Delivering a presentation can be a high-pressure event. Whether you’re presenting to key clients in your business, showcasing important research in a university setting, or addressing your employees in a leadership role, delivering a presentation effectively can be the difference between success and failure.
It’s precisely because presentations can be so significant that it’s important to prepare for them ahead of time. In this article, we’ll help you ace your next presentation by:
- Sharing the key skills and techniques required to deliver an effective presentation
- Exploring how to maximize the impact of critical presentation moments (like your introduction and summary)
- Looking at how to handle audience questions during your presentation
- Providing a checklist you can use to help you prepare for your next presentation
Presentations should engage your audience, keep them focused on the topic at hand, and leave them with a clear understanding of your message – which is best achieved by being prepared and utilizing tried-and-tested presentation techniques.
Key Presentation Skills and Techniques
Every presentation is different, and a lot goes into making any presentation great – but there are some key skills and techniques that are relevant whatever the goal of your presentation is.
Engage and Connect with Your Audience
Being able to engage and connect with your audience is arguably the most important part of delivering a presentation. Presenting to a disengaged audience is difficult, and can almost feel like speaking to an empty room.
One part of engaging your audience will revolve around your presentation topic and how it relates to them and their concerns. The other part involves speaking with your audience, rather than just to them.
Using rhetorical devices, asking questions, and inviting people to share their thoughts throughout your presentation can help your audience feel like their presence in the room is welcomed and appreciated.
Body Language and Movement
Presenting is about more than the words you say or the slide deck you share. The best presenters exude confidence through their body language and movement on stage, helping their message resonate with the audience.
Try to move around on stage and use hand gestures while keeping an open, inviting posture and facing the audience as you present. This will help you come across as relaxed and hide any nerves you might be having.
If you’re using a computer to change slides, or referencing some notes, try to be brief and not spend too much time with your attention away from the audience.
Use Visual Aids
Visual aids are a useful tool that can help you simplify complicated concepts or even just mix up the flow of your presentation.
Don’t just repeat the text written on your slide (or describe it if it’s an image). Instead, your commentary should add further detail that the audience can’t deduce just from quickly looking at or reading the accompanying visual.
10-20-30 Slideshow Rule
Slideshows are a popular visual aid because it’s relatively easy to create attractive and professional-feeling presentations by using them. Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a 10-20-30 rule:
- Use a maximum of 10 slides, as your audience will likely struggle to take away more than one strong concept from the presentation, so there’s no need to overwhelm them with information.
- Try and ensure that the presentation doesn’t last much longer than 20 minutes, which leaves time for questions and discussion without fatiguing the audience.
- Use a font size of at least 30pt – audiences read faster than you can talk, so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted by the slides for long periods of time.
Of course, these are guidelines and can be tweaked depending on your specific presentation circumstances. If you’re stuck ahead of your next presentation, try out the 10-20-30 slideshow technique and see if it works for you.
Use a Variety of Vocals
How you say something is just as important as what you say, if not more so. If you’re enthusiastic or passionate about your topic of choice, you’re more likely to pass that excitement onto your audience – as opposed to presenting while visibly bored.
Your voice is a powerful tool, so be sure to adapt it depending on what you’re saying. If you want to highlight something, then raising your voice or speaking with intensity can help (within reason – don’t accidentally scare your audience).
Enunciating clearly, avoiding mumbling, and not sounding monotone are all ways to ensure your audience stays engaged with what you’re saying and don’t tune out your message.
Don’t Overcomplicate – Keep It Simple
You shouldn’t overwhelm your audience with information. Ensure that you’re clear, concise and that you get to the point so they can understand your message.
Depending on your audience, spoken presentations won’t necessarily be the best way to convey highly complex concepts, so break your message down into chunks that your audience will understand.
Aim to have a maximum of three main points: State them at the beginning of your presentation, then explain them in more depth, before recapping during your conclusion. This structure will improve your presentation’s clarity and keep your main message at the forefront of the audience’s mind.
How to Start a Presentation Strongly
First impressions are everything – which means the start of your presentation acts as a tone-setter, drawing the audience in and interesting them in your message. Capturing people’s attention early makes it much more likely that they’ll pay attention throughout the presentation.
But how do you start a presentation in a way that ensures the audience is engaged? A lot depends on the type of presentation and the type of audience, but there are some common threads.
Depending on the event, a facilitator may introduce you to the audience or you’ll have to introduce yourself. Before anything else, wait until the majority of the audience are paying attention before introducing yourself and launching into your speech – you don’t want to start by talking to a wall of inattentive people.
