audience members are engaged in and understand what you’re sharing. 

Great public speakers use active listening to assess the audience’s reactions and adjust their speech if they find it lacks impact. Signs like slouching, negative facial expressions, and roaming eye contact are all signs to watch out for when giving a presentation.

2. Body language

If you’re researching presentation skills, chances are you’ve already watched a few notable speeches like TED Talks or industry seminars. And one thing you probably noticed is that speakers can capture attention with their body language. 

A mixture of eye contact, hand gestures , and purposeful pacing makes a presentation more interesting and engaging. If you stand in one spot and don’t move your body, the audience might zone out.

3. Stage presence

A great stage presence looks different for everyone. A comedian might aim for more movement and excitement, and a conference speaker might focus their energy on the content of their speech. Although neither is better than the other, both understand their strengths and their audience’s needs. 

Developing a stage presence involves finding your own unique communication style . Lean into your strengths, whether that’s adding an injection of humor or asking questions to make it interactive . To give a great presentation, you might even incorporate relevant props or presentation slides.

4. Storytelling

According to Forbes, audiences typically pay attention for about 10 minutes before tuning out . But you can lengthen their attention span by offering a presentation that interests them for longer. Include a narrative they’ll want to listen to, and tell a story as you go along. 

Shaping your content to follow a clear narrative can spark your audience’s curiosity and entice them to pay careful attention. You can use anecdotes from your personal or professional life that take your audience along through relevant moments. If you’re pitching a product, you can start with a problem and lead your audience through the stages of how your product provides a solution.

5. Voice projection

Although this skill may be obvious, you need your audience to hear what you’re saying. This can be challenging if you’re naturally soft-spoken and struggle to project your voice.

Remember to straighten your posture and take deep breaths before speaking, which will help you speak louder and fill the room. If you’re talking into a microphone or participating in a virtual meeting, you can use your regular conversational voice, but you still want to sound confident and self-assured with a strong tone.

If you’re unsure whether everyone can hear you, you can always ask the audience at the beginning of your speech and wait for confirmation. That way, they won’t have to potentially interrupt you later.

Ensuring everyone can hear you also includes your speed and annunciation. It’s easy to speak quickly when nervous, but try to slow down and pronounce every word. Mumbling can make your presentation difficult to understand and pay attention to.

6. Verbal communication 

Although verbal communication involves your projection and tone, it also covers the language and pacing you use to get your point across. This includes where you choose to place pauses in your speech or the tone you use to emphasize important ideas.

If you’re giving a presentation on collaboration in the workplace , you might start your speech by saying, “There’s something every workplace needs to succeed: teamwork.” By placing emphasis on the word “ teamwork ,” you give your audience a hint on what ideas will follow.

To further connect with your audience through diction, pay careful attention to who you’re speaking to. The way you talk to your colleagues might be different from how you speak to a group of superiors, even if you’re discussing the same subject. You might use more humor and a conversational tone for the former and more serious, formal diction for the latter.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to presenting. Maybe you’re confident in your use of body language, but your voice projection needs work. Maybe you’re a great storyteller in small group settings, but need to work on your stage presence in front of larger crowds. 

The first step to improving presentation skills is pinpointing your gaps and determining which qualities to build upon first. Here are four tips for enhancing your presentation skills:

1. Build self-confidence

Confident people know how to speak with authority and share their ideas. Although feeling good about your presentation skills is easier said than done, building confidence is key to helping your audience believe in what you’re saying. Try practicing positive self-talk and continuously researching your topic's ins and outs.

If you don’t feel confident on the inside, fake it until you make it. Stand up straight, project your voice, and try your best to appear engaged and excited. Chances are, the audience doesn’t know you’re unsure of your skills — and they don’t need to.

Another tip is to lean into your slideshow, if you’re using one. Create something colorful and interesting so the audience’s eyes fall there instead of on you. And when you feel proud of your slideshow, you’ll be more eager to share it with others, bringing more energy to your presentation.

2. Watch other presentations

Developing the soft skills necessary for a good presentation can be challenging without seeing them in action. Watch as many as possible to become more familiar with public speaking skills and what makes a great presentation. You could attend events with keynote speakers or view past speeches on similar topics online.

Take a close look at how those presenters use verbal communication and body language to engage their audiences. Grab a notebook and jot down what you enjoyed and your main takeaways. Try to recall the techniques they used to emphasize their main points, whether they used pauses effectively, had interesting visual aids, or told a fascinating story.

3. Get in front of a crowd

You don’t need a large auditorium to practice public speaking. There are dozens of other ways to feel confident and develop good presentation skills.

If you’re a natural comedian, consider joining a small stand-up comedy club. If you’re an avid writer, participate in a public poetry reading. Even music and acting can help you feel more comfortable in front of a crowd.

If you’d rather keep it professional, you can still work on your presentation skills in the office. Challenge yourself to participate at least once in every team meeting, or plan and present a project to become more comfortable vocalizing your ideas. You could also speak to your manager about opportunities that flex your public speaking abilities.

4. Overcome fear

Many people experience feelings of fear before presenting in front of an audience, whether those feelings appear as a few butterflies or more severe anxiety. Try grounding yourself to shift your focus to the present moment. If you’re stuck dwelling on previous experiences that didn’t go well, use those mistakes as learning experiences and focus on what you can improve to do better in the future.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety 

It’s normal to feel nervous when sharing your ideas. In fact, according to a report from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, public speaking anxiety is prevalent in 15–30% of the general population .

Even though having a fear of public speaking is common, it doesn’t make it easier. You might feel overwhelmed, become stiff, and forget what you were going to say. But although the moment might scare you, there are ways to overcome the fear and put mind over matter.

Use these tactics to reduce your stress when you have to make a presentation:

1. Practice breathing techniques

If you experience anxiety often, you’re probably familiar with breathing techniques for stress relief . Incorporating these exercises into your daily routine can help you stop worrying and regulate anxious feelings. 

Before a big presentation, take a moment alone to practice breathing techniques, ground yourself, and reduce tension. It’s also a good idea to take breaths throughout the presentation to speak slower and calm yourself down .

2. Get organized

The more organized you are, the more prepared you’ll feel. Carefully outline all of the critical information you want to use in your presentation, including your main talking points and visual aids, so you don’t forget anything. Use bullet points and visuals on each slide to remind you of what you want to talk about, and create handheld notes to help you stay on track.

3. Embrace moments of silence

It’s okay to lose your train of thought. It happens to even the most experienced public speakers once in a while. If your mind goes blank, don’t panic. Take a moment to breathe, gather your thoughts, and refer to your notes to see where you left off. You can drink some water or make a quick joke to ease the silence or regain your footing. And it’s okay to say, “Give me a moment while I find my notes.” Chances are, people understand the position you’re in.

4. Practice makes progress

Before presenting, rehearse in front of friends and family members you trust. This gives you the chance to work out any weak spots in your speech and become comfortable communicating out loud. If you want to go the extra mile, ask your makeshift audience to ask a surprise question. This tests your on-the-spot thinking and will prove that you can keep cool when things come up.

Whether you’re new to public speaking or are a seasoned presenter, you’re bound to make a few slip-ups. It happens to everyone. The most important thing is that you try your best, brush things off, and work on improving your skills to do better in your next presentation.

Although your job may require a different level of public speaking than your favorite TED Talk , developing presentation skills is handy in any profession. You can use presentation skills in a wide range of tasks in the workplace, whether you’re sharing your ideas with colleagues, expressing concerns to higher-ups, or pitching strategies to potential clients.

Remember to use active listening to read the room and engage your audience with an interesting narrative. Don’t forget to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and put your skills to practice in front of a crowd. After facing your fears, you’ll feel confident enough to put presentation skills on your resume.

If you’re trying to build your skills and become a better employee overall, try a communications coach with BetterUp. 

Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

The importance of good speech: 5 tips to be more articulate

The 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, skills gap analysis: how to build one in 7 steps, what’s my earning potential determining the right salary, goal-setting theory: why it’s important, and how to use it at work, what is a career path definition, examples, and steps for paving yours, why we need to reframe potential into readiness, discover how to get noticed by upper management at work, how to write a speech that your audience remembers, similar articles, 8 tip to improve your public speaking skills, 30 presentation feedback examples, your ultimate guide on how to be a good storyteller, how to give a good presentation that captivates any audience, 8 clever hooks for presentations (with tips), communication coach: what they are and how to find one, how to make a presentation interactive and exciting, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

Partner Center

21 Ways To Improve Your Presentation Skills

Published: April 07, 2023

You know the feeling of sitting through a boring presentation. A text distracts you. A noise outside pulls your gaze. Your dog begs for attention. By the time the presentation ends, you question why you needed to sit and listen in the first place.

Effective presentation skills can stop you from boring an audience to oblivion. Delivering strong presentations can help you stand out as a leader, showcase your expertise, and build confidence.

Table of contents:

• Presentation skills definition
• Importance of presentation skills
• How to improve presentation skills
• Effective presentation skills
• Presentation skills for executives

Presentation Skills Definition

Presentation skills include anything you need to create and deliver clear, effective presentations to an audience. This includes creating a compelling set of slides , ensuring the information flows, and keeping your audience engaged.

Speakers with strong presentation skills can perform the following tasks:

• Bring together different sources of information to form a compelling narrative
• Hook audiences with a strong beginning and end
• Ensure audiences engage with their content through questions or surveys
• Understand what their audience wants and needs from their presentation

Importance of Presentation Skills

At some point in your career, you will present something. You might pitch a startup to a group of investors or show your research findings to your manager at work. Those in leading or executive roles often deliver presentations on a weekly or monthly basis.

Improving your presentation skills betters different aspects of your working life, including the following:

Communication: Improving your presentation skills can make you a better communicator with your co-workers and friends.

Confidence: 75% of people fear public speaking. By working on your presentation skills, you can gain confidence when speaking in front of a crowd.

Creativity: You learn to understand how to use imagery and examples to engage an audience.

Management: Presentations involve pulling together information to form a succinct summary, helping you build project and time management skills.

How To Improve Presentation Skills

1. create an outline.

Before designing slides and writing a script, outline your presentation. Start with your introduction, segue into key points you want to make, and finish with a conclusion.

2. Practice, Practice, Practice

Almost 8 in 10 professionals practice their presentations for at least an hour. So, practice your presentation in the mirror or to a close friend.

3. Start With a Hook

When presenting, grab your audience with a hook. Consider starting with a surprising statistic or a thoughtful question before diving into the core information.

4. Stay Focused on Your Topic

You might want to cover everything under the sun, but information overload can overwhelm your audience. Instead, stay focused on what you want to cover. Aim for key points and avoid including unnecessary details.

5. Remember To Introduce Yourself

At the beginning of the presentation, introduce yourself. Kill any tension in the room by mentioning your name, your role, and any other helpful details. You could even mention a fun fact about yourself, putting the audience at ease.

6. Work on Your Body Language

55% of people look to nonverbal communication when judging a presentation. Straighten your back, minimize unnecessary gestures, and keep your voice confident and calm. Remember to work on these aspects when practicing.

7. Memorize Structure, Not Words

You might feel better knowing exactly what you want to say. But skip the script and stick to memorizing the key points of your presentation. For example, consider picking three to four phrases or insights you want to mention for each part of your presentation rather than line-by-line memorization.

8. Learn Your Audience

Before crafting a killer outline and slide deck, research your audience. Find out what they likely already know, such as industry jargon, and where they might need additional information. Remember: You're presenting for them, not you.

9. Reframe Your Anxiety as Excitement

A study conducted by Harvard Business School demonstrates that reframing your anxiety as excitement can improve performance. For example, by saying simple phrases out loud, such as “I’m excited,” you then adopt an opportunity-oriented mentality.

10. Get Comfortable With the Setting

If you plan to present in person, explore the room. Find where you’re going to stand and deliver your presentation. Practice looking into the seats. By decreasing the number of unknowns, you can clear your head and focus on the job.

11. Get Familiar With Technology

Presenting online has unique challenges, such as microphone problems and background noise. Before a Zoom presentation, ensure your microphone works, clean up your background, test your slides, and consider any background noise.

12. Think Positively

Optimistic workers enjoy faster promotions and happier lives. By reminding yourself of the positives — for example, your manager found your last presentation impressive — you can shake off nerves and find joy in the process.

13. Tell a Story

To engage your audience, weave storytelling into your presentation — more than 5 in 10 people believe stories hold their focus during a presentation. Consider ways to connect different parts of your slides into a compelling narrative.

14. Prepare for Questions

At the end of your presentation, your audience will likely have questions. Brainstorm different questions and potential answers so you’re prepared.

15. Maintain Eye Contact

Eye contact signals honesty. When possible, maintain eye contact with your audience. For in-person presentations, pay attention to each audience member. For online ones, stare at your camera lens as you deliver.

16. Condense Your Presentation

After you finish the first draft of your outline, think about ways to condense it. Short and sweet often keeps people interested instead of checking their phones.

17. Use Videos

Keep your audience’s attention by incorporating video clips when relevant. For example, videos can help demonstrate examples or explain difficult concepts.

18. Engage With Your Audience

Almost 8 in 10 professionals view presentations as boring. Turn the tide by engaging with your audience. Encourage audience participation by asking questions or conducting a live survey.

19. Present Slowly and Pause Frequently

When you get nervous, you talk faster. To combat this, remember to slow yourself down when practicing. Place deep pauses throughout your presentation, especially when transitioning between slides, as it gives you time to breathe and your audience time to absorb.

20. Start and End With a Summary

A summary at the start of a presentation can pique your audience’s interest. One at the end brings everything together, highlighting key points your audience should take with them.

21. Ask for Feedback

You will never deliver the perfect presentation, so ask for feedback. Talk to your managers about where you could improve. Consider surveying your audience for an unbiased look into your presentation skills.

Effective Presentation Skills

Effective presentation skills include communicating clearly, presenting with structure, and engaging with the audience.

As an example, say a content manager is presenting a quarterly review to their team. They start off with a summary. Their introduction mentions an unprecedented 233% growth in organic traffic — numbers their team has not seen in years. Immediately, the presenter grabs their team’s attention. Now, everyone wants to know how they achieved that in one quarter.

Alternatively, think of an entrepreneur delivering their pitch to a group of investors. They start with a question: How many of you struggle to stay awake at work? They then segue into an exciting product designed to improve the sleep quality of working professionals. Their presentation includes videos demonstrating the science behind sleep and surprising statistics about the demand for their product.

Both examples demonstrate effective presentation skills. They incorporate strong attention grabbers, summaries, and attempts to engage the audience.

Think back to strong presentations you viewed as an audience member. Ask yourself: What made them so memorable, and how can I incorporate those elements into my presentations?

Presentation Skills for Executives

Presentations take up a significant portion of an executive’s workload. Executives regularly showcase key company initiatives, team changes, quarterly and annual reviews, and more. Improving your presentation skills as a leader can help with different parts of your job, such as:

Trust: Delivering great, effective presentations can build trust between you and your team.

Confidence: Most people dread presentations — so a strong presenter projects the confidence needed by a leader.

Emotional intelligence: A great presentation taps into the audience’s perspectives, helping executives improve their emotional intelligence .

Expertise: Presentations help executives display their subject-matter expertise, making employees safe in their hands.

Delegation: At times, executives might need to pull information from different sources for a presentation — improving their ability to delegate as managers.

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9 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills For Your Next Meeting

By Hannah Tow , Feb 03, 2020

Presenting to an audience is one thing, but presenting ideas in a persuasive manner to the key stakeholders of your business is a whole other ball game.

The fact of the matter is that successfully presenting to a room full of people is a skill that’s mastered by very few. It takes practice, practice, and even more practice to start feeling comfortable with everyone’s eyes focused on you so you can effectively get your point across. 

The reality of presenting is that you can’t escape it. Especially as you start to move up in your career. If you’re yearning to improve, this article will walk you through the top nine tips to use to enhance your presentation skills for your next big meeting as well as throughout your life. Let’s get started.

