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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

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

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

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

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Blog Beginner Guides

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

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!

10 PowerPoint Tips for Preparing a Professional Presentation

Use these Microsoft PowerPoint tips to avoid common mistakes, keep your audience engaged, and create a professional presentation.

Professional presentations are all about making an impact. Your slides should look the part. Once you know what makes a presentation look professional, you can customize any half-decent PowerPoint template or create your own custom slides.

Our PowerPoint tips will help you avoid common mistakes, keep your audience engaged, and create a professional presentation, in form and content.

PowerPoint Slide Design

The design can leave a first and lasting impression. Give it a professional touch to win your audience's trust and attention.

1. Carefully Compose Your Slides

Don't copy and paste slides from different sources. You don't want your presentation to look like a rag rug. What you're aiming for is a consistent look. This will help your audience focus on the essential; your speech and the key facts you're highlighting on your slides.

To that end, use a basic template or make your own . PowerPoint comes with a wide selection of professional PowerPoint presentation templates , but you can also find free ones online.

PowerPoint Tip: When you open PowerPoint, note the search field at the top. One of the suggested searches is "presentations". Click it to see all of PowerPoint's default presentation templates. Choose a category on the right to narrow down your search.

Pick an easy to read font face . It's hard to get this right, but these professional-looking Google fonts are a safe bet. Unless you're a designer, stick to a single font face and limit yourself to playing with safe colors and font sizes.

If you're unsure about fonts, refer to "The 10 Commandments of Typography" shown below for orientation.

Carefully select font sizes for headers and text. While you don't want to create a wall of text and lose your audience's attention, you do want them to be able to read what you've highlighted. So make your fonts large enough.

PowerPoint Tip: PowerPoint offers several different slide layouts. When you add a new slide, choose the right layout under Home > New Slide . To switch the layout of an existing slide, use Home > Layout . By using the default layouts, you can make coherent design changes across your presentation anytime you want.

Leave room for highlights, such as images or take home messages. Some elements should stand out. So try not to bury them in background noise but give them the space they need. This could be a single quote or a single image per page with nothing but a simple header and a plain background.

Decorate scarcely but well. If you have good content, you won't need decoration. Your template will be decoratively enough.

Note: Restrict the room your design takes up, and don't ever let the design restrict your message.

2. Use Consistency

Consistently use font face and sizes on all slides. This one goes back to using a template. If you chose a professional presentation template, the designer would have taken care of this aspect. Stick to it!

Match colors. This is where so many presentations fail. You might have chosen a funky template and stuck to the designer's color profile, then you ruin it all with ugly Excel charts .

Take the time to match your visuals to your presentation design.

Text and Background Colors

A poor choice of colors can ruin your presentation.

3. Use Contrast

Black text on a white background will always be the best, but also the most boring choice . You're allowed to use colors! But use them responsibly.

Keep it easy on the eyes and always keep good contrast in mind. If you're color-challenged, use one of the many online tools to select a good looking color palette. Or just use a template and stick to its default colors.

PowerPoint Tip: Use PowerPoint's Design menu to quickly change the font and color palette of your entire presentation using preset design layouts.

4. Apply Brilliance

Carefully use color to highlight your message! Colors are your friends. They can make numbers stand out or your Take Home Message pop.

Don't weaken the color effect by using too many colors in too many instances . The special effect only works if used scarcely. Try to limit pop colors to one per slide.

Make a brilliant choice: match colors for design and good contrast to highlight your message . Use a professional color palette, to find which color will work best with your theme. Use The 10 Commandments of Color Theory shown below to learn more about colors:

Text on PowerPoint Slides

K eep I t S traight and S imple. That means...

• Keywords only on your slides.
• Absolutely no full sentences!
• And never read your slides , talk freely.

Remember that your slides are only there to support, not to replace your talk! You want to tell a story, visualize your data, and demonstrate key points. If you read your slides, you risk losing your audience's respect and attention.

PowerPoint Tip: Afraid you'll lose your train of thoughts? Add notes to your slides. Go to View and under Show click Notes to make them show up under your slides while editing. When starting your presentation, use PowerPoint's presentation mode (go to Slide Show and under Monitors , check Use Presenter View ), so you can glance at your notes when needed.

6. Take Home Message

Always summarize your key point in a Take Home Message. Ask yourself, if your audience learned or remembered one single thing from your presentation, what would you like it to be? That's your Take Home Message.

The Take Home Message is your key message, a summary of your data or story. If you're giving an hour-long presentation, you might have several Take Home Messages. That's OK. Just make sure that what you think is key, really matters to your audience.

Make your Take Home Message memorable. It's your responsibility that your audience takes home something valuable. Help them "get it" by making your Take Home Message stand out, either visually or through how you frame it verbally.

Presentation Visuals

Images are key elements of every presentation. Your audience has ears and eyes, they want to see what you're talking about, and a good visual cue will help them understand your message much better.

7. Add Images

Have more images in your slides than text. Visuals are your friends. They can illustrate your points and support your message.

But do not use images to decorate! That's a poor use of visuals because it's just a distraction.

Images can reinforce or complement your message. So use images to visualize or explain your story.