Then, begin by following this structure:
- Welcome the audience and thank them for their time
- Introduce yourself and your job or role, as well as sharing a brief biography that draws attention to your relevant expertise and experience
- Then introduce your presentation topic alongside your aims for the audience – what you hope they’ll get out of it
- Lastly, set out any necessary ground rules by letting the audience know how and when they should ask questions, etc.
With that structure followed, it becomes time to really start your presentation. The steps we just outlined ensure that you have the right platform for a successful presentation, but the content of your presentation is how you’ll actually make an impact.
There are a number of techniques that you can employ at the beginning of your presentation to grab your audience’s attention:
Tell a Personal Story, Anecdote, or Joke
People resonate with real-life examples more than with abstract ideas. A story or even just a light-hearted joke can humanize you in the eyes of your audience and bring a personal touch to the start of your presentation.
This can engage an audience and help them paint a picture of your theme or message in their heads right from the beginning.
Cite an Impactful or Shocking Statistic or Fact
Audiences want to feel like their time wasn’t wasted, so immediately opening up your presentation with a surprising or impactful statistic or fact can help them feel like they’ve learned something new.
Additionally, if the stat or fact is unexpected or runs counter to traditional wisdom, it can prime the audience to be inquisitive and curious about the rest of your presentation.
Ask Your Audience a Question
Questions are a great way to pique your audience’s immediate attention, as asking one prompts them to think about the topic at hand and their thoughts and opinions on it. This question could be an actual one, in which you get answers from the audience, or a rhetorical one that’s designed to get the audience thinking.
In either case, this type of audience involvement helps the audience focus and start thinking about the topic you’re presenting about.
Reference a Historical Event or Famous Quote
Well-known historical events or famous quotes make for good reference points, both to illustrate your point and to get the audience using their imagination.
Depending on the topic of your presentation, you might be able to draw upon historical trends or parallels, or reference a quote from a famous person or expert who shares a similar (or opposing) view to you. This is a great way to get the audience thinking and ready to absorb the information you share.
Highlight a Problem or Opportunity That Resonates With The Audience
If people feel personally invested in what you’re saying, they’re more likely to pay attention to your presentation.
Drawing on a common pain point among your audience can be a useful way of gaining their attention because you’re triggering an emotional reaction – which helps keep them focused and curious.
A simple example might involve asking “Have you found it difficult to stick to a healthy diet?”. The audience is now likely to want to remain engaged in order to learn about the solution and the opportunities that you’re offering.
Most Effective Ways to End a Presentation
Wrapping up a presentation can be even trickier than starting one. Bringing things to a natural conclusion without feeling stilted is a skill, and there are some do’s and dont’s to help you with this.
Next time you’re ending a presentation, don’t:
- Use a ‘“thank you” slide – It doesn’t actually convey any useful information to your audience. If you’d like to thank them, tell them instead.
- End the presentation abruptly – It can be jarring to end the presentation without a proper conclusion, and may leave the audience thinking about that rather than the topic discussed.
- Introduce new concepts or ideas at the end of your presentation – Towards the end of your presentation, your audience is likely tired and approaching information overload, so don’t bring in new ideas that you won’t have time to properly discuss and that they won’t have time or energy to absorb.
Instead, do:
- Use a summary slide – In contrast to a “thank you” slide, this gives the audience a chance to refresh their memory of your main points and gives them the chance to think ahead of any audience questions.
- Reinforce what you want your audience’s key takeaways to be – At the beginning, you should’ve shared your goal for the presentation, and this is a great moment to revisit that. You can even ask the audience if they feel you achieved your goal.
- Give an opportunity to ask questions – Hopefully your presentation was thought-provoking and inspired questions. Having a Q&A gives the audience a chance to think deeper about what was discussed during the presentation, but remember to have a concluding review sentence or two once questions are done, rather than ending the entire presentation on an answer.
Presentation Summary Slide Tips and Ideas
Summary slides are a great tool for reinforcing the key themes of your presentation before leaving the stage. A summary slide should include the main points of your presentation, and can also include your contact details – as people might photograph the slide to remind them of the presentation.
Keep the summary slide visible should you have a Q&A session too, as this can help people come up with question ideas as you answer others’.
When going through the summary, be brief and if possible, highlight the summary point in a different colour when you are talking about it – this keeps the conclusion as simple as possible for the audience, as their attention span will have reduced by the end of your presentation.