9 top tips for improving your presentation skills:

• Practice speaking in front of others
• Use less text and more visuals in your presentation
• Leverage your personality
• Welcome questions and comments during
• Be passionate and engaging
• Maintain eye contact with your audience
• Obsess over your listeners
• Focus on confident body language
• Keep it as short as possible

Constantly practicing, refining and improving upon your presentation skills will not only make you a more confident individual, but you will find that you rise quicker to success in your career. However, having great presentation skills does not just affect your work-life. Great presentation skills are truly life skills that you should integrate into more areas than just the conference room.

1. Practice speaking in front of others 

Practice always makes perfect. 

It doesn’t matter how well you know what you’re talking about, the moment you have to persuade, engage, or teach in front of an audience, you will probably stumble a bit. This is a natural reaction that affects pretty much everyone when all eyes are pointed in one direction and the anxiety sets in. 

It’s important to remember that the overwhelming feeling of stress you probably feel is the result of your unfamiliarity with the situation, not from your lack of preparedness. The more comfortable you are with taking the stage and having everyone’s attention on you, the less nervous you’ll get. 

The greater confidence you have in your presentation skills will allow you to focus on what actually matters–which is the material that you’re presenting. 

The best way to implement this practice is by starting off small. Prepare a presentation to give to your friends, family, or closest co-workers. This sounds easy, but you will learn that it’s not necessarily who is listening to you that causes nerves, but it’s the fact that all of the attention is on you. 

You’ll become more comfortable with the attention when you begin practicing in front of others more often, which will allow you to effectively present your ideas next time it’s your turn to speak in the conference room.

RELATED: Learn the top ten public speaking tips to better prepare you for your practice sessions. 

2. Use less text and more visuals in your presentation

We’ve all been there before: sitting at the conference table trying our very best to stay interested and engaged with the presentation before us. The presentation lacks color, images, and all sense of creativity while containing an over-abundance of text and long-form paragraphs. 

These types of presentations are horrible for two reasons: 

The first reason being that the minute you have words on the screen, your audience will direct their attention away from you to begin reading and completely tune you out. 

The second reason is if your presentation skills are poor, not only will your presentation be dull to listen to, but it will be unbelievably boring to look at as well. You’ll quickly find out how easy it is to lose most of the room’s attention when you create a lackluster presentation. 

If you feel lost attempting to design your slides into an exciting work of art, try using creative presentation templates . PowerPoint templates make it simple to produce something beautiful, and they can also make you feel like an accomplished designer after seeing the outcome, such as this business presentation example . 

In addition to nicely designed slides, you should always try to use infographics and charts to help you better summarize the complex information you’re relaying to your audience. It will be much easier for your listeners to understand what you’re explaining when they have something to visualize it with. Plus, there are plenty of resources out there to help you craft these visuals.

Learn how to make an infographic in five easy steps or produce an impressive graph .

If you feel worried that your presentation doesn’t hold enough content, you must remember the main reason for visual aids: 

They are to enhance what you’re speaking about, not lead it! 

If you’ve done enough practicing, you should feel confident in your presentation skills to thoroughly explain your main ideas and you won’t need to rely on the screen anyhow.

TIP: If you’re looking for even more ways to engage your audience with your visuals, check out 120+ presentation ideas that are sure to wow and delight! 

3. Leverage your personality

As cliche as it sounds, you should always be true to who you are, especially if when you’re presenting. 

It’s incredibly easy to tell if someone is faking it for the sake of their audience, so you should never pretend to act in a way that you don’t typically do. Not only will you feel unnatural and uncomfortable doing it, but you can also risk embarrassment when you try to tell a forced joke and no one laughs or your new-found trait of sarcasm doesn’t sit well with your boss. 

It should bring you comfort knowing that most everyone in your meeting knows who you are. Use this to your advantage and start the presentation by playing up your best personality traits. Use your humor if you’re known to crack jokes or throw in your typical mannerisms.

These little additions will make your presentation feel much more relaxed for everyone involved. In addition to your own unique quirks, you should also bring a level of personability to your meeting.

Be empathetic, smile more, and look around the room.  Doing so will improve your presentation skills, make you more likable, and allow your audience to be more receptive to you. 

In many cases, you may be presenting virtually, rather than in person. You can still allow your personality to shine through and energize your virtual presentation. Lisa Schneider, Chief Growth Officer at Merriam-Webster, wrote for Venngage on how to adapt an in-person presentation into a virtual presentation . Check it out.

4. Welcome questions and comments during your presentation

Be flexible throughout your presentation. Answer questions and respond to any comments your audience may have either through hand raising or an audience response tool . Don’t worry if it veers you off your script. Chances are if one person has a question or comment, the others in the room are thinking it too. 

Use this as an opportunity to prove how well you understand the material you’re presenting–your audience will take notice.

Also, take some time out at the start or your presentation to ask your audience some icebreaker questions and slowly transition into the more important stuff. 

Taking this minute to talk through anything that your audience is thinking of is a good thing because it means they are engaged with you and really paying attention to the words coming out of your mouth. Doing so will also relax the format of your presentation, allowing you to feel more confident and relaxed as well.

5. Be passionate and engaging 

When creating your presentation, craft it in such a way that makes your audience curious and makes them have questions for you. A persuasive presentation is the best way to get the positive reactions you are looking for, so be as passionate as you can be about your subject matter to seal the deal. 

Remember that questions and comments during your presentation are a good thing, especially if you’re the one prompting them! 

The more excited you are to present your ideas and show off your expertise, the more excited and engaged your audience will be. Own your subject matter and know what you’re talking about, it’s one of the most important presentation skills to have.

6. Maintain eye contact with your audience

This is a very obvious tip that will go a long way with your audience. 

When the people you’re speaking to feel like you’re taking notice of them, they are much more likely to take notice of you and pay better attention to everything that you’re saying. 

It’s important to remember that losing eye contact and looking everywhere but at the people that you’re presenting to is a common nervous behavior. Pay extra close attention to whether or not you’re guilty of that, and work to ensure you have your eyes on at least one person.

7. Obsess over your listeners 

Be receptive to your listeners. You can’t forget that what you’re presenting is for the audience, and it has nothing to do about you! 

Focus on the value you can provide to the people in the room. The more serving you are to them, the greater chance you have at driving your point home and nailing your presentation. 

It’s also important not to forget about those listening to you remotely over video conferencing . Make sure they know you’re aware of them and engage them as well! 

8. Focus on confident body language 

Smiling, hand gestures, eye contact, and a powerful stance all exude confidence. 

If you don’t have strong body language and are showing physical signs of nervousness (ie. tapping, bouncing, shaking, darting eyes, and more) your audience will have a hard time focusing on the material you’re presenting and hone in on the fact that you’re nervous and probably don’t know what you’re talking about as much as you say you do.

No matter how nervous you are, take a deep breath and pretend otherwise. You might actually start to believe it!

9. Keep it as short as possible

Every single person’s time is valuable ( especially at work), so don’t waste precious meeting time. If you can say everything you need to in half of the time that is allotted, you should do so. 

Ensure that you’re only sharing the most important information. All of the extra fluff will bore your audience and you will lose their attention very quickly.

It’s a great idea to wrap up your presentation with key takeaways and action items. Doing so will ensure that no matter how quickly your meeting ended, your team understands their next steps. You can send out a quick, summarizing slide deck or an easy to read one-pager for their reference later. These visuals will make sure all of your bases are covered and that everyone is on the same page upon leaving the meeting.

A good presentation makes all the difference. Check out the top qualities of awesome presentations and learn all about how to make a good presentation to help you nail that captivating delivery.

Never stop refining your presentation skills 

Possessing great presentation skills doesn’t come naturally to most people–it’s something that’s learned and practiced over time. As with most things in life, you must continuously work on refining your skills to get better and better. 

Use these nine proven presentation tips that we covered in this article to improve your presentation skills and ace different presentation styles . By doing so, you will find that presenting at your key meetings becomes easier and easier and you’ll begin to nail it every single time.

More presentation guides:

How to Make a Persuasive Presentation

120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples

33 Presentation Templates and Design Tips to Hold Your Audience’s Attention

Presentation Design Guide: How to Summarize Information for Presentations

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Presentation Skills

Presenting information clearly and effectively is a key skill in getting your message across. Today, presentation skills are required in almost every field, and most of us are required to give presentations on occasions. While some people take this in their stride, others find it much more challenging.

It is, however, possible to improve your presentation skills with a bit of work. This section of SkillsYouNeed is designed to help.

Many people feel terrified when asked to talk in public, especially to bigger groups. However, these fears can be reduced by good preparation, which will also lay the groundwork for making an effective presentation.

There are Different Types of Presentations, but They’re All Presentations

There are any number of occasions when you may be asked to speak in public or to a group of people. They include:

• Presenting or making a speech at a conference or event.
• Objecting to a planning proposal at a council meeting.
• Making a speech at a wedding.
• Proposing a vote of thanks to someone at a club or society.
• On behalf of a team, saying goodbye and presenting a gift to a colleague who is leaving.
• Seeking investment or a loan to help you set up a new business.

These can all be considered presentations.

They do not, however, all require the same approach. You would not, for example, use PowerPoint to thank a colleague who was leaving. It would be unusual (though it has been done) to use it in a speech at a wedding. However, a conference audience would be somewhat surprised NOT to see slides projected onto a screen.

It follows, therefore, that there is no single set of rules that apply to all presentations. There are, however, some things that every presentation opportunity has in common. These include:

You will present better if you have prepared effectively . This does NOT necessarily mean that you have written out your speech verbatim and rehearsed it until you know it off by heart—although that might work for some people. It does, however, mean that you have to be confident that you are saying the right thing, in the right way, to the right people.

You need to be clear about your audience and your message . Every presentation will be better if you have clearly considered the message that you want or need to convey, and how best to convey it to your audience. These two pieces of information drive your style, structure, content, and use of visual aids.

You must never overrun your allocated time .  In other words, don’t outstay your welcome. Almost every speech or presentation is better if it is shorter. Nobody minds going for coffee early or finishing before they expected to do so. Everybody minds being held up.

Generally speaking, your audience starts on your side. As a rule, your audience is there (more or less) voluntarily. They have chosen to listen to you, and they want to enjoy your presentation. The occasion is yours to lose.

An Important Point

There is one very important point to remember: if what you’re doing or saying is not working, do something else.

One of the worst feelings as a presenter is that you have lost your audience. You know that’s happened, but you continue to stumble through your remaining PowerPoint slides for the next 15 minutes, as your audience checks their phones and wishes it was coffee time. You think you have no choice, but that’s not actually true.

When you present, you are in charge of the room . The audience has effectively handed you control and is sitting back waiting for you to do something. You may have prepared a specific talk, but if you see that isn’t working, you can always change it. You are, after all, the expert.

You can, for example:

• Skip through some slides to a section that they may find more interesting;
• Ask your audience whether there is particular information that they were expecting that you are not providing;
• Suggest that everyone looks a bit sleepy, and maybe it would be better to start questions early, or have a discussion; or
• Ask the audience at the start of the presentation what they are expecting and what they want you to cover. That way, you can tailor the presentation to fit their expectations.

Just as when you are facilitating, you want to help your audience get the most out of your presentation. The best way to do that is to accept feedback—which may include smiles, nods of interest, or people getting their phones out.

Quick Guide to Effective Presentations

If you need to improve your presentation skills quickly, then a really good place to start is with our Top Tips for Effective Presentations .

This will give you some ‘quick wins’ that will help you improve your presentations. If you’re already an experienced presenter, this page should be a useful refresher, or even take your skills from good to great.

Our tips include general ideas about connecting with your audience, information about the importance of voice and body language, and detailed tips about preparing slide-shows.

The most important tip of all, however, is to remember that it's all about your audience.

Keep that in mind, and your presentation skills will almost instantly improve.

If you have more time to develop your presentation skills…

…then the Presentation Skills section of SkillsYouNeed is designed to help.

Our Presentation Skills section is split into two parts.

• The first gives you a step-by-step guide to putting together and delivering a professional and effective presentation .
• The second provides more detailed information about presenting and communicating in particular circumstances .

You can either use our step-by-step guide to walk you through the presentation preparation and delivery process, or you can focus on particular areas that are an issue for you.

Preparing for Your Presentation

The guide starts by explaining What is a Presentation?

We define a presentation as a means of communication that can be adapted to various speaking situations, such as talking to a group, addressing a meeting or briefing a team. Effective presentations usually require careful thought and preparation—although this preparation need not take very long.

Preparation is the most important part of making a successful presentation.  Our page on Preparing For A Presentation explains what information you need before you can really start to plan your presentation and decide what you are going to say. The most important aspects include the objective of the presentation, the subject, and the audience.

Irrespective of whether the occasion is formal or informal, you should always aim to give a clear, well-structured delivery. To do so, you need to organise your presentation material . You can either do this in your head, or use a technique like mind-mapping to help you identify links and good flow.

By the time you come to write your presentation , you should know exactly what you want to say and the order in which you want to say it. You may want to use one of the standard presentation structures, such as ‘What, Why, How?’. You will also find it helpful to consider how to tell your story most effectively, and to use stories in your presentation to illustrate points. There is more about this in our page on writing your presentation .

You also need to decide on your presentation method . Presentations range from the formal to the informal. Your choice of presentation method will depend on many factors, including the audience, the venue, the facilities, and your own preferences.

Visual aids can add another dimension to your presentation, helping to hold your audience’s attention, and also act as a reminder of what you wanted to say. However, they need handling with care. Only use visual aids if they are necessary to maintain interest and assist comprehension . If visual aids are not used well, they can ruin a presentation.

See Working with Visual Aids to avoid falling into the trap of the dreaded ‘ Death by PowerPoint’ .

A particular case of visual aids is the use of data in a presentation.

There are times when using data in a presentation can really help you to tell the story better. It is, however, important not to blind your audience with statistics. You also need to remember that many people find numbers difficult to understand. Our page on Presenting Data gives some hints and tips about using data effectively in a presentation situation.

On the Day of the Presentation

There are a number of aspects to delivering your presentation on the day.

The practicalities of how you manage your presentation can make a significant difference to its success, and to your nerves! For example, turning up early means that you have will have a chance to see the room, and ensure that you can operate all the necessary equipment. There is more about how to cope, including managing sound systems, audio-visual equipment and lecterns in our page on Managing the Presentation Event .

Many people also feel very nervous before and during a presentation. This is entirely normal, and can even be helpful if you can channel it in the right way. There are some tried and tested strategies and techniques to manage your nerves so that you can concentrate on delivering an effective and engaging presentation.

See Coping with Presentation Nerves for some ideas that will help.

How you present yourself can also affect how your audience responds to your presentation.

You need to fit with your audience's expectations if they are not going to spend quite a large chunk of your presentation dealing with the differences between expectations and reality.

For more about aspects of self-presentation, see our page on Self-Presentation in Presentations .

You also need to consider how to manage your presentation notes .

Few people are able to give a presentation without notes. You will need to know your own abilities and decide how best to make the presentation. You might manage your talk by using full text, notes on cue cards, keywords on cue cards, or mind maps. There is more about this in our page on Managing your Presentation Notes .

After the presentation, you may be faced with a question-and-answer session. For many people, this is the worst part of the event.

Decide in advance how and when you wish to handle questions. Some speakers prefer questions to be raised as they arise during the presentation whilst others prefer to deal with questions at the end. At the start of your presentation, you should make clear your preferences to the audience. See our page on Dealing with Questions for more ideas about how to make the question session pleasant and productive, rather than something to dread.

Presenting Under Particular Circumstances

You may find that you need to give a presentation under certain circumstances, where your previous experience is less helpful.

Circumstances that may be new to you include:

• Giving a Speech , for example, at a wedding.

One particular special case is attending public consultation meetings.

Our pages on Attending Public Consultation Meetings , and Managing Public Consultation Meetings provide information to help whether you are a concerned member of the public, or responsible for organising a public meeting.

You may also find yourself required to organise or manage a press conference.

Although this may not strictly be what you would describe as a ‘presentation’, it is nonetheless an event at which you are required to present your organisation in a particular light.

Our page on Managing a Press Conference gives some ideas about how best to do that.