Use a sufficient image resolution. Your visuals might look good on your desktop, but once blown up by a projector, low-resolution images will make your presentation look anything but professional. So choose a resolution that matches the projector's resolution. If in doubt, don't go below a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (XGA) and aim for 1920 x 1080 pixels (FullHD).

Always maintain your image's aspect ratio. Nothing looks more awkward than a distorted image. Whatever you do, don't stretch images. If you have to resize them, do so with the aspect ratio intact, even if that means dropping slightly above or below your target resolution.

PowerPoint Tip: Need a visual, but don't have one at hand? PowerPoint is connected to Bing's library of online images you can use for your presentations. Go to Insert and under Images select Online Images . You can browse by category or search the library. Be sure to set a checkmark for Creative Commons only , so you don't accidentally violate copyrights.

Note: Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In other words, if you don't have time for a thousand words, use a picture!

PowerPoint Animations and Media

In animations, there is a fine line between a comic and a professional impression. But animations can be powerful tools to visualize and explain complicated matters. A good animation can not only improve understanding, it can also make the message stick with your audience.

8. Don't Be Silly

Sparingly use animations and media. You should only use them in one of two cases:

• To draw attention, for example, to your Take Home Message.
• To clarify a model or emphasize an effect.

Embed the media in your presentation and make sure it works in presentation mode. Testing your presentation at home will save you time and avoid embarrassment.

Target Your Presentation Content

Your target, i.e. your audience, defines the content of your presentation. For example, you cannot teach school kids about the complicated matters of the economy, but you may be able to explain to them what the economy is in the first place and why it is important.

9. Keep Your Audience in Mind

When you compile your PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself these questions:

• What does my audience know?
• What do I need to tell them?
• What do they expect?
• What will be interesting to them?
• What can I teach them?
• What will keep them focused?

Answer these questions and boil your slides down to the very essentials. In your talk, describe the essentials colorfully and use your weapons, i.e. text, images, and animations wisely (see above).

Note: If you fail to hit the target, it won't matter how ingenious your design is or how brilliantly you picked colors and keywords. Nothing matters more than your audience's attention.

10. Practice Your Presentation Like a Professional

A well-practiced and enthusiastic talk will help you convince your audience and keep their attention. Here are some key points that define a good talk:

• Know your slides inside out.
• Speak freely.
• Speak with confidence, loud and clear.
• Speak at a steady pace, better too slow than too fast.
• Keep eye contact with your audience.

Bonus: Implement the 10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule is a concept brought forward by Guy Kawasaki:

It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

A similar concept is PechaKucha , a storytelling format limited to 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide, i.e. less than seven minutes to conclude the presentation.

Now there's a challenge! Telling your story succinctly, might help you get through to some of the busiest and most distracted people on the planet.

One Final PowerPoint Presentation Tip

I've shown you how to think through your entire presentation, from choosing a design to speaking to your audience. Here's a mind trick: never try to interpret the looks on your listeners' faces. Chances are, you're wrong. Just assume they're focused and taking notes.

You've done your best to create a professional PowerPoint presentation that will help your audience focus on the content and learn new things. The looks on their faces aren't doubt or confusion. It's focus! Well, d'oh! Obviously, you're the expert, and they're the learners. If you can get into this mindset, you can relax and perform at your best.

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How to give a good presentation that captivates any audience

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What are the main difficulties when giving presentations?

How to create an effective presentation, after that, how do i give a memorable presentation, how to connect with the audience when presenting.

If you’ve ever heard someone give a powerful presentation, you probably remember how it made you feel. Much like a composer, a good speaker knows precisely when each note should strike to captivate their audience’s attention and leave them with a lasting impression.

No one becomes a great public speaker or presenter without practice. And almost everyone can recall a time one of their presentations went badly — that’s a painful part of the learning process.

Whether you’re working within a small creative team or a large organization, public speaking and presentation skills are vital to communicating your ideas. Knowing how to present your vision can help you pitch concepts to clients, present ideas to your team, and develop the confidence to participate in team meetings.

If you have an upcoming presentation on the horizon and feel nervous, that’s normal. Around 15-30% of the general population experience a fear of public speaking . And, unfortunately, social anxiety is on the rise, with a 12% increase in adults over the last 20 years . 

Learning how to give a good presentation can dismantle your fears and break down these barriers, ensuring you’re ready to confidently share your point of view. 

It’s the week before your presentation, and you’re already feeling nervous . Maybe there’ll be an important mentor in the room you need to impress, or you’re looking for an opportunity to show your boss your value. Regardless of your countless past presentations, you still feel nervous. 

Sharing your vision and ideas with any sized group is intimidating. You’re likely worrying about how you’ll perform as a presenter and whether the audience will be interested in what you offer. But nerves aren’t inherently negative — you can actually use this feeling to fuel your preparation.

It’s helpful to identify where your worries are coming from and address your fears. Here are some common concerns when preparing for an upcoming presentation:

Fear of public speaking: When you share your ideas in front of a group, you’re placing yourself in a vulnerable position to be critiqued on your knowledge and communication skills . Maybe you feel confident in your content, but when you think about standing in front of an audience, you feel anxious and your mind goes blank.

It’s also not uncommon to have physical symