presentation skills 2021

Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

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.

© 2024 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.

• Privacy Policy
• Copyright Information
• Terms of Use
• About Harvard Business Publishing
• Higher Education
• Harvard Business Review
• Harvard Business School

We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and revised Privacy Policy .

Cookie and Privacy Settings

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

How it works

Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.

Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.

We pair AI with the latest in human-centered coaching to drive powerful, lasting learning and behavior change.

Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.

Build resilience, well-being and agility to drive performance across your entire enterprise.

Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders.

Unlock business impact from the top with executive coaching.

Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Accelerate the performance and potential of your agencies and employees.

See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce.

Discover how BetterUp measurably impacts key business outcomes for organizations like yours.

A demo is the first step to transforming your business. Meet with us to develop a plan for attaining your goals.

• What is coaching?

Learn how 1:1 coaching works, who its for, and if it's right for you.

Accelerate your personal and professional growth with the expert guidance of a BetterUp Coach.

Types of Coaching

Navigate career transitions, accelerate your professional growth, and achieve your career goals with expert coaching.

Enhance your communication skills for better personal and professional relationships, with tailored coaching that focuses on your needs.

Find balance, resilience, and well-being in all areas of your life with holistic coaching designed to empower you.

Discover your perfect match : Take our 5-minute assessment and let us pair you with one of our top Coaches tailored just for you.

Research, expert insights, and resources to develop courageous leaders within your organization.

Best practices, research, and tools to fuel individual and business growth.

View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions.

The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace.

• BetterUp Briefing

The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today.

Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more.

Founded in 2022 to deepen the understanding of the intersection of well-being, purpose, and performance

We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion.

Join us and create impactful change.

Read the buzz about BetterUp.

Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce.

For Business

For Individuals

6 presentation skills and how to improve them

Jump to section

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. 

Elevate your communication skills

Unlock the power of clear and persuasive communication. Our coaches can guide you to build strong relationships and succeed in both personal and professional life.

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.

Goal-setting theory: Why it’s important, and how to use it at work

The significance of written communication in the workplace, 8 tip to improve your public speaking skills, empathic listening: what it is and how to use it, what is an entrepreneur understanding the different types and examples of entrepreneurship, get smart about your goals at work and start seeing results, the importance of good speech: 5 tips to be more articulate, the 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, 9 signs that you’re being pushed out of your job, i stopped having dead people's goals, 6 career changes for teachers that truly pay off, how to choose a career: 7 things to consider, how to disagree at work without being obnoxious, how to apologize to someone professionally and with grace, want to find your inner entrepreneur 13 tips to get started, what is a career path definition, examples, and steps for paving yours, how to write a speech that your audience remembers, what is corporate learning (it’s not what you think it is), and why is it important, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

3100 E 5th Street, Suite 350 Austin, TX 78702

• Platform Overview
• Integrations
• Powered by AI
• BetterUp Lead™
• BetterUp Manage™
• BetterUp Care®
• Sales Performance
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Case Studies
• Why BetterUp?
• About Coaching
• Find your Coach
• Career Coaching
• Communication Coaching
• Life Coaching
• News and Press
• Leadership Team
• Become a BetterUp Coach
• BetterUp Labs
• Center for Purpose & Performance
• Leadership Training
• Business Coaching
• Contact Support
• Contact Sales
• Privacy Policy
• Acceptable Use Policy
• Trust & Security
• Cookie Preferences

Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

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.

Like this article? Please share

Business Presentations, Presentation Approaches, Presentation Skills Filed under Education

Related Articles

Filed under PowerPoint Tutorials • June 28th, 2024

How to Represent Branching Scenarios in PowerPoint

Do you have a situation to expose with multiple possible outcomes? If so, check our guide on branching scenarios in PowerPoint.

Filed under Design • June 27th, 2024

How to Repurpose Your Content on Presentations

Adapt your content from presentation slides into other mediums and viceversa by learning how to repurpose your presentations. Detailed guide here.

Filed under Business • June 13th, 2024

How to Make a Financial Presentation [Templates + Examples]

Learn how to make a stellar financial presentation by discovering which slides should be included, the best templates to make your job easier, and more.

Leave a Reply

• Presentations
• Most Recent
• Infographics
• Data Visualizations
• Forms and Surveys
• Video & Animation
• Case Studies
• Design for Business
• Digital Marketing
• Design Inspiration
• Visual Thinking
• Product Updates
• Visme Webinars
• Artificial Intelligence

11 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills (& Free Training)

Written by: Heleana Tiburca

Are you looking for ways to completely level up your presentation skills? We’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best tips to help you deliver and create an effective presentation .

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the tips you’ll find inside:

• Create an audience journey roadmap
• Use proper and confident body language
• Meet your audience before presenting to better connect with them
• Focus on your presentation design to engage your audience

... and a whole lot more!

So, if you want to take your presentation skills to the next level, then this list will show you exactly how to do so.

Let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

Tip #1: define the purpose of your presentation., tip #2: create an audience journey map., tip #3: keep your slides short and sweet., tip #4: focus on your presentation design., tip #5: visualize boring numbers and data., tip #6: practice in front of a live audience., tip #7: meet your audience before presenting., tip #8: channel nervous energy into enthusiastic energy., tip #9: use proper and confident body language., tip #10: allow your personality to shine through., tip #11: take courses to improve your presentation skills., free presentation skills training.

Behind every successful presentation, there was carefully crafted planning that went into it beforehand. To ensure that you’ll have a powerful presentation, you need to consider your message.

The very first step to any good presentation is to define its purpose. This goes on in the very beginning during the planning process where you consider your message.

Your presentation’s end goal can be any of the following:

• To entertain
• To persuade

Your presentation’s end goal might even be a combination of the four purposes above. Consider the fact that you may need to inform buyers of your product and what problem it solves for them, but you also need to persuade them into buying it.

This is where engaging storytelling and proper visual aids will come into play to help you achieve your goal, and will either make or break your presentation.

Once you pinpoint the purpose of your presentation, you can then begin to work on the subject matter and your audience journey map.

An audience journey map is a visual representation of all the steps you need to take your audience members through, from first to last and everything in between, to achieve the goal of your presentation.

There are a few steps to creating your audience journey map.

First, you need to start your explanation at a low point — the current state of an issue. Maybe there’s a problem that you are able to solve. Describe the current situation before you lay out the undertaking ahead.

Once you lay out the problem, you can then start showing your audience the process of solving this problem. To not overwhelm your crowd, give them an actionable roadmap to follow.

With great verbal communication skills, you can tell them how you plan to take the first step.

This is many times the hardest part of the presentation, but once you have the foundation for your first step, you can easily lay out the next stepping stones and take them to your end goal with ease.

Creating an audience journey map will be a major success factor in a compelling presentation and needs to be done before writing and creating your slides.

Having a clear audience journey map will also help ensure you take your audience on a smooth journey with all your main points in line and achieve your end goal with no bumps in the road.

When giving a presentation, make sure that you keep it short, sweet and as informationally-condensed as possible. All of your slides should be easy to digest and understandable at a glance.

Let's take a look at an example. The slide below is part of Visme's simple presentation theme , which is designed to have maximum impact with minimal text.

You can customize this slide and others like it in Visme's presentation software . Or, you can apply the same concept of minimalism to any other presentation tool, such as PowerPoint.

To make sure that you stay on topic and won’t overwhelm your crowd with too much information, you need to have a plan. When you have a solid plan to go by, you won’t go off track and begin rambling about things unrelated to your presentation.

Another practical way you can stay on topic and not overwhelm your audience with too much information is to have your main points written in bold somewhere on your slides.

Here's another example of a Visme slide template that does that well:

As you can see above, you don’t need to write out all the information surrounding the main points, as this will cause your audience too much confusion.

An experienced presenter will be able to quickly glance over at their own presentation slides, see the main points and continue on with their presentation, engaging their audience without going off course.

This, of course, comes with a lot of rehearsing out loud, which we will cover more in tip number six .

Another great way to keep your presentation short is to set a specific time for asking questions.

By reserving a few minutes during your presentation for your audience to ask questions, you can present your main points and achieve your goals, without going into too much detail.

Your audience can then ask for clarity on anything that interests them and you can answer their questions in however much detail you need.

Picture this: you’re gathered around the conference table with all your colleagues early Monday morning and your manager pulls up a lifeless, colorless, text-filled Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

You’re trying your best to pay attention and understand what he’s trying to convey, but staring deep into your coffee cup seems much more interesting at this point.