Finally, should you be unlucky enough to be involved in a serious crisis or disaster that affects your organisation, our page on Crisis Communications gives some ideas about how to manage press and public relations on these occasions.

Start with: What is a Presentation? Top Tips for Effective Presentations

See also: Personal Appearance Interpersonal Communication Skills

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How to Improve Presentation Skills: 21 Top Tips

We’ve all heard it, it may have been at a conference with thousands of attendees or in a small office meeting, a TED talk we watched online, a recent seminar... It could even have been during the inflight safety announcements before take off. It’s that one presentation that we forgot was even a presentation. It was funny and engaging, we couldn’t wait to hear what they would say next and it left us wondering - How can I speak like that?

Presentations and public speaking bring out a wide range of emotions. The more extroverted of us may feel a small flutter of nerves in their chest and then push it down through raw determination. Whereas others amongst us instantly feel our palms becoming sweaty and fear rising in our throats. Whichever camp we fall in, we’re all looking for ways to improve our communication skills. We’re looking to overcome concerns of being judged by a wide audience. 

If you've ever asked yourself how can you improve presentation skills, read our 21 presentation tips - these can be used by a wide audience, ranging from professionals to students. 

1. Make a good first impression

This is always the first question asked so there are endless sources of information on what to wear for a presentation and what it usually comes down to is to wear something that’s clean and feels comfortable. What’s talked about less is how you actually look. From the moment you appear as the presenter, whether that be standing to take your position at the front of the room, walking onto the stage or entering the virtual presentation, your audience is making all kinds of judgments before you’ve had a chance to say a word. This can sound intimidating but it’s actually a good thing! The energy you convey through your posture and your confident body language, will be registered by your audience even before your hair and wardrobe. 

2. Play with intonation and melody

How we speak is often not as important as how we sound when we say it. You want what you say to pull your audience in. Why is it that one person giving a presentation can sound like fingernails scraping down a blackboard, while another is completely engaging? Quite simply, one is making you work very hard as a listener, whereas the other is doing all the work for you. Much of this work is made up in how you sound, your intonation, emphasis and melody.

Here's a video of Emma explaining this in more detail:

3. Don't forget to pause

Pausing is an important and versatile tool. It allows breaks between tones and topics, it allows time for what you’ve said to resonate with the audience or leave or make an impact before your next words. Use pauses as ‘mini beats’ to divide up your thoughts, maintain control and interest. 

4. Know what you want to say

To avoid waffling and going off topic, clearly define the objective of your presentation before you even start thinking about the content. Think about what effect you want to have on your audience. Do you want them to come away feeling inspired? Delighted? Motivated? Do you want them to buy your product, vote for you or change their life in some way? Every slide and spoken point should clearly refer back to the objective.

5. Have structure

Beginning, middle and end. It’s a simple framework that can help you feel less nervous. the introduction should be about 10-15% of your speaking time, the body around 75%, and the conclusion only 10%. Once you have your structure, focus on the three key points that you really want to deliver to your audience and keep these in mind when you’re presenting.  People usually have a much longer list that this, but if you can keep it to three there’s more chance of you really making sure these messages get across and delivering an engaging presentation.

6. Deliver your points

This idea of delivery features a lot in our books and in our Effective Communication course and presentation skills training , and it is so important. When we speak, if we look around the room rather than at the audience or listener, then the message is: ‘I’m not that bothered about you’. If we direct our energy, our voices and eye contact to the listener then the message is: ‘I care about you and I want to make sure you hear me and receive these ideas’.

So how do you ‘deliver’? It’s really simple. You look with intention at your audience or an individual at the final word or two of each major thought, unit, or sentence. It’s very different from looking up in the middle of a sentence (the message of which is ‘I’m checking that you are still listening’) – so please avoid doing that if you can. Instead, if you connect with your audience on those final words of a thought or sentence, the message is clear: ‘I value what I am saying, I value you. And I want you to know about it.’ Now we’re cooking with gas!

Effectively delivering is when your intention, voice and eye contacts combine to literally place your ideas in the hands of your listeners. 

7. Practice does make perfect

This seems obvious, but it is often overlooked; there is nothing like practice to get you ready for a big presentation. If you're preparing for an in-person presentation, practice out loud, in front of a mirror or with a colleague.  If you’re preparing for an online presentation - even better - actually set up a Zoom meeting and record yourself presenting. And then be brave enough to watch yourself back - you will be amazed by what you notice. Mark your notes with key words and ideas that you want to really deliver. If you want to give a persuasive presentation, make sure you're using the right words - 'instantly', 'free', 'quick win', 'you' are all simple but effective examples of this.

8. Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm

Some of history’s greatest speakers were terrified of public speaking, including Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. So if you're wondering how to be confident in public speaking you’re in good company. Fortunately, when you think of old Abe or Gandhi, you likely think of their passion and not their nerves. This is because their need to speak was greater than their public speaking anxiety. To channel their skills in public speaking and confidence, look at your prepared remarks and ask yourself: 

What are my goals for the audience?

What am I giving them?

Will they be moved?

Will this make them feel relief or pain?

Continually come back to these places in your speech that really deliver on these goals and tune it to why they’re needed.  For more on this, see our 5 Tips To Overcome Public Speaking Nerves.

Watch our Principal Coach Kate Bowes-Renna on how to be confident in public speaking  and tackle glossophobia:

9. Make eye contact, especially online

We know how important eye contact is, all on their own our eyes can communicate with others. And this is no different in a presentation. Imagine someone looking up in the middle of their text, and then looking down at the end of their sentence to grab the next sentence. This communicates entirely the wrong statement - that the speaker is checking to see if people are still listening.  

You might think that you can’t make eye contact when you’re presenting online, but this is when it is even more important. When you are presenting to  people online, make sure you look at your camera - because that’s the way they’re going to feel your eyes on them. It’s that simple!

10. Curate your square

When you’re online your background really matters. This small square, or rather rectangle, is all you have to showcase yourself and make yourself memorable, so give them something recognisable and take some time to curate your background. Add a plant or flowers, books or pictures - but make sure you have something that relates to you and gives the impression you want. We are all about authentic communication so we don’t recommend using a fake or computerised background - you don’t want people to think you’ve got something to hide.

11. Be early

The attitude you start the presentation with will have a direct impact on how your audience engages. Imagine you arrived late and rushed, your clothes dishevelled, hurriedly preparing your notes or any props. Now imagine you’ve arrived in plenty of time to recover from your commute, your clothes and presentation notes are neat and orderly - you’ve even had a chance to check your Zoom link and how to share your screen. Chances are, your audience is more likely to feel that you are warm, honest and open, in the second scenario. 

12. Introduce yourself

Sure the Chair or previous speaker introduced you, but think of it like an ice breaker. Whenever you meet someone, you usually exchange names. Now while it would be appropriate to exchange names with everyone there to hear your presentation, you can make it easier for your audience by personally introducing yourself, followed by your presentation subject.

13. Connect with the audience

You may think you are the focus of your presentation. You will be the one speaking after all. But we don’t speak for ourselves, we already know what we think. We speak for other people. Which means your audience is the focus of your presentation. Use this as the foundation by which you can build a connection with your audience. The best way to tune into this head space is to tune in to the uniqueness and complexity of your audience. Don’t worry if it’s made up by a diverse array of people, there will still be unifying factors that have brought this audience together. Aim to connect with that factor.

14. Our Communication Equation A + C = E

If you’ve been reading our blogs and watching our videos for a while, you probably already know about ACE - Authenticity + Connection = Engagement. But what does that actually mean and how do you use it in a presentation? The idea is simple, really. If you, as the speaker, are authentic and you feel a connection with you listener, then as a result, you get engagement. And if the audience or listener is engaged, then that’s good communication right there. You’re giving a rousing presentation. 

15. Take deep breaths

The way we breathe has changed, and not for the better. We take in air by filling our lungs to around 80% capacity and then we slowly release that air. This serves an important role in how we communicate as we speak on the exhale. But with the challenges of modern life, we’ve begun taking in shallow breaths and exhale more rapidly. Not only has this impacted our pitch and tone, it also affects our nervous system, leading to a perpetual fight or flight chemical cocktail in our bloodstream. Not ideal for presentation speaking or calming the nerves you’ll be feeling beforehand. This is why it’s so important to take time to breathe correctly. A good rule of thumb is to remember the four fours - breath in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, repeat as needed. 

Genuine smiles are good for making instant positive impressions. We like genuine smiles and we feel drawn to them and the information conveyed when we see it. You may worry that smiling during your presentation will undermine your authority, but think again of that amazing presentation we talked about at the beginning? Was it their authority that made you listen? Or was it how engaged you were with what they said?  Plus don't forget smiling is good for you .

17. Ask questions

If possible. Not only does asking questions give you a chance to breathe and collect your thoughts but provides the added benefit of the opportunity to listen and engage with your audience. An important metric to gauge their interest and participation. Questions are also powerful rapport builders because questions mark the beginning of a connection. 

18. Add colour to your voice

Before humans developed complex languages, we communicated by sounds and the tones of our voice did most of the work. This hasn’t changed for our subconsciousness. Our voice can actually be a smoking gun, giving away to exactly how we feel to our listeners. The great news is, with practice we can manipulate the tones of our voice. Just as a smile can be heard in someone's voice, so can other emotions. Imagine what you want your audience to feel when you say a certain sentence and then practice that sentence while feeling that emotion.  

19. Drink water

A bit like asking questions in that it gives you the opportunity to collect your thoughts, fill space (don’t over use it) but with the added bonus of hydration. 

20. Don’t forget to add some spice! 

In order to connect with people, we need to show them a bit of ourselves, to make things personal and ideally infuse our storyline with a palpable sense of emotion and humanity.  So think about how you can incorporate real stories and anecdotes into your presentation.  It will make you much more memorable and help build engagement with your audience. 

21. Be authentic

Authenticity is the foundation of good public speaking skills. You can’t be a successful public speaker without it. Chances are, if you think back on all the amazing presentations you’ve seen, authenticity was what made it stick. Our Principal Coach, Jamie Chapman, offers some great tips on authenticity in presentations in this fantastic v ideo: 

So there you have it, 21 tips to improve your presentation skills.

Maybe you don’t need all of them, maybe you do, either way a refresh is always helpful for shaking up our communication.  

Why does the Serlin Method™ work where so many others fail?

That's easy to answer.  Our method is simple. We give you a toolbox.  Once you've learnt each tool, it's yours for life. Each tool is a simple - easy to remember - intelligent gem that has profound impact. Which means when you're armed with our toolkit you are armed and ready for any communication situation:

How do I build rapport?

How do I deliver bad news?

How can I be articulate when speaking off the cuff?

You name it, we can help with it.

It goes like this...  we film you. We teach you a tool.  We film you again. We watch back.  The tool is simple, but the  impact of the tool is profound. And you will want to keep going, learning more great tools to become an effortless presenter and outstanding communicator.

I know this works because this is exactly how I - and countless others - have changed their presentations from being ok and not always consistently, to brilliant and consistently compelling. 

Sound good? The next step is to Book Your Taster Session with one of our expert coaches today - they will discuss your goals and objectives with you and you will learn some of these simple tools for success in your first hour.

Want to take your next presentation from 'ok' to 'outstanding'?

Download our FREE eBook and start seeing instant improvement with our '7 Simple Tools For Giving Amazing Presentations At Work'

Penny McNamara

Popular posts, imagine if speaking was your superpower.

If you’d like to learn more about how to deliver confident presentations, speeches and pitches so that perhaps you don’t feel so much like you need those notes in front of you, learn more about our Effective Communications course.

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Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

Let’s talk

Change isn’t easy, but we can help. Together we’ll create informed and inspired leaders ready to shape the future of your business.

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How To Develop Effective Presentation Skills

Presentations are an essential component of business communication . They are the means of pitching a service or product, revealing findings, or presenting an idea. Taking time to learn and apply the secrets of effective presentation skills gives you the best chance of raising the quality of your presentations to the exceptional. Learn how to become highly effective at writing professional business cases with our business writing courses as well.

This guide outlines the components of presentation skills and how you can learn to deliver messages superbly. From essential planning to developing content, to ending a presentation, here are a set of rules to ensure that you get significant advantage from your presentation skills set.

Number one tip

Confidence and control, effective presentation skills, logistics – how to prepare for a presentation, infographic - do’s & don’ts of presenting, number one tip.

Without doubt, the number one ingredient for a great presentation, is content. Without great content, you cannot produce a great presentation. Quite simply, content is king.

Content also gives you confidence to cope with presentation nerves. Consequently, content is where you need to start. Clarify your objectives and work out the material you need to achieve them.

So, here is what you need to do to deliver the best presentation possible.

Clarify your objectives

You need to be clear about what you want to achieve. Do you want audience opinion on whether to proceed with something? Are you seeking approval to spend money? Are you seeking audience views? Whatever your objectives, they need to be crystal clear, and your presentation needs to be designed – step by step – to achieve them. 

Produce content

Divide your presentation into a beginning, a middle, and an end. The audience needs to be clear why they should listen to you from your very first sentence. Ensure that you make a strong start, and make it benefit related. People buy benefits whether of a service, product or an idea.

Slides should be used as signposts

Cluttered slides distract and get in the way of the message. Slides should be signposts and nothing more. They are not for information – that is your job as the presenter.

Work out your key messages

Each part of your presentation must have a theme to support your objectives. Ensure that your messages are simple to understand and to remember.

Produce an audience-inspiring first sentence

The purpose of your first sentence is to sell your second sentence and so on. Ensure that your first sentence is the most interesting, dramatic and inspiring thing you can say about your topic at that time. Then detail the benefits your audience will receive by listening to you and hearing your proposition.

Summarise with an audience-inspiring last sentence

The end of your presentation should refer to your objectives at the beginning. Summarise your proposition – back it up with credibility statements – reaffirm the benefits and conclude with whatever is appropriate to meet those objectives.

Know your set up – where you will be standing and where your audience will be sitting

Familiarisation with the venue is an obvious help – it is not always possible, but when it is, take advantage.

Engage with your audience

Check their reaction to what you are saying so that you know whether to elaborate, slow down or move on.

Focus on your key messages

Make sure that you get your messages across. Simplicity leads to clarity.

Don’t turn your back to the audience to refer to your slides

Amateur presenters often turn their backs to look at slides. Refer to slides by all means but always face forward and always look at the audience.

Given your content excellence, you have nothing to fear. Be confident and fearless – smile, engage with your audience and deliver.

Back To Contents

Confidence and control comes from presentation content, preparation and practice. Like learning a language or a sport, or driving a car, the better your theory and the more practice you take, the better your ability – and in this case the better your capability of how to give a good presentation.

Work out probable audience questions, and prepare complete answers. If you need to know facts and figures, have them to hand. Ask yourself questions throughout each stage of your presentation that the audience might ask. Try Why, Who, When, Where and Why. A narrative which delivers complete information instead of begging questions will give your presentation an air of justifiable professionalism.

Getting attention

A successful presentation or presenter engages with their audience through interesting content applicable to audience needs.

To connect with your audience, you need to start a presentation with an impactful set of words. Your beginning needs to grab attention, attract, and motivate your audience to pay attention to what comes next.

You could start a presentation by showing an image, giving a statistic, asking a question, or by delivering a notable quote. Whatever you show, say, or deliver, ensure it connects to your theme and to your objectives.

Communicating your message

The aim of a presentation is to get your message to resonate with the audience. Great presentation skills and delivering your message effectively is based on content. There is no substitute for great content however good your presentation style.

Concentrate on your core message and keep it simple. Depending on presentation styles, you can learn how to give a great presentation by using a combination of words, voice and body language. All play a vital role in communicating messages.

The Do's of Effective Presentations

Giving a presentation is about presenting content, and the success of a presentation is about how well you sell your content to your audience. If you’re new at delivering presentations, then there are a couple of key do’s you should apply to achieve the most effective presentation techniques.

Practice makes perfect

As well as increasing confidence and helping to calm initial nerves, undertake your own presentation training by practicing beforehand.  

Learn how to give a good presentation by running through your slides or notes numerous times and checking your timing.

