Trim your slide deck: If you created an hour-long presentation and want to deliver it in 40 minutes, cut your slides by a third. You can work in slide-sorter mode in PowerPoint, dragging slides to a “slide cemetery” at the very end of the file. Don’t delete them, because you might have to resurrect one or more at the last minute, when you’re

If you tap into an object’s natural rate of vibration, or resonant frequency, it will move: It may vibrate, shudder, or even play a sympathetic musical note—think tuning forks. The same is true, metaphorically, when you present to an audience. If you tap into the group’s resonant frequency, you can move the people listening to you.

Say you’re presenting a new product concept to the executive team, and you know you won’t get their buy-in unless Trent, the president of the enterprise division, gets excited about the idea, because they always defer to his instincts on new initiatives. Appeal first to Trent’s entrepreneurial nature by describing how exciting the new market

Present Clearly and Concisely to Senior Executives Senior executives are a tough segment to reach. They usually have very little time in their schedules to give you. Though that’s true of many audiences, what sets this crowd apart is that they need to make huge decisions based on accurate information delivered quickly. Long presentations with a big

If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.

The people in your audience came to see what you can do for them, not what they must do for you. So look at the audience as the “hero” of your idea—

Similarly, your audience should focus intently on what you’re saying, looking only briefly at your slides when you display them. To create slides that pass the glance test: Start with a clean surface: Instead of using the default “Click to Add Title” and “Click to Add Text” slide master, turn off all the master prompts and start with a blank slide.

When asked, “What’s your presentation about?” most people answer with a phrase like “Software updates.” That’s not a big idea; it’s a topic—no point of view, no stakes. Change it to “Your department needs to update its workflow management software,” and you’re getting closer. You’ve added your point of view, but the stakes still aren’t clear. So

People don’t fall asleep during conversations, but they often do during presentations—and that’s because many presentations don’t feel conversational.