Sound familiar?

This is why it’s so crucial to understand how your presentation design will affect the outcome.

By having a messy and overloaded presentation, you’ll lose your audience almost immediately. On the flip side, if it’s so mundane and boring, you will also lose their attention.

One design presentation tip that we suggest you implement is to make sure you don’t overcrowd your slides with too much text.

This is a risky thing to do because the moment you flip to the next slide, your audience’s attention goes from what you’re saying, to your slide.

They’ll begin to read everything presented on the slide and completely tune you out. This is why a minimal text approach with a maximum of 2-3 different yet complementary fonts on your slides will be ideal, like in the example below.

You can use visual aids like images, animated graphic design elements, videos and more to convey the same message that boring text would.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to design a presentation from scratch, and that’s why it can be incredibly helpful to use a tool that offers presentation templates to help you get started.

Visme has hundreds of handcrafted presentation templates for public speakers to use for any occasion. Each presentation template is fully customizable and you’ll be able to add your branded content to your slides to make it your own.

Presenting your data can be an incredibly tricky and difficult task.

Instead of adding a bunch of tables and numbers to your slides, try switching things up by using charts, graphs and other data visualization types .

When creating a chart for your presentation, you need to be mindful of several things.

First, you need to choose the right chart to begin with. Not every type of graph is suitable for all data sets. The chart you choose will depend on the nature of your data and your unique purpose of using that chart.

Here's an infographic to help you understand what type of chart to use depending on your unique needs and nature of data.

Image Source

For example, if you're drawing a comparison between two or more items, a bar graph might be suitable. But if you're breaking down composition, a pie chart might be a better idea.

Also, make sure that you can fit all of your information into a chart without overcrowding the visual and also have your audience understand that information at a glance, like in the example below.

Other data visualization tips to keep in mind include choosing a pleasant, cohesive color scheme, sticking to max 2-3 fonts, incorporating a legend, and keeping your data as simple as possible.

Learn more about data visualization best practices to help you create engaging charts for your presentations and reports.

If you're using Visme, you can also import your data directly from Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Survey Monkey, Google Analytics and more.

Practice, practice and practice again.

Some would argue that writing up and designing a presentation from scratch is the easiest part. Delivering the presentation in a way that it engages your audience — that's the tricky part.

When it comes to public speaking, it’s only natural that one would get a little nervous and stumble upon their words.

That’s why practicing your public speaking skills in front of others will be vital to how well you present and connect with your crowd during your actual presentation.

It’s one thing to practice in front of the mirror, but it’s something completely different when people are waiting for you to deliver information that will improve their business or life.

So gather up some friends, family members or even your pets, and present your presentation from start to finish as many times as you need.

By presenting your slides out loud, you might even catch some mistakes in your presentation or find you need to add in some missing information.

By shaking your attendee’s hand before a meeting, you’ll begin to make connections and become more approachable and likable by your audience.

Meeting your audience will help break the ice and make them more likely to listen to what you have to say. They will also feel more comfortable asking you questions later, which will increase the value they get out of your presentation.

Plus, you’ll also feel more relaxed speaking to your audience if you've met them already. When you can put a name to a face, you’ll automatically feel a sense of comfort when you make eye contact with them while presenting.

Even the most famous movie stars and popular public speakers will still get nervous before a public presentation.

It’s human nature to get butterflies and perspire a bit before having tons of eyes on you, critiquing every word you have to say.

So, if you’re feeling nervous before a presentation, instead of emotionally shutting down, take that nervous energy and transform it into enthusiastic energy.

Before getting up on stage, listen to your favorite hype music, maybe have a coffee (if it won’t make you jittery) or get a pep talk from a friend.

By being confident and using your enthusiasm to your advantage, you’ll have your crowd on the edge of their seats, completely engaged, following every word you say.

Enthusiastic presentations will much better received by listeners, rather than monotone informational presentations. So, as important as your presentation design is, the way you present it will determine a big part of the outcome.

According to Allan Pease , an Honorary Professor of Psychology at ULIM International University, you can convince almost anyone to do anything for you if you use proper body language.

He has an entire Ted Talk dedicated to the subject, which you can watch below.

The proper use of hand gestures, a power stance, a confident smile and an authoritative yet kind voice are all techniques that you can leverage to get your crowd listening to and agreeing with what you’re saying.

According to Allan Pease, when using hand gestures, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using open palm gestures. This makes you look like a great leader that is right there with the team, ready to lead and take charge.

By using open palm gestures, people will automatically be inclined to listen to you.

The moment you turn your hand over and start using your pointer finger, you will lose your audience. They won’t accept any information from you and they will believe you have an authoritative and hostile attitude.

Body language is everything, so make sure to use open hand gestures, smile, take a deep breath and believe that you’re not nervous, even if you are.

As soon as you believe that you’re not nervous, your brain and body will follow suit and you’ll feel more confident on stage with your presentation, which will make your audience trust you more.

We’re convinced that with the right tone of voice and allowing your personality to shine through, you can take any boring presentation, and turn it into an entertaining and engaging one for your audience.

While it is good to meet your audience where they are, it’s never good to fake your personality for the sake of a presentation.

Everyone can tell when someone isn’t genuine, and if you’re trying to suppress your personality, you’re only hurting yourself and your presentation by doing so, as what you’re saying can then begin to sound disingenuous.

So, don’t be afraid to use your personality to your advantage. Let a joke out and entertain your audience. By making your audience laugh, you’ll have them more in tune with what you’re saying.

Chances are if you’re giving a business presentation, many of your peers will be there and they'd want you to let your personality show. So, be yourself and use that to your advantage!

Finally, our best tip that we can offer you in all areas of life is to never stop learning.

The only way to improve is to continue learning and practicing. That’s why we recommend you take presentation courses that will help improve your communication skills and presentation skills.

You can brush up on your presentation, communication and public speaking tips by taking online courses on Udemy or Coursera . Look for specific courses on storytelling, body language and more to focus on your problem areas.

Or, if you're looking for a free course that packs all the good stuff at zero cost, our team at Visme has put together an incredible presentation course that will help you smash your next presentation!

When it comes to creating and giving presentations, many times it seems like it’s just something that’s expected of us to do, without receiving any type of proper training or qualifications.

Here at Visme, we want to see everyone succeed.

That’s why we combined our years of knowledge and experience to create a free course to give everyone the tools and confidence they need in order to create effective and successful presentations.

There are dozens of benefits and skills you’ll gain in these training sessions. You'll learn how to:

• Effectively brainstorm and create audience personas and audience journey maps
• Use visual communication to inform, engage, inspire and persuade your audience
• Design your presentation as a professional designer would in minutes
• Use colors, fonts, pictures and videos to increase the impact of your speech
• Present your data through compelling charts and graphs that tell a story

You’ll also receive a Visme Versity certificate of completion once you complete the online course — you can add this to your LinkedIn profile to set yourself up for success.

If any of these benefits sound like something you want to add to your tool belt, then you can take our free presentation skills course for professional development right now.

This course is broken down into easily digestible sections, yet it’s jam-packed full of readily applicable information. The best part is you can take the course and complete it at your own pace.

There are engaging educational videos for you to watch and learn from, informational content for you to read and at the end of each session, there is a quiz for you to take to assess your progress.

By the end of this course, you’ll have an abundance of skills that will help you succeed in all types of presentations.

Sign up today and learn how to become a great presenter in no time!

Level Up Your Presentation Skills

You’ve now learned 11 amazing tips on how to improve your presentation skills, but there’s still so much more to uncover and learn in the realm of presentations skills.

If you want to overcome your fear of public speaking, improve on your business presentations, become a better communicator and transform good presentations into great presentations, then this free presentation course by Visme is for you.

Want to create stunning presentations of your own? Sign up for our presentation software and start using hundreds of pre-made slides, animated effects, free graphics, charts and more.

Create beautiful presentations faster with Visme.

Trusted by leading brands

Recommended content for you:

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

About the Author

I’m Heleana and I’m a content creator here at Visme. My passion is to help people find the information they’re looking for in the most fun and enjoyable way possible. Let’s make information beautiful.

7 Powerful Presentation Habits

Dec 28, 2021 by maurice decastro in communication skills , general , leadership , presentation skills , public speaking.

Bad presentation habits are easy to find and hard to break. The good ones are available to us all and we don’t have to look too far to find them.

Stephen R. Covey’s book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ contains everything you need to know to achieve extraordinary results. It is a book which has impacted millions of lives across all professions for over 30 years. The wisdom also extends to any presentation you may be called on to make. If you read it closely you’ll find some very helpful presentation habits.