Introduce yourself

Let your audience know who you are, why you qualified to talk about the subject, and what they will learn by listening to you.

Eye contact

Get your audience engaged – smile and make eye contact.

Use handouts and slides. If you want people to view a chart – it’s easier to read as a handout rather than from a screen. It also helps keep your audience more engaged with your presentation if they have something to do.

Ask questions

Invite your audience to ask questions to help them get involved and to give you feedback. Of course, you may wish to leave that invitation until the end of your presentation.

The Don'ts of Effective Presentations

To ensure that you give a good presentation in terms of delivery, avoid:

Speaking too fast

Slow down your speed of delivery – speaking too fast means people won’t be able to catch everything you are saying.

Reading out loud

People can read a sentence about 4 times more quickly than someone can read the same sentence aloud. Do not read from your slides. In any case, remember slides should be signposts for your audience and nothing more.

Saying 'um'

Practice your answers so that you won’t be caught out. If you want time to think, compliment the questioner on the quality of their good question.

Focus instead.

Logistics - How To Prepare For A Presentation

Whether it’s learning how to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for a job interview or how to make a business presentation:

• Have your slides on a backup USB stick and email yourself a copy.
• Check the room you will be presenting in.
• Find out as much as you can about your audience.
• Dress appropriately for your audience - if in doubt always dress up.
• Print handouts and have them with you.

Infographic - Do's & Don'ts of Presenting

Take a look at some of the Do’s and Don’ts of presenting with the below infographic, created by Walkerstone.com , and channel your nerves to positive effect. The infographic outlines in a clear step-by-step design the do’s of presenting and the don’ts of presenting, some statistics around communicating your message, keeping the attention of your audience, as well as some useful considerations to remember for your presentation.

Use this infographic as a preparation checklist for your presentation and you’ll feel more confident and prepared, come across as a professional speaker which hopefully will result in a successful outcome. If you like what you see, feel free to share the infographic on your own site (crediting Walkerstone.com) and help spread these useful tips for presenting…

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Giving presentations can be a daunting task for even the most experienced public speaker. Assess and develop your presentation skills using practical knowledge and tips, designed to help you prepare for, deliver and evaluate great presentations.

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Expert Interviews

The Art of Public Speaking

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Presenting With Confidence

With Cordelia Ditton

Great Presentations

Managing presentation nerves.

How to Calm Your Stage Fright

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10 Common Presentation Mistakes Infographic

Infographic Transcript

Even Better Presentations

Creating effective presentation visuals.

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Ensure That the Visual Aids You Choose to Use in Your Presentations Are Fit for Purpose

How to Structure a Presentation

Choosing the Best Format for Your Audience

The Presentation Planning Checklist

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Becoming a Confident, Compelling Speaker

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Presentation skills

Techniques to develop your skills and confidence as a presenter.

Overcoming presentation worries

Standing up in front of other people and sharing your ideas can be a stressful experience, but also extremely rewarding intellectually.

In formal presentations, you make both the strength of your knowledge and any gaps in it immediately and publicly visible.

This is risky and rewarding because it means you are both teaching others and learning from them. That is, you are doing what education is all about.

In addition, the way you communicate and how you present yourself will influence the response of the audience, and that can make you feel self-conscious.

But, by learning more about the best strategies and techniques for formal presentations in academic settings, you can make the most of this valuable learning environment.

301 Recommends:

Our workshop on Planning and Delivering Presentations examines what makes a presentation effective, and what things to consider when preparing for delivery. You will learn a planning technique which will lead to clear and concise delivery, so you can go into your presentations feeling confident and well-prepared. The workshop will also provide you with tips on getting your message across.

This short  Study Skills Hacks video  offers tips and suggestions on preparing for a presentation and getting it right on the day.

Planning your presentation

Three main focus points.

The more you plan your presentation, the more confidence you will have in the information you are delivering. You need to consider three things throughout this process: topic, time limit, and audience.

1. Your topic

Your topic is what your presentation should be about.

This seems obvious, but unless you keep a clear idea of the message you are trying to convey, it's easy to go off on a tangent. You will then lose the clarity of your presentation.

2. Your time limit

Again, this seems obvious, but you will be kept to time and you need to prepare for this.

If you're asked to deliver a short presentation, keep this in mind as you do your background research, to avoid doing unnecessary amounts of reading. You only have a certain amount of time you can spend on your preparation, so make sure you use your time wisely.

3. Your audience

Your audience is key to how you deliver your presentation.

You need to consider what they already know, what they need to know, and the type of language that is appropriate for your delivery.

Unlike a written piece of work, an audience only gets one chance to engage with the content of a presentation.

With this in mind, your presentation should follow a very simple structure of reinforcement:

• Tell your audience what you are going to tell them.
• Tell them again what you told them.

This may sound repetitive, but that's exactly what you want: to repeat the key points so that they are clear to your audience and provide a take-home message.

Having a clear structure not only helps your audience to follow your presentation but helps you to keep track of what it is you are trying to explain.

301 Recommends: Horizontal Planning

Use the  Horizontal Planning Template (google doc)  to organise your presentation. Start from the middle with roughly three main points, before moving out to complete a plan for your introduction and conclusion.

Starting in the middle is essential as it will allow you to pin down the main areas of your message, before moving on to identify how to introduce these main points to your audience and summarise them again at the end.

Individual presentations

Spoken reports detailing your work can take place in a range of settings: the small group classroom, in a one-to-one tutorial, in the workplace or at an academic conference. 

Presentations take different forms, from a read-out mini-lecture to an improvised explanation or elaboration of a series of key points, a question-and-answer session, an audience-activity workshop, or a blend of all of these.

An individual presentation can feel intense as you take centre stage. However, the advantage of this is that you have complete control over your preparation (see below), content and timing.

If you are finding the prospect of a solo presentation in front of an audience stressful, there are a number of strategies you can use to build confidence and overcome the nerves:

• Think about how to organise your presentation. Are you planning to present using the slides as a prompt (in which case be sure to look up from the screen to engage your audience)? Or are you planning to use notes or flash cards? Flash cards can be a great way to give yourself some key prompts and something to do with your hands. 
• If you are finding it difficult to engage with your audience directly, try focusing on a point at the back of the room. This will encourage you to look up and present to the room, while avoiding the pressure of direct eye contact.
• Think about your physical presence. There is evidence that standing tall can help to increase confidence and can make the audience perceive the speaker as more confident. 

Group presentations

Group presentations share many of the demands of the individual format, but collaboration brings its own benefits and challenges. Strength in numbers can provide a sense of comradeship and relieve individual pressure. But working together means you need to find ways to share the burden of work equally and incorporate the efforts and skills of each group member.

The additional pressures of a group presentation can be particularly significant when a presentation forms part of university coursework.

Like any form of group work, group presentations rely on sharing responsibility and developing strategies to manage group disagreements or imbalances. Remember to take time to understand one another's strengths and areas of confidence so that tasks and responsibilities can be divided up in a way that makes the most of individual skills and abilities. 

And just like an individual presentation, making sure you find the time to practice and rehearse the presentation together as a group can be decisive to its success on the day. Consider the following points and build them into your rehearsal time:

• What order are you presenting in?
• Who is taking over from whom? Can you stand in a logical order to cut down on transition times?
• Who is advancing the slides, or are you taking it in turns?
• Who is managing time and how are you going to warn group members to speed up?
• Don't forget to build in time for transitions between presenters!

Read more about group work and collaboration here .

Presenting online

Whilst the fundamentals of good in-person presenting remain true when presenting online, there are some important considerations that are unique to presenting remotely.  Read tips on online presentations here.

Preparation

Most importantly, for all kinds of presentations, allow time to practice! Make sure you think about how you are going to deliver your presentation and make it engaging.

This is especially important if you are presenting in a group, as transitions can be costly time-wise if unrehearsed. Make sure you have time to revise and edit your presentation, with enough time to rehearse the final edit too.

Make sure you have your ending prepared! Do not simply stop, think about how you will signal to your audience that you are done and ready for questions (if appropriate).

Finally, make sure that you are as comfortable as possible on the day. Plan out what you are going to wear the night before, arrive early to check equipment, and have a bottle of water with you.