Microsoft PowerPoint offers a variety of well-designed layouts for your summary slide, which can be accessed by going to Home → Slides Panel → Layout and choosing an appropriate layout. (The process is similar for Google Slides).
One useful tip is to hyperlink the key points in your summary slide, in case you’re asked a question about one of the points and you want to quickly refer to the relevant slide in more detail.
Visuals and images can be a great fit for summary slides too. Either re-use the most relevant visuals from earlier in the presentation, or design an easy-to-understand image specifically for the summary. People are generally better at remembering images than verbal information, so this can further help to keep the information front of mind.
Examples of Summary Slides
- This is a basic summary slide with the presentation’s key points on the left, alongside contact information. The overarching theme of the presentation is highlighted on the right hand side.
- This example summary slide is a little more visual, adding a layered effect. The presentation’s key points are still mentioned, alongside memorable icons for each point.
- This funnel-styled diagram gives the audience some more context to the key presentation points around it, without overwhelming them.
Handling Questions During and After a Presentation
Answering questions at the end of a presentation can be an intimidating prospect for some speakers, due to the lack of control and the unpredictability involved – which can make them difficult to prepare for.
However, it’s better to view Q&As positively. They can form an important part of your presentation and help the audience clarify the concepts you shared and consolidate their learning.
As a presenter, you can enhance the effectiveness of any Q&A session by treating it as an intentional part of your presentation. Doing so requires almost as much planning as your core material.
To handle any questions that come up during or after your presentation, do:
- Identify possible questions ahead of time and formulate your answers before the session. While you can’t prepare for every question, there are likely to be some you can expect – spend some time thinking about your answers to these beforehand so you don’t get caught out while on stage.
- Ensure you understand and actually answer the question. Confirm what the question is asking aloud (this helps any audience members who might’ve missed it too) and make sure your answer is relevant and concise, without going on an off-topic tangent.
- Involve the audience. Don’t just speak to the person who asked the question, instead speak to the whole room while routinely bringing your attention back to the original question-asker. This helps keep everyone engaged and encourages follow-up or related questions from other audience members.
When answering questions from your audience, don’t:
- Pretend you know the answer even if you don’t. Rather than trying to come up with the answer on the spot or avoiding the question, acknowledge the question and say you’ll follow up with them after researching further, or refer them to a more knowledgeable colleague.
- Get defensive or aggressive. Even if a question criticizes your presentation, you should remain calm and address the question politely.
- Ramble or go on a tangent. Giving a long, winding, and unstructured answer to a question will make it difficult for your audience to absorb the information and derail listeners’ attention spans.
Framework for Answering Questions During and After Presentation
When you receive a question, use the following framework to decide between the five main ways of answering. You’ll have a few moments to think about it and reframe it in a way that makes sense to you. This will give you five choices on how to react.
You can answer, reflect, deflect, defer or change the scope of the question. Once you’ve answered concisely, you can then follow up to check if the person asking the question is satisfied and then continue with the presentation (or take another audience member’s question).
Answer
If you have a good answer for the question from the audience already prepared or in your head, go ahead and answer it in a clear and concise manner.
Reflect
Ask a question back to the audience member, such as “Can you clarify what you mean by that?”. You can also ‘question’ the question itself if you feel it’s not related to the topic, factually inaccurate, personal, or based on false assumptions (though you should be careful to not be rude when using this method).
Deflect
Pass the question to another panel member or a colleague of yours if possible, and explain your reasoning. If suitable, you can imply the question has been asked already and state you don’t want to retread old ground.
Defer
Tell the audience member you’ll talk to them after the event as you need some more time to investigate or think the question through. This gives you more time and lessens the pressure to give a perfect answer on the spot. You might also mention that an answer to their question is coming up in a subsequent slide.
Scope
This involves answering in a way that changes the scope of the question. You can explain that you’re only capable of partially answering the question, or qualify your answer by saying you can only answer it in a certain context. If the question is off-topic, you can say this and reframe it in a way that applies to the theme of your presentation instead.
Practicing Answering Presentation Questions
You can practice answering AI-generated questions about your speech or presentation with VirtualSpeech.