Whether you are presenting at your monthly update, a team brief, project update, board meeting or conference, it’s worth connecting with this wisdom.

Whatever it is, if you harness the integrity of the ‘7 habits’ your presentation will soar.

HABIT 1: BE PROACTIVE

Don’t believe the myth that great speakers are born that way; highly effective presenting and public speaking is a learned skill. Please don’t blame your parents or teachers for not giving you the confidence to speak. Be proactive in developing good presentation habits.

– Watch TED Talks . Presenters at TED follow some compelling precepts. They tell stories, give emotional context, stick to the point, support their message and keep it brief. Here are a few TED Talks I’d recommend you watch:

– Read

There are plenty of great books which can help you to learn presentation habits to speak with confidence and impact. Here are a few I’d recommend:

How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World’s Most Inspiring Presentations – Jeremey Donovan

Made to Stick – Chip & Dan Heath

Presentation Zen – Garr Reynolds

Never Be Boring Again – Doug Stevenson

Resonate – Nancy Duarte

– Speak

Look for opportunities to speak, don’t shy away from them.

Explore possibilities and go out of your way to look for ways to present your ideas to colleagues and customers.

If the idea of standing up to present at work is a little to daunting to start with then consider joining a group. Somewhere you can practice speaking in a safe and supportive environment. Toastmasters is an International speaking club which has 16,600 clubs in 143 countries.

If you’d rather take a more private and personal approach, get yourself one to one coaching.

HABIT 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Stephen Covey presents Habit 2 as a journey of imagination. It’s based on the principle that you have to make it clear in your mind first what you want to achieve, before you can manifest it.

Presenting your ideas effectively to colleagues, clients or strangers is underpinned by the same principle. In this context, that journey of imagination begins with you sitting quietly long before you open your laptop to begin building your presentation. Ask yourself 2 questions:

What do I want my audience to feel?

Every great presentation is firmly grounded with a clear emotional intent. In other words, when you have finished speaking, how exactly do you want your audience to feel.

Please don’t make the mistake of answering that question with the words ‘informed and engaged’ as we often hear in our presentation training courses. On its own its still not enough. Making your audience feel ‘informed and engaged’ is a prerequisite in any presentation or speech but it lacks emotional impact. There has to be something else.

Here are just a few emotions you may wish to consider:

Enthusiastic

Keep in mind however, that sometimes, before you take your audience to the place of feeling something really good, occasionally you need them to feel uncomfortable. If that’s the case, you need to be clear on that too. Do you want them to feel;

Embarrassed

What do I want my audience to do?

Beginning with the end in mind means having absolute clarity what it is you want your audience to do.  If you don’t know exactly what it is you want them to do when you finish speaking then you can be sure they won’t do anything.

To substantially increase the likelihood of them doing what it is you want them to do, you have to make them feel something first.

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.” ― Dale Carnegie, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’

HABIT 3: PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

The first habit presents the idea that if you really want something to happen, the only person who can make it so is yourself. Habit 2 challenges us to accept the reality that we have to be abundantly clear on what that is and to be able to see it in our minds too. I believe that if Stephen Covey were writing these habits with the focus on presentations and presenting, he would say that Habit 3 is about your message. That entails:

–  Knowing and understanding your own message first.

 –  Making sure that everything you say is relevant to and supports your message.

 –  Knowing exactly why your message is relevant and important to your audience, why they should care about it and what tangible difference it will make to their personal or professional lives.

Putting first things first also means leaving your ego aside and crafting a message and presentation which revolves entirely around your audience. It means that you don’t strive for perfection but instead work diligently to towards making an impact and a difference.

At Mindful Presenter we have a philosophy and passionate belief that ‘connecting is everything’.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

This is a principle which embraces the idea of thinking and preparing your presentation in a way that is cooperative rather than competitive. Very closely aligned to Habit 3, it encourages us to focus exclusively our audience. It expels the notion of someone winning and someone else losing and urges us to craft a story that brings the presenter and her audience together.

It is a principle of harmony which entails building a relationship with your audience and connecting with them. That means that everything we say must be of value to our audience.

If they don’t win then you certainly won’t.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

This is probably the favourite of my presentation skills habit because I believe it is the ‘Jewel in the crown’ of the set of 7 habits. After all, what chance do we stand of achieving any level of success if we don’t understand our audience. It is a principle which promotes the idea of listening before we even consider building and delivering our presentation.

I have long held a personal belief that ‘most people don’t listen’. Many of us do something very different; I call it ‘wait to speak’.

Many business presentations today centre around professionals ‘waiting to speak’. In other words, presnters saturate PowerPoint slides with text, data and bullet points which they can then read to their audience.

The Mindful Presenter seeks to understand their audience first:

– Who are they really?

– How much do they already know?

– What are their values?

– Do I undertstand the problems they have?

– Why should they care about this?

– How do they feel now?

– What do I want them to feel?

As you can see, there are a number of very important questions which need to be asked and answered long before we open our laptops.  Once we make the effort to really understand our audience, we increase the likelihood of them understanding us.

Habit 6: Synergize

Most people don’t like sitting quietly and listening to presentations but everyone likes being involved in a good conversation. A great presentation is far more of a conversation than it is someone just standing up speaking whilst running a slide show.

I think Stephen Covey’s wisdom continues to flourish as we consider synergy a vital element of our presentation. It’s about working together to produce meaningful results rather than simply talking at people hoping they see our perspective; we need to see theirs too.

Synergize means developing the habit of approaching every presentation as an opportunity to work closely with our audience. It means creating the time and making the effort to interact with and involve them in our message.

We have to put ourselves in their shoes.

We need to abandon preconceived assumptions and judgments and ask them for their thoughts, opinions and concerns.  When a presenter works very closely with an audience, they become a formidable team.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

The final habit extols the virtue of growth and harmony. The spoken word has the ability to elicit a powerful effect and to respect and harness that impact we have to make time for ourselves.

It is a habit of self-renewal that promotes the idea that to be the best we can be we have to keep fresh and stay ahead of the game physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. How can we expect to influence and inspire our audience, to lead action and change if we are not in peak condition?

It strikes me that it is possibly the most challenging habit for all of us because it entails most of the things, we know we should be doing anyway but still don’t always do.

– Exercising regularly

– Staying properly hydrated

– Eating healthily

– Cutting out the toxins

– Finding the time and space to sit quietly, breathe and think

– Meditating

– Visualising

– Challenging ourselves personally and professional

– Learning new things

– Having more fun

When our body, minds and emotions are not in as good a shape as they could be, we lose the energy, creativity and confidence to speak with impact.

Sharpening the saw is not only a good habit to end on it’s perhaps one most of us could benefit from enormously (presentations and public speaking aside) as we we begin the New Year.

As we step eagerly into the New Year, Stephen Covey’s book shares powerful lessons for personal change which many of us are more open to at this time of year.

Give some thought as to how you can build these potent habits into your presentation and public schedule this year.

If you need help with you presentation habits:

– Book yourself onto a powerful  public speaking course .

– Invest in some really good one to one  public speaking coaching .

– Get yourself some excellent  presentation training

Image by: canva.com

• Connect Now

Share this article

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn

To join one of our workshops or lean more, complete our enquiry form or call us on +44 (0)20 7666 3453 and we can get connected.

• Our Approach
• The Benefits
• Public Speaking Courses
• Presentation Training
• The Complete Mindful Presenter
• One-to-One Public Speaking Coaching
• Coaching Development Package
• What Our Clients Say
• The Truth Series
• Our Podcast
• Style Review
• Mindful Selling 4D
• Mindful Leadership

Blog Sign Up

Recent posts.

• Public speaking masterclass
• 10 Reasons to Join Our Next Public Speaking Masterclass
• 4 types of presentation energy: Survival, Safety, Shallow & Smart
• 12 Public Speaking & Presentation Tips For Q&A Success
• 10 Novel public speaking ideas from unexpected sources
• Bullet Point
• Communication Skills
• Mindful Selling
• Mindfulness
• Presentating training
• Presentation Skills
• Presentation Tips
• Public Speaking
• Sales Skills
• Storytelling
• virtual presentation
• Virtual Presentations
• Who are you?
• Learning Centre
• Presentation Skills Review
• Our Clients
• Testimonials
• Presentation Skills Training
• Public Speaking Coaching London
• Public Speaking Anxiety Course
• Phone: +44 (0)20 7666 3453
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: Mindful Presenter Ltd 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE

Sign up for our newsletter and download your free guide to authentic public speaking.

Top Presentation Skills for 2021

Presentation skills are an essential component of your success. Whether you are conducting a meeting in-person or remotely, these skills can help you look professional, engage your audience, promote collaboration, and boost confidence . How to improve presentation skills? Here are some of the top presentation skills for 2021.

Do you want to take your presentation to the next level? Create innovative presentations with help from Vibe !

Skills for an Engaging Presentation

Now that you know how to outline your presentation, you need those skills to pull everyone together. Use these skills to create an engaging presentation . 

Think About Your Audience

Presentations are designed for the audience, not the speaker . You need to place yourself in the shoes of your audience members. Why should they care about the message? Create a presentation that connects with them. Think about what motivates your audience and focus on that in your presentation. Craft your presentation to meet their level of expertise. When you understand your audience, you can separate yourself from the rest of the crowd . You will make a memorable presentation that the audience will remember long after they leave the meeting. 

Be Clear and Concise

If your audience is taking time to listen to your presentation, you want to make it as professional as possible. With that, it is vital not to mumble your way through the meeting. Speak clearly so everyone in the audience can hear you . Take the time to take complicated details and explain them to the audience. Along those same lines, you never want to dilute your message with a ton of unrelated information. Stick to the key points . When a presentation is filled with fluff, you have a greater chance of losing your audience as their thoughts drift away to other subjects. 

Give a Memorable Presentation

A memorable presentation remains in the memories of the audience for a long time. If you want your presentation to stand out, place those crucial points at the beginning and end of the speech . Unfortunately, all that information in the middle can be lost. For that reason, you want to keep reiterating your focus points. Place your vital details in the beginning and reinforce them at the end of the presentation.

You also have to remember that after 20 minutes, you start to lose your audience’s attention . If you present detail-heavy information, break up the presentation. Direct your audience’s focus to keep them engaged . With that, you can create a memorable event that will not be forgotten within the hour. 

Related: Engage Your Audience With These Easy Tips

Considerations for Online Presentations

While some of these tips are great for in-person presentations, there are a few special rules for those conducted online. 

Show Your Face

It is a well-known fact that faces are attractive to humans. Make sure you show your face during the presentation . When your audience can see your face, they are more likely to instantly connect with you. Plus, it boosts your likable factor. If you need to show your screen for a presentation, many types of programs allow you to do that while your face stays on the screen. A full view of your face allows the audience to see your emotions, and they will respond similarly. 

When presenting online, you might want to grab a seat. However, you can make a great impression by standing up . Along with taking advantage of the full power of your breathing, you can also increase your vocal power. Your presence will be stronger when you give a presentation from a standing position. In turn, that makes you an authority figure in the eyes of the audience. 

Leverage Your Visuals

Use those visuals for your presentation. Photos, graphs, and charts can take data and break it down into easy-to-understand information . You don’t want to rely too heavily on these visual aids. Make sure to place them sparingly into your presentation. These visual aids should complement your meeting and not be the entire focus of the presentation. 

Related: Why Using Visuals in Your Presentation Makes a Big Difference

Virtually Interact with Your Audience

If you want to keep your audience engaged, think about adding ways to interact with those participants. Just because you are presenting remotely, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make them a part of the meeting. Make sure to ask questions and allow time for them to discuss key points with you . Look at the camera. While the audience might not physically be there, take the time to make virtual eye contact with them. 

Allow Time for Questions

Questions are important for you and your audience, especially if your orientation relies on heavy figures and complex data. With a Q&A session, you can learn about the issues affecting your audience . Plus, it can help you fine-tune any problem with your services or products. If you don’t have the answer to a question, make notes and reconnect with that individual later. 

Presentation Skills Examples

When you are organizing your presentation, you want it to follow a specific order . These sequences can help your audiences follow along with the meeting or training session . Make sure that your presentation has these key points. 

Beginning: Set the tone of the presentation

In the opening moments, you want to capture the audience’s attention. Avoid jokes or other types of irrelevant comments, but rather keep your opening pertinent to the subject. You might want to call attention to statistics or ask a question. This is your time to draw in the audience for the rest of the presentation. 

• Call Attention To Statistics: By 2050, the world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion people.
• Ask A Question: Does anyone know how many drops of drinking water are polluted by fertilizer run-off?

Body: Outline the presentation based on your topic

In the planning stages, think about this section of the presentation first. This is where you must convey all that vital information to the audience. You can outline the central part of the presentation in several ways, depending on the subject . A specific process can be explained in a spatial order. However, a chronological order presentation should focus on the history of a subject. Topical order is perfect for those presentations centering on topics that require problem-solving skills.

• Spatial order: Describe a process from beginning to end.
• Chronological order：Discuss an author’s literary career by years.

Ending: Summarize your speech by focusing on main points

Finally, the end of the presentation. Just don’t say “goodbye.” Make sure you reiterate the points and conclude with a saying or fact that will remain in the minds of those audience members.

• Call Attention To Statistics：It is estimated that 99% of all the species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.
• Ask A Question：How can you use our software to improve your company’s productivity?

Related: Client Presentations: 10 Tips for Better Results

Effortless Presentations with Vibe

Now that you understand all the top presentation skills for 2021, put them to good use. You can take your presentation to the next level with Vibe . These digital whiteboards help to integrate notes, screenshots, and research into one interactive canvas. With these devices, engage your audience and make yourself an authority on the presentation subject. Along with that, you can even export the presentation and share it with others. Vibe’s Smartboards allow you to help presentations meet collaboration . 

Final Thoughts

Presentation skills are sought-after skills in 2021. You can take all of these skills and turn them into a memorable presentation. With a bit of help from Vibe, you can take your presentation to the next level and impress your audience . 

Want an innovative way to make presentations for your company? Reach out to Vibe and learn how to use their products for your school, home, or business!

Subscribe to get updates on all things at Vibe

Read our privacy policy .

• For Individuals
• For Businesses
• For Universities
• For Governments
• Online Degrees
• Find your New Career
• Join for Free

Successful Presentation

This course is part of Effective Communication: Writing, Design, and Presentation Specialization

Taught in English

Some content may not be translated

Instructor: Professor William Kuskin

Financial aid available

128,813 already enrolled

(4,564 reviews)

Recommended experience

Beginner level

A means of recording yourself

What you'll learn

Execute a public performance of the private self.

Skills you'll gain

• Communication
• Business Writing
• Presentation
• Public Speaking

Details to know

Add to your LinkedIn profile

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Build your subject-matter expertise

• Learn new concepts from industry experts
• Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
• Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
• Earn a shareable career certificate

Earn a career certificate

Add this credential to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV

Share it on social media and in your performance review

There are 4 modules in this course

Few kinds of communication can have the effect of a powerful presentation. Even a short speech can motivate people to change long-held beliefs or to take action, and a wonderfully delivered speech can transform a normal person into a leader.

In this course, Prof. William Kuskin provides a series of pragmatic videos and exercises for successful public speaking and presentations. The course develops through four themes—mastering fear, developing a creative formula, using verbal and body language, and anticipating the room—so that you can discover your personal power as a speaker and give excellent presentations. Successful presentations do not rely on perfect teeth, a deep voice, or an army of scriptwriters. They depend largely on the same skills as successful Business Writing and Graphic Design: clarity, structure, and revision. The goal of the course, therefore, is to enable you to discover your own internal power as a speaker and express it to the world. After this course, with some practice, you will be able to go into any situation and command the room for as long as you like. This course can be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s Master of Science in Data Science (MS-DS) degree offered on the Coursera platform. The MS-DS is an interdisciplinary degree that brings together faculty from CU Boulder’s departments of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Science, and others. With performance-based admissions and no application process, the MS-DS is ideal for individuals with a broad range of undergraduate education and/or professional experience in computer science, information science, mathematics, and statistics. Learn more about the MS-DS program at https://www.coursera.org/degrees/master-of-science-data-science-boulder.

Getting Started with Public Speaking

In this module William tackles the one element that makes public speaking difficult: fear. Unlike writing a memo or designing a slide deck, presenting a speech puts you directly in front of an audience. Public speaking is wrapped up in the fear of immediate judgment and of lasting rejection. Yet the skills of writing and design are exactly the same as those of public speaking: clarity, structure, revision, and above all, storytelling. By applying these skills you can control your fear and take center stage in public. The results will astound you.

What's included

10 videos 7 readings 1 quiz 2 discussion prompts

10 videos • Total 35 minutes

• Welcome to Effective Communication (For New Learners) • 3 minutes • Preview module
• What’s so Great About the Capstone? (For New Learners) • 3 minutes
• Welcome to Successful Presentation • 3 minutes
• Understanding Fear • 4 minutes
• The Code Rule: Survival Reactions • 4 minutes
• The Paradox of Public Speaking • 3 minutes
• We've All Felt Fear • 4 minutes
• Successful Presentation is Storytelling • 3 minutes
• Stories and Storytellers • 2 minutes
• Performance • 2 minutes

7 readings • Total 140 minutes

• Earn Academic Credit for your Work! • 10 minutes
• Course Support • 10 minutes
• About the For-Credit Version of this course • 10 minutes
• About Successful Presentation • 15 minutes
• Kuskin's Top Ten Best Practices • 15 minutes
• Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist • 10 minutes
• Successful Presentation Assignment, Part 1: Telling a Two-Minute Story • 70 minutes

1 quiz • Total 25 minutes

• Rethinking Public Speaking • 25 minutes

2 discussion prompts • Total 105 minutes

• Getting to know each other • 15 minutes
• Storytelling and fear • 90 minutes

A Formula For Successful Presentation

Like the Second Module of Business Writing, this module zeroes in on a practical formula for successful presentations. William establishes this structure, and then breaks down it down into modular elements, so the most complex presentations can be created easily, revised effectively, and delivered confidently. Still, no one-size-fits-all outline, no rigid set of rules, is capable of expressing your own personality and unlocking your own brilliance, and so William goes beyond the basic formula to teach you the secret ingredient to public speaking: creativity.

14 videos 4 readings 2 quizzes

14 videos • Total 54 minutes

• The Basic Formula • 5 minutes • Preview module
• The Secret Ingredient: Creativity • 8 minutes
• What Is Creativity? • 5 minutes
• The Central Importance of the Introduction • 1 minute
• The Introduction: The Salutation • 4 minutes
• The Introduction: The Review of the Structure • 1 minute
• The Introduction: The One Compelling Point • 3 minutes
• Kuskin Receives His Assignment for Coursera Presentation • 1 minute
• Intro: The Modular Content Unit • 1 minute
• Pushing Each Unit (Thinking in Circles) • 3 minutes
• Building Transitions • 3 minutes
• How Do You Push Yourself? • 3 minutes
• The Conclusion • 4 minutes
• The Entire Talk Is a Circle • 6 minutes

4 readings • Total 150 minutes

• The Formula • 15 minutes
• Raymond Chandler, Trouble Is My Business • 15 minutes
• Successful Presentation Assignment, Part 2: Crafting an Introduction • 60 minutes
• Successful Presentation Assignment, Part 3: Building Modules • 60 minutes

2 quizzes • Total 55 minutes

• The Introduction • 30 minutes
• The Conclusion • 25 minutes

Practicing Your Self

We’ve all sat through presentations that had solid content but just didn’t seem to work. Sometimes it’s hard to define why a speaker fails to deliver. The key is practice. Practice is tricky, however, because poor practice techniques actually make a dull presentation even duller—further from the inspiring, passionate experience you want to create for your audience. In Module Three, William redefines the notion of practice as a dynamic process of verbal and physical language, and then teaches you how focus your language to express your personal style of passion. Module Three teaches you to put passion in a bottle and release it when you want.

10 videos 1 reading 3 quizzes 1 discussion prompt

10 videos • Total 44 minutes

• Dynamic vs. Static (Getting into Your Brand) • 6 minutes • Preview module
• You Are Your Own Harshest Critic • 4 minutes
• The Reverse Outline • 5 minutes
• Rehearsing the Introduction • 3 minutes
• Passion in a Bottle • 3 minutes
• Hearing Your Language • 1 minute
• Marking Your Script • 7 minutes
• Recognizing Your Body • 2 minutes
• Using Your Body • 5 minutes
• The Importance of Stance • 4 minutes

1 reading • Total 20 minutes

• Shakespeare Reading • 20 minutes

3 quizzes • Total 80 minutes

• Evolving Your Presentation • 30 minutes
• Verbal Language • 30 minutes
• Body Language • 20 minutes

1 discussion prompt • Total 150 minutes

• Reading (and Speaking) Shakespeare • 150 minutes

Engaging with the World

You’ve put away your fear. You’ve used the formula to write a clear talk, and you’ve tweaked it with the secret ingredient of creativity. You’ve rehearsed and mastered your personal verbal and physical language. Still, a conference room or a lecture hall is an unpredictable arena, one that contains an uncontrollable amount of variables: the layout of the space, the mood of the audience, the complexity of the questions—these are the elements of a presentation for which you can never fully prepare. How do you actually get ready to walk out on stage? The last module of “Successful Presentation” teaches you how to anticipate the field of the play so you are flexible, agile, and confident. It lays out, in simple terms, how to deal with interruptions and hostility alike, concluding the course by looking ahead to how you develop your own identity not merely as a public speaker, but as powerful individual.

10 videos 1 reading 2 quizzes 1 peer review 1 discussion prompt

10 videos • Total 39 minutes

• Anticipating the Field of Play • 2 minutes • Preview module
• A Chaucerian Interlude • 4 minutes
• Attending to Your Audience • 4 minutes
• Slides vs Handouts • 4 minutes
• What Is a Question? • 3 minutes
• Being Soft • 3 minutes
• Avery's Demo Presentation: "Frankenstein and Science" • 7 minutes
• Building a Public Portfolio from the Private Self • 2 minutes
• The Paradox of the Public Self • 2 minutes
• Effective Communication • 3 minutes

1 reading • Total 15 minutes

• Chaucer Manuscript • 15 minutes
• Building a Portfolio of the Self • 25 minutes
• Rubric Training Quiz • 30 minutes

1 peer review • Total 240 minutes

• Successful Presentation Assignment, Part 4: The Presentation • 240 minutes

1 discussion prompt • Total 45 minutes

• Hard and Soft Scenarios • 45 minutes

Instructor ratings

We asked all learners to give feedback on our instructors based on the quality of their teaching style.

CU-Boulder is a dynamic community of scholars and learners on one of the most spectacular college campuses in the country. As one of 34 U.S. public institutions in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU), we have a proud tradition of academic excellence, with five Nobel laureates and more than 50 members of prestigious academic academies.

Recommended if you're interested in Business Essentials

University of Colorado Boulder

Effective Communication Capstone Project

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Villes africaines: Environnement et enjeux de développement durable

Coursera Project Network

Introduction to Text Classification in R with quanteda

Guided Project

Getting Started with Version Control in RStudio

Why people choose coursera for their career.

Learner reviews

Showing 3 of 4564

4,564 reviews

Reviewed on Aug 24, 2017

William Kuskin has delivered a truly inspiring and empowering MOOC - legendary!

His shared wisdom on presentation skills will help me for the rest of my days - thank you William! Onwards!

Reviewed on Aug 4, 2020

An excellent course to improve presentation skills. The content taught are very simple yet effective. I feel more confident in my presentation skills now. Thank you so much!

Reviewed on Apr 24, 2017

Outstanding! Professor William Kuskin's Successful Presentation course provides learners with The Formula, a valuable asset to anyone needing to engage audiences, large or small.

New to Business Essentials? Start here.

Open new doors with Coursera Plus

Unlimited access to 7,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in your subscription

Advance your career with an online degree

Earn a degree from world-class universities - 100% online

Join over 3,400 global companies that choose Coursera for Business

Upskill your employees to excel in the digital economy

Frequently asked questions

What software or hardware will i need to complete this course.

The ability to record and upload short videos will be useful (a phone video camera or built in camera in a computer will be suitable).

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?

Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:

The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.

The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

What is the refund policy?

If you subscribed, you get a 7-day free trial during which you can cancel at no penalty. After that, we don’t give refunds, but you can cancel your subscription at any time. See our full refund policy Opens in a new tab .

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

More questions

More From Forbes

Solid presentation skills are key to gaining persuasion power.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

President  Dale Carnegie Tokyo, Japan , is a three-time best selling author, his latest book is "Japan Presentations Mastery".

Intuitively, we know that people who can command an audience, energize teams, excite customers and secure decisions through their persuasion power are successful individuals. Did they gain persuasion power because they were successful or did they become successful through their persuasion power? In my experience, it's the latter but then why are so few business people successful as speakers?

I attended a chamber of commerce annual general meeting once and it shocked me. As part of the proceedings, those aspiring for a position on the board had to get up and say why they should be selected. There were some very serious corporations’ very serious heavy hitters assembled to joust for seats on the committee. Yet, almost none of them could string together a five-minute talk extolling their own virtues. I wondered how on earth they were allowed to represent their brands with such an underwhelming facility in persuasion power? Why didn’t their companies invest in making them presentation and promotion advocates to advance the brand’s credibility?

As often happens, they didn’t get the training; they just got the responsibility for their big enterprise’s revenue production. They toiled long and hard in the engine rooms of their companies, becoming outstanding individual performers. Often they started as technical people, typically engineers, who were excellent in their field of specialty. Promotion after promotion led them to run the operation.

Getting to the top and being able to successfully promote the brand are not the same thing. The apex of the organization narrows down to only a limited number of contenders for the top positions. Those who have the technical skills, the experience and the ability to persuade others will self-select themselves for the top job. The logical conclusion is to not wait until you get promoted to garner the facility to persuade but to master that skill set now so that you are the one who gets promoted.

Best Travel Insurance Companies

Best covid-19 travel insurance plans.

Self Promotion That Elevates Personal Brands

Promoting oneself and being really good at what you do are also not a given. We have to be intelligent, competent, industrious, patient and strategic. At the same time, we should get training and grab every single opportunity to promote our personal and professional brands through presenting. Once we gain more ability, we will be given more opportunities for bigger events and larger venues. Being able to present to a large audience is good, but being able to keep presenting to large audiences is even better. We scale up our capacity to dominate any sized venue as we learn the intricacies of each step on the ladder. However, the chances of getting a series of large events from the very start are low. We have to put in the sustained work and build up our presenting skills and confidence.

My recent TED talk was speech number 546 for me, so you would think that would be a dawdle for such an experienced presenter. What I immediately realized though, was the scale was different. It wasn’t a typical large venue, but it was a vast global audience. Normally, if you underperform in your talk, only the assembled business people know about it. If you do a poor job on your TED talk, then you are exposing your personal brand to the entire world and exposing it forever. In my case, it is even worse, because I teach presentation skills professionally. I also have my global Dale Carnegie colleagues and all of my competitors watching like hawks. On the other hand, if you are under the spotlight and you do a professional job, then your brand becomes global and your credibility goes up.

The Catastrophe Secret Escape Hatch For Presenters

It looks like there is no safety net with presenting on the big stage, but that is not quite true. Yes, you only have yourself to rely on for the success or failure of the talk. No one can sweep in from the wings of the stage and rescue you from a self-induced disaster. What people see on stage is only the tip of the presenting iceberg. Be it the experienced presenter or the novice, there is one huge escape hatch from speaking catastrophe and that is rehearsal. 

This may seem obvious, but the vast majority of business talks are given once, delivered to the live audience and that is it. Investing time and effort into rehearsals will do more for a person’s personal and professional brand than any other factor. I teach company presidents how to deliver their speeches and the before and after versions are comprehensive validations for why everyone should rehearse as much as possible. I am there to coach and provide feedback for them, but any speaker can get valuable feedback in rehearsal if they know how to do it. Never ask “How was it?” or a torrent of confidence-crushing critique may land on your head. Instead ask, “What was I doing well and what can I do to improve it?” Do that every time and you will maximize the effectiveness of the feedback during your rehearsals.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with a mantra: “Persuasion power eats everything for breakfast.” Hope is not much of a strategy for becoming a persuasive speaker. Getting professional training, rehearsing and seizing every opportunity to give talks are the keys to success. With greater responsibility comes the requirement to be highly persuasive. So let’s get to work and become highly persuasive, fully primed to step up.

Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

Manage Cookies

Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.

Show cookie providers

• Google Login

Functionality Cookies

These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Performance Cookies

These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.

• Google Analytics

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.

• Google Tag Manager
• Infographics
• Daily Infographics
• Popular Templates
• Accessibility
• Graphic Design
• Graphs and Charts
• Data Visualization
• Human Resources
• Beginner Guides

Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

Discover popular designs

Infographic maker

Brochure maker

White paper online

Newsletter creator

Flyer maker

Timeline maker

Letterhead maker

Mind map maker

Ebook maker

• Tips and guides
• Microsoft 365

Improve your presenting skills with additional platforms and new features for PowerPoint speaker coach

• Derek Johnson, Partner Director of Product
• Mobile Apps
• Personal and family
• Small business

PowerPoint speaker coach now available on all platforms

We love hearing feedback from our customers, and we’re excited to announce that PowerPoint speaker coach is now available on all platforms. PowerPoint speaker coach was first introduced in PowerPoint for the web, and both students and professionals have been utilizing this feature to become more confident presenters. Now, you can use this beloved feature on all platforms—on the web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android—when and where you need it, on the go, or at home.

Speaker coach leverages AI to help anyone —professionals, students, and even those who just want to practice a speech for a wedding or graduation. Especially in this hybrid work and learning environment, presentation skills are more important than ever, with more meetings and presentations than ever before. Speaker coach provides users with feedback on their pace, use of monotone pitch, use of filler words, poor grammar, lack of originality, use of sensitive phrases, and more while they rehearse their presentations. At the end of each rehearsal, speaker coach users receive a Summary Report highlighting the key pieces of feedback to help them become even better, more confident presenters.

Try PowerPoint speaker coach with this template .

Three new critiques in speaker coach on PowerPoint for the web

In addition to expanding the availability of speaker coach, we are also expanding the kinds of feedback this feature provides. Today, we are announcing three new critiques to speaker coach and bringing them to preview in PowerPoint for the web. These include feedback on body language, use of repetitive language, and pronunciation. These critiques are all described in detail below:

1. Body language

Great presentations are about more than just how you speak. When you are speaking to an audience—whether virtual or in-person—how you present yourself can have as much impact as the words you say. For this reason, we are introducing a new capability that leverages your video camera to give you feedback on your body language. When you are presenting virtually, it is important to ensure that your audience has a clear view of your face, that you maintain your glance towards your audience, and ensure you have left appropriate distance between you and your camera to deliver an engaging presentation. This feature will launch with feedback in the summary report around how well your audience will be able to see you (Clear view), if you are too far or too close to the camera (Distance), and ensuring you are facing the camera (Eye contact).

2. Repetitive language

When you speak, you may use words and phrases repetitively without being aware of them. You may not notice it, but your audience may catch on and find it distracting. Speaker coach can help you identify these words and phrases to avoid overusing them and keep your audience more engaged throughout your presentation. In addition to listing out those words and phrases, we will also give you a list of synonyms so you can switch it up for your next presentation.

3. Pronunciation

Speaker coach can advise you about the correct pronunciation of words you speak throughout your rehearsal. When speaker coach perceives that you may have mispronounced a word, it will display the word(s) and provide an experience that helps you practice pronouncing the word correctly. You’ll be able to listen to a recorded pronunciation guide of the word as many times as you’d like. We know that accents vary, and we have taken that into consideration when designing this feature. We have optimized this feedback for the “General American English” language as a starting point and will be giving you the option to disable this feedback in case you don’t agree with the suggestions or find them useful. We are doing our best to make sure this experience is helpful for you and will continue to improve the feature with your feedback.

We hope you are as excited as we are about these three new critiques. All three are available for you to try today on PowerPoint for the web in preview.

Speaker coach is always under your control and does not save any video or audio data from your rehearsal. Your privacy is paramount to us, and we want to ensure you can trust speaker coach to improve your presentation skills while respecting your privacy.

We strive to ensure speaker coach provides actionable and clear feedback to help you become an even better presenter and focus on the areas that matter most to you. As always, we greatly appreciate and rely on your feedback to continue improving these features. Please give them a try and let us know what you think, and what you’d like to see next.

See our support pages for more information on  rehearsing with speaker coach  as well as  suggestions for speaker coach !

120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

Updated: January 15, 2024

Published: August 09, 2023

Cooking is easy. The puzzle is figuring out what to eat. As soon as you know that, you can get started. The same holds for presentations. The sooner you can whip up a good, informative, and catchy topic, the easier the rest of the process becomes.

Pick a good topic that resonates with you and your audience to set a strong foundation. But select the wrong topic, and it becomes difficult to connect with your audience, find mutual interests, or hold their attention.

So, let’s learn how to develop thought-provoking and relevant topics for your presentations. You’ll also find some best practices to make your presentation memorable.

10 Free PowerPoint Templates

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

• Creative templates.
• Data-driven templates.
• Professional templates.

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Table of Contents

How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic in 5 Steps

120 presentation topic ideas, 5 presentation tips.

4. Choose an appropriate presentation style.

There are many ways to present a topic. Your personality, the topic at hand, and your audience’s personas will help you determine which style would best fit you and your audience.

Select a presentation style that will communicate the main idea clearly and have a lasting impact on your audience.

For instance, explore a freeform style presenter by Sir Ken Robinson.

5. Engage with your audience.

Work on your presentation skills to make a strong connection with your audience, get through to them and leave a mark.

Think of the presenter as the link between the topic and the audience. A strong or a weak presenter can make a difference between a presentation being a thriving success or a boring failure.

Hone your skills by engaging and interacting with your audience. Make them feel like a part of the presentation and not just spectators. 70% of marketers have found presentations with interactive content to be more effective than those without.

Here are a few ways you can make your presentation interactive:

• Start your speech with uncommon questions to your audience. Involve them from the get-go, like ask to raise their hands if X.
• Make eye contact to build credibility and show confidence. Don’t stare at your slides or notes. Smile occasionally and talk to the audience directly.
• Have an active and confident body language. Don’t stand in the same place the entire time. Move around the stage.
• Don’t be monotonous. Speak as you would to a colleague — with enthusiasm.
• Ask close-ended questions in between to keep the audience engaged without losing time. Address them using their names to keep things interesting.
• Share personal experiences and stories that your audience will find fascinating and relatable.
• Practice thoroughly before you present so you’re fluent with the material and delivery.
• Energy and excitement can be quite contagious. Make sure you exude enough to spread some to your audience.

Feeling Inspired Yet?

Now you have all the right ingredients for choosing amazing topics and a hundred ideas to drive inspiration from. So, go ahead and start cooking presentations that will blow your audience away.

Don’t forget to choose a super-relevant topic and add meaty information. Do it with excitement to make it enjoyable for you and your audience. Best of luck!

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

How to Create the Best PowerPoint Presentations [Examples & Templates]

17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

How to Create an Infographic in Under an Hour — the 2024 Guide [+ Free Templates]

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Get Buyers to Do What You Want: The Power of Temptation Bundling in Sales

How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

How to Start a Presentation [+ Examples]

The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint

How to Create a Stunning Presentation Cover Page [+ Examples]

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

• Search Search Please fill out this field.
• Career Planning
• Skills Development

Important Presentation Skills for Workplace Success

• What Are Presentation Skills?

Steps To Create a Presentation

Skills that help make an effective presentation, how to make your skills stand out.

xavierarnau / Getty Images

Whether you’re a high-level executive or an administrative assistant, developing your presentation skills is one key way to climb in an office-based job. Leaders make decisions based on information shared in presentation format, and hardly any business changes its mind without first seeing a persuasive presentation.

It is important for any office employee to know what steps go into creating an effective presentation and what presentation skills are most important to employers. Highlighting these skills will also help you stand out during your job search.

Key Takeaways

• Presentation skills are what you need to know to be able to give an engaging, effective presentation.
• The steps to creating a successful presentation are preparation, delivery, and follow-up.
• Employers want to know you have the necessary skills to research, analyze, and create a presentation, plus the communication skills needed to deliver it and field questions afterward.
• You can highlight your skills to employers through your resume, cover letter, and interview.

What Are Presentation Skills? 

Presentation skills refer to all the qualities you need to create and deliver a clear and effective presentation. While what you say during a presentation matters, employers also value the ability to create supporting materials, such as slides.

Your prospective employer may want you to deliver briefings and reports to colleagues, conduct training sessions, present information to clients, or perform any number of other tasks that involve speaking before an audience.

Giving engaging and easy-to-understand talks is a major component of the strong  oral communication skills  that are a  job requirement  for many positions. Not all presentations take place in a formal meeting. Many presentation skills are relevant to one-on-one consults or sales calls.

Any presentation has three phases: preparation, delivery, and follow-up. All presentation skills fit into one of these three phases.

Preparation 

Preparation involves research and building the presentation. Consider the audience you'll be presenting to and what most interests them. This may mean crafting the entire text (or at least writing notes) and creating any slides and other supporting audio/visual materials.

You will also have to make sure that the appropriate venue is available, properly set up beforehand, and ensure the projector (if you'll need one) works and connects with your laptop.

You'll also want to practice your presentation as many times as you need to to feel comfortable delivering it with ease and confidence within the time allotted for the presentation.

Skills related to preparation include conducting research related to your presentation topic, devising charts and graphs depicting your research findings, and learning about your audience to better tailor your presentation to their needs. You'll also need to create digital slides, using statistics, examples, and stories to illustrate your points and effectively to persuade the audience.

Preparing handouts or digital references is an added courtesy that will help the audience pay attention because they won't be preoccupied with note-taking.

Your delivery is the part of the presentation that the audience sees. A good delivery depends on careful preparation and confident presentation and requires its own distinctive  skill set . 

Skills related to delivery include giving an attention-grabbing opening for a talk, providing a summary of what will be covered to introduce the presentation and provide context, and using  body language  and eye contact to convey energy and confidence.

Make sure you pause to emphasize key points, modulate your vocal tone for emphasis, and articulate your speech clearly and smoothly.

Don't be afraid of injecting humor or speaking with enthusiasm and animation—these techniques can help you in projecting confidence to your audience.

Summarize key points at the conclusion of the presentation, and be sure to have a plan for how you'll field any audience questions.

Presentation follow-up includes properly breaking down and storing any equipment, contacting any audience members with whom you agreed to communicate further, and soliciting, collecting, and analyzing feedback.

In some presentations, you may collect information from audience members—such as names and contact information or completed surveys—that you also must organize and store.

Skills related to follow-up include creating an evaluation form to solicit feedback from attendees, interpreting feedback from evaluations, and modifying the content and/or delivery for future presentations. Other follow-up skills include organizing a database of attendees for future presentations, interviewing key attendees to gain additional feedback, and emailing presentation slides to attendees.

To create and deliver the most effective presentation takes a variety of skills, which you can always work to improve.

You must be able to look honestly at your performance, assess the feedback you get, and figure out what you need to do to get better. That takes  analytical thinking .

More importantly, you need to have a firm grasp of the information you are about to communicate to others. You need to analyze your audience and be prepared to think quickly if asked questions that force you to demonstrate that you are fully aware of the material and its implications.

The kind of analytical skills you need to be an effective presenter include problem sensitivity, problem-solving , reporting and surveying, optimization, and predictive modeling. It also helps to be adept at strategic planning, integration, process management, and diagnostics. With these skills, you'll be better able to objectively analyze, evaluate, and act on your findings.

Organization

You do not want to be the person who spends half of their presentation time trying to find a cable to connect their laptop to the projector. Many things can and do go wrong just before a presentation unless you are  organized .

Presentation preparation also means keeping track of notes, information, and start/stop times. You will want to proofread and fine-tune all the materials you plan to use for the presentation to catch any mistakes. Make sure you time yourself when you rehearse so you know how long it will take to deliver the presentation.

A presentation that's finished in half the time allotted is as problematic as one that's too long-winded.

Some key organizational skills to work on include event planning, auditing, benchmarking, prioritization, and recordkeeping. Make sure your scheduling is on point and pay close attention to detail. Quick thinking is an important skill to have for when things inevitably go wrong.

Nonverbal Communication

When speaking to an audience, the way you present yourself can be just as important as how you present your information. You want to appear confident and engaging. You can do this through good posture, the use of hand gestures, and making eye contact with the audience.

Practice your  nonverbal communication  by filming yourself doing a practice presentation and observing your body language carefully. Your physical bearing and poise should convey a degree of comfort and confidence in front of an audience, while active listening , respect, and emotional intelligence will help you in facilitating group discussions.

Presentation Software

Microsoft PowerPoint is the dominant software used to create visual aids for presentations. Learn to use it well, including the special features outside of basic templates that can really bring a presentation to life. Even if someone else is preparing your slideshow for you, it will help to know how to use the software in case of last-minute changes.

Other software that is good to learn includes Microsoft Office, Apple Keynote, Google Slides, and Adobe Presenter.

Public Speaking

You need to appear comfortable and engaging when speaking before a live audience, even if you're not. This can take years of practice, and sometimes  public speaking  just isn't for certain people. An uncomfortable presenter is a challenge for everyone. Fortunately, public speaking skills can improve with practice . Some skills to work on include articulation, engagement, and memorization. You should be able to assess the needs of the audience and handle difficult questions. Controlling your performance anxiety will help you communicate more effectively.