The majority of your confidence will come from having a well-researched, structured and practised presentation, so don't worry, take a deep breath, and you will now be ready to go!

Once you have delivered your presentation, seek feedback from your peers or tutors, to help you develop your skills further. Think reflectively about the whole presentation process, as you continue to build this skill.

Learn more about how to use feedback here.

• Preparation is key! You need to consider your topic, time limit, and audience. If you are working as a group, be organised in allocating how this preparation will be done.
• A strong structure will help your presentation to flow. Signpost and wrap up for your audience, make it easy for them to follow, and easy for yourself too.
• Practise! Think about what you are going to say, time how long it takes you to say it. Make sure you are fully comfortable and confident before you need to present. If you are presenting as a group, decide who will say what, and practice transitions.
• Think about yourself as the presenter: plan what you'll wear, take some water with you
• Build-in contingency plans: know where you can cut things out or add bits in to keep to time, and plan how you will deal with difficult questions.

Library-  Group work vs collusion  

Student Services Information Desk (SSiD)-  Public Speaking and Communicating with Impact 

Counselling Service-  Communicating with Impact Workshop  

Counselling Service-  Public Speaking Workshops 

Creative Media Team-  Production Resources  

English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC)- Language Resources  

Digital Learning- Guidance for creating accessible content .

Digital Learning-  Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations

University of Manchester-  Working in Groups  

University of Reading-  Effective Group Work  

Learn Higher-  Group work  

BBC BiteSize-  Speaking Skills 

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How to Develop Effective Presentations – Step by Step Instructions

Effective presentations are the bread and butter of consultants as we are paid handsomely by major corporations sometimes just for recommendations delivered in a presentation format.  I wrote these step by step instructions for my own use while working in consulting and wanted to share them with you.  They are based on my experiences at McKinsey and Deloitte and were used by myself and other managers/senior managers at Deloitte to build effective presentations.

• Brainstorm presentation objectives
• Develop presentation outline
• Ghost presentation
• Develop presentation
• Practice delivery

Step 1 : B rainstorm presentation objectives

• Understand audience: list all the key types of people that will be the audience of this presentation
• Define expected results: list what you would like each of your audience types to get out of this presentation and prioritize which results are the most important
• Determine media: determine whether this presentation will be presented and / or used as a manual
• Agree with stakeholders: make sure you have the same understanding about the presentation objectives as your key stakeholders

Step 2: Develop presentation story outline

• Brainstorm content : develop a laundry list of content that should be included in the presentation
• Develop draft storyline(s) : develop 1-2 potential storylines for the presentation, keeping in mind the defined expected results.  Make sure you can describe the storylines to others like a story instead of the table of contents
• Enable key expected results: does the presentation using this storyline help you achieve the expected results?
• Efficient content: improve outline to avoid obvious content overlap to tell the story efficiently
• Prioritized content: does the presentation using this storyline help the audience focus on key takeaways?
• Interesting content: would you be bored with the presentation if you were one of the audience types?
• Agree with stakeholder: gather feedback on refined storyline with key stakeholders to ensure alignment

Step 3: Ghost presentation

• Sketch slide by slide “ghost” : draw out the outline in slide format on paper – no need to fill it in with content, just draw how you plan to present the content on each slide, so that you can mentally visualize the finished presentation
• Rearrange slide orders: as you run the story in your mind through these slides, you can see whether the flow still works or whether you need to switch the ordering of some slides to strengthen the story
• Sanity check:  it is important to make sure that the ghost presentation still meets the defined objectives from step one

Step 4: develop presentation

• Divide and conquer:   If you have a team, divide up the work so each person work on a few slides.  Make sure everyone is on the same page with the storyline and how their assigned slides support the storyline
• Identify gaps:  Once a draft is developed, look at your storyline and make sure every logical point is supported by some facts/reasoning in a slide.  Each slide should support only one major point.  Trying to cramp in more than one major point on a slide will lose its impact and confuse the audience.
• Gather feedback and revise:  Review your draft slides again with at least your boss and other key stakeholders if possible.  You may be too close to the content and can’t see easily what’s still missing.   Revise accordingly

Step five: Practice delivery

• Practice at least once out loud:  A mental overview of your story is not enough.  At least practice your opening statement and key points out loud.  You will notice immediately where you need to practice more
• Confirm logistics: make sure you have the room booked and your projector set up and working prior to presentation.  Nothing is more unnerving than having equipment failure.

Good luck with your presentation.

Your comments:  Can you see yourself using the above step by step instructions to make a great presentaiton?  why or why not?   Add your comment below and let’s have a discussion.

I am always in your corner .

– Lei

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Currituck County Center

Currituck County 4-H 2024 Presentation & Public Speaking Program

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Confident public speaking is a crucial, but often overlooked and underdeveloped skill. Developing effective communication skills and techniques provide youth with a positive sense of self and higher levels of self-confidence. This empowers them to achieve and succeed in any situation they encounter. More information on the benefits and importance of developing effective public speaking skills in youth can be found in  this article .

Good public speakers are made – not born. Check out our homegrown champion:  4-H National Public Speaking Champion .

The Currituck County 4-H Public Speaking program allows youth to develop and practice these essential skills in a positive and fun learning environment under the guidance of caring volunteers and Extension staff. In this program, youth ages 8-18 research, write, practice, and deliver a 5-12 minute presentation on a topic of their choice. Youth ages 5-7 can also participate by presenting a two to four-minute presentation on the subject of their choice.

All participants may compete in our County Activity Day June 14, 2024 and District 4-H Activity Day June 21, 2024 competitions. Gold and Silver medalists at District Activity Day will qualify for the NC 4-H State Public Speaking competition held on the campus of NC State University in Raleigh, NC on July 23, 2024.

In order to help youth draft and prepare their Presentations we have scheduled several program activities:

Presentations Overview and Q&A: April 2, 2024 :  Presentations Overview 2024

This session presents a general overview of the program and how youth can get involved. We will also outline the presentation categories and program areas and a question and answer session. Join us Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 6 p.m. for this activity. If you are unable to attend please contact the 4-H Agent and we will coordinate a date and time to meet with you regarding this program.

Outdoor Cooking Presentations April 4, 2024 :  Outdoor Cooking Workshop

These presentation categories are a great way to ease into the presentation program and learn how to give a hands on grilling demonstration presentation. There are 5 categories: Chicken, Turkey, Beef, Pork  and Seafood, three age groups: 8-10, 11-13 & 14-18 and a whole lot of food and fun. Join us April 4, 2024 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and learn all the tips and tricks to delivering a great 4-H Outdoor Cooking Presentation.

Foods Presentations April 5, 2024:   Foods & Nutrition Presentations

There are several foods and nutrition categories that provide youth with the opportunity to highlight the use of specific foods in healthy and nutritious dishes during their demonstration presentation. Foods and Nutrition categories include Dairy, Peanut, Egg Cookery, Fruits and Vegetables and a general Foods Category for foods not included in the previously mentioned categories. A very tasty and fun way to learn how to conduct a demonstration presentation. Join us April 5, 2024 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. for hand ons activities, fun food facts and presentation tips and techniques.

Presentation Prep & Practice:   Wednesday and Friday afternoons from April 8, 2024 until June 15 2024.   We have also scheduled a series of workshops and work sessions for Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 3:30-6 p.m., from  April 8, 2024 until June 15, 2024. These sessions will provide youth with assistance, tips and techniques, formatting, preparation, poise (appearance and body language) and practice in a  safe and friendly environment. Call the 4-H staff   252-232-2262  to register for the day and time and we will add you to the schedule.

If these days and times are not convenient for your family please call and we will coordinate a day and time that will work best for you.

All youth participating in any of these activities must be fully enrolled in NC 4-H for the 2024 program year.  4-HOnline

For more information on categories, rules and general information on the 2024 NC 4-H Presentations program check out the  2024 NC 4-H Awards Handbook

For questions or more information or if you need accommodations for persons with disabilities, please contact Sherry Fischlschweiger at [email protected] or by calling 252-232-2262 no later than 10 days prior to the event you wish to attend.

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