Presentation Checklist
With all this advice in mind, here’s a checklist you can work through to make sure you haven’t missed anything before your presentation.
| Purpose of the presentation |
| Ask yourself what the purpose and aim of your presentation is. |
| Ask yourself what you’d consider to be a successful outcome. |
| Presentation preparation |
| Check how long your presentation slot is and that your presentation fits in the allotted time. |
| Prepare speaker notes or cue cards – and number them in case you drop them or they end up out of order. |
| Take a presentation training course or rehearse your presentation using virtual reality. |
| Ensure your introduction explains your objectives and grabs the audience’s attention. |
| Check your main points are in logical order and flow well. |
| Ensure your conclusion is clear, concise, and ties back to the introduction. |
| Make sure you feel confident and knowledgeable on the topic you’re presenting. |
| Presentation slides |
| Keep your slide designs simple and concise – use minimal text and high-quality visuals. |
| Double check your spelling, grammar, facts, and stats. |
| Save your presentation to two different storage devices for contingency (USB drive, cloud storage, etc.) |
| Confirm that the audiovisual equipment you need to display the slides will be in the room. |
| Practice running through the slides to get the correct timing and to ensure any transitions and visuals work correctly. |
| Visual aids and handouts |
| Check that visual aids are easy to read, simple to understand, and tie into the points you’re trying to communicate. |
| Ensure they’re visible and legible from all areas of the room. |
| Prepare any handouts ahead of time, proofread them, and create more than you need in case some are damaged or more people than expected attend. |
| Audience analysis |
| Think about who’ll be in the audience, their level of knowledge on the topic, and what they are expecting from the presentation. |
| Consider if attendees’ native language is the same as your presentation’s language. |
| Ask the organizers if they can provide a rough demographic of attendees. |
| Determine if there will be decision-makers in the room. |
| Audience questions |
| Think about possible questions you’ll be asked and consider how you’ll answer them ahead of time. |
| Decide how much time you’ll leave for questions at the end (if any). |
| Consider if you want to set any ground rules for questions (permitted topics, during or after the presentation, raised hands or first come first served, etc.) |
| Other speakers at the event (if applicable) |
| Find out who else is speaking at the event and what their topics are – identify if other speakers’ topics are related to or overlap with yours. |
| Check if someone else will introduce you or if you’ll have to introduce yourself. |
| Determine whether you’ll be presenting alone or as part of a larger group. |
| Location and type of event |
| Check the floor, room, and location of the event space, as well as directions to the venue. |
| Find an organizer’s contact details in case you’re running late or need some other help. |
| Check the type of room you’ll be presenting in. Is it indoors or outdoors? Standing or seated? Is it a big auditorium or a small room? Is there a screen for your slides? |
| Check the type of event – is it a major industry event where you’ll be addressing experienced professionals, or a more niche audience, for example? |
| Your appearance |
| Make sure you’re dressed and groomed appropriately and aligned with the audience’s expectations – first impressions are key to your credibility. |
| Practice your speech while paying attention to your body language and posture. |
| Decide what to wear the day before the event, and check the dress code with the organizers. |
| On the morning of the event |
| Eat a good breakfast to give you plenty of energy, and try to get some light exercise if possible to put you in a healthy mental space. |
| Check that your laptop or other electronic device is charged and has your slides readily available offline on local storage (in case there is no internet at the venue). |
| Get to the venue early to account for traffic or other delays, and to avoid unnecessarily stress. |
| Bring with you to the event |
| A bottle of water in case your throat goes dry. |
| Your laptop and any necessary cables and additional devices (such as portable chargers, HDMI cables, and backup USB drives with your slides) |
| Any additional material you need for your presentation (Speaker notes, cue cards, visual aids, posters, handouts, etc.) |
| A remote to control your slides if it’s not provided. |
| At the event |
| Register and let the organizer know you’ve arrived |
| Engage with the event – find your room and watch another speaker present, and if time allows, mingle and meet with people who might be in your audience. |
| Be in the room before you’re scheduled, giving you as much time to set up as possible. As soon as you can, hook your laptop up to the projector and test your slides, etc. |
| Walk around on stage and get comfortable with the room – even run through the first couple of minutes of your presentation if the situation allows. |
| Sit in the back row and corners of the room to ensure your text is readable from that distance. |
| Have some water easily available, turn off your phone or switch it to silent, and manage any nerves by doing breathing exercises or taking a short walk. |
| After the event |
| Make yourself visible after the presentation so people can find you to discuss or ask further questions |
| Make note of any contact details from attendees who requested follow-ups or more information after the event. |
| Thank the organizers and ask for any feedback – if your talk was filmed, ask for a copy so you can learn from it. |
Improving Your Presentation Skills
VirtualSpeech features countless scenarios that can help you improve your presentation skills. Whether you want to improve your presenting in general, or are preparing for a specific big day, the VirtualSpeech platform features a range of immersive, AI-powered scenarios to help you succeed.