Research is the first step in preparing most presentations and could range from a multi-year process to spending 20 minutes online, depending on context and subject matter. At the very least, you must be able to clearly frame research questions, identify appropriate information sources, and organize your results. Other useful skills include brainstorming, collaboration , comparative analysis, data interpretation, and deductive and inductive reasoning. Business intelligence is a skill that will help you evaluate what information you need to support the bottom line, while case analysis and causal relationships will help you parse and evaluate meaning.

Verbal Communication

Public speaking is one form of  verbal communication , but you will need other forms to give a good presentation. Specifically, you must know how to answer questions. You should be able to understand questions asked by your audience (even if they're strange or poorly worded) and provide respectful, honest, and accurate answers without getting off-topic. Use active listening, focus, and empathy to understand your audience. Skills such as assertiveness, affirmation, and enunciation will help you restate and clarify your key points as it relates to their questions or concerns.

You may or may not need a written script, but you do need to pre-plan what you are going to say, in what order you will say it, and at what level of detail. If you can write a cohesive essay, you can plan a presentation.

Typical writing skills apply to your presentation just as they do to other forms of writing, including grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and proofreading. The ability to build outlines, take notes, and mark up documents will also be useful.

More Presentation Skills

In addition to the skills previously mentioned, there are other important skills that can apply to your presentation. The other skills you need will depend on what your presentation is about, your audience, and your intended results. Some of these additional skills include:

• Summarizing
• Providing anecdotes to illustrate a point
• Designing handouts
• Recognizing and countering objections
• Posing probing questions to elicit more detail about specific issues
• Awareness of ethnic, political, and religious diversity
• Receiving criticism without defensiveness
• Refraining from speaking too often or interrupting others
• Anticipating the concerns of others
• Product knowledge
• SWOT analysis format
• Supporting statements with evidence
• Multilingual
• Working with reviewers
• Consistency
• Developing and maintaining standard operating procedures (SOPs)
• Developing a proposition statement
• Creating and managing expectations

Include skills on your resume. If applicable, you might mention these words in your  resume summary  or  headline .

Highlight skills in your cover letter. Mention one or two specific presentation skills and give examples of instances when you demonstrated these traits in the workplace.

Show your presentation skills in job interviews. During the interview process, you may be asked to give a sample presentation. In this case, you will want to embody these skills during the presentation. For example, you will want to demonstrate your oral communication skills by speaking clearly and concisely throughout the presentation.

PennState. " Steps in Preparing a Presentation ."

Harvard Division of Continuing Education. " 10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills ."

Northern Illinois University. " Delivering the Presentation ."

William A. Galston, Elaine Kamarck

June 28, 2024

Robin Brooks, Ben Harris

June 26, 2024

Yemi Osinbajo

Sofoklis Goulas

June 27, 2024

The Brookings Institution conducts independent research to improve policy and governance at the local, national, and global levels

We bring together leading experts in government, academia, and beyond to provide nonpartisan research and analysis on the most important issues in the world.

From deep-dive reports to brief explainers on trending topics, we analyze complicated problems and generate innovative solutions.

Brookings has been at the forefront of public policy for over 100 years, providing data and insights to inform critical decisions during some of the most important inflection points in recent history.

Subscribe to the Brookings Brief

Get a daily newsletter with our best research on top issues.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Already a subscriber? Manage your subscriptions

Support Our Work

Invest in solutions. Drive impact.

Business Insider highlights research by Jon Valant showing that Arizona's universal education savings accounts are primarily benefiting wealthy families.

Valerie Wirtschafter spoke to the Washington Post about her latest study finding that Russian state media are ramping up on TikTok in both Spanish and English.

Tony Pipa writes in the New York Times about what's necessary for rural communities to benefit from federal investments made in the IIJA, IRA, & CHIPs.

What does the death of Iran’s President really mean? Suzanne Maloney writes in Politico about a transition already underway.

America’s foreign policy: A conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Online Only

10:30 am - 11:15 am EDT

The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.

10:00 am - 11:15 am EDT

10:00 am - 11:00 am EDT

AEI, Washington DC

12:45 pm - 1:45 pm EDT

Andre M. Perry Manann Donoghoe

Keesha Middlemass

Elizabeth Cox Chloe East Isabelle Pula

June 20, 2024

Daniel S. Hamilton

Zouera Youssoufou Zakari Momodu

Brookings Explains

Unpack critical policy issues through fact-based explainers.

Listen to informative discussions on important policy challenges.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Presentation skills

• Business communication
• Business management
• Managing yourself

Swimming in Data? Three Benefits of Visualization

• John Sviokla
• December 04, 2009

Do Your Analytics Cheat the Truth?

• Michael Schrage
• October 10, 2011

How to Nail a Hybrid Presentation

• Sarah Gershman
• May 05, 2021

Misdirection is for Magicians, Not Presenters

• Jerry Weissman
• June 08, 2011

5 Types of Stories Leaders Need to Tell

• Nick Westergaard
• September 22, 2023

Learning Presenting Skills by Learning to Swim

• August 17, 2011

How to Prepare for a Panel

• Dorie Clark
• June 27, 2018

The Art of Evangelism

• Guy Kawasaki
• From the May 2015 Issue

In Presentations, Learn to Say Less

• Ron Ashkenas
• January 10, 2012

To Give a Great Presentation, Distill Your Message to Just 15 Words

• Tricia Brouk
• November 07, 2018

When Someone Asks You a Question, Respond

• March 21, 2012

How to Present to an Audience That Knows More Than You

• Deborah Grayson Riegel
• May 08, 2024

The Kinesthetic Speaker: Putting Action into Words

• Nick Morgan
• From the April 2001 Issue

Data Doesn’t Speak for Itself

• Thomas C. Redman
• April 29, 2014

9 Words and Phrases You’re Probably Using Wrong

• Ross and Kathryn Petras
• October 16, 2018

How to Become an Authentic Speaker

• From the November 2008 Issue

Designing Persuasive Charts

• Scott Berinato
• Sarah Green Carmichael
• May 19, 2016

How to Stop Saying "Um," "Ah," and "You Know"

• Noah Zandan
• August 01, 2018

To Persuade People, Trade PowerPoint for Papier-Mâché

• Michael Brennan
• November 29, 2016

The Big Test: How to Handle Performance Pressure

• Peter Bregman
• October 27, 2010

Narrative Presentation: Telling the Company Story

• James R. Rubin
• Elizabeth A. Powell
• December 12, 2001

Student Guide to the Case Method: Note 3 - Preparing to Discuss a Case

• Susan J. Van Weelden
• Laurie George Busuttil
• March 22, 2018

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations Ebook + Video Case Study

• Nancy Duarte
• October 09, 2012

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Public Speaking and Presenting (with featured article "How to Give a Killer Presentation" By Chris Anderson)

• Harvard Business Review
• Chris Anderson
• Amy J.C. Cuddy
• Herminia Ibarra
• May 12, 2020

HBR Guides to Being an Effective Manager Collection (5 Books) (HBR Guide Series)

• Bryan A. Garner
• December 05, 2017

The Harvard Business Review Good Charts Collection: Tips, Tools, and Exercises for Creating Powerful Data Visualizations

• February 19, 2019

MINI USA: Finding a New Advertising Agency (A)

• David B. Godes
• December 07, 2007

The Solution Shop and Storytelling Process

• Anthony Palomba
• December 20, 2022

Presenting in Teams

• Brian Moriarty
• May 24, 2021

Public Speaking: Tips for Getting Off to a Great Start

• March 08, 2023

Communicating for Results: A Harvard ManageMentor Curated Collection

• Harvard Business Publishing
• October 01, 2017

Beam Dental (A)

• Rembrand Koning
• Alicia Dadlani
• October 03, 2022

Student Guide to the Case Method: Note 2 - Performing a Case Analysis

HBR Guide to Making Better Decisions Toolkit

• February 27, 2020
• Michael Hattersley
• September 19, 1991

Good Charts, Updated and Expanded: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations

• August 29, 2023

HBR Tools: SWOT Analysis

• July 28, 2015

HBR Guides Boxed Set (7 Books)

• Karen Dillon
• May 05, 2015

Harvard Business Review 20-Minute Manager Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books)

• March 12, 2019

HBR's 10 Must Reads for Sales and Marketing Collection (5 Books)

• May 26, 2020

Harvard Business Review, June 2016

• June 01, 2016

Popular Topics

Partner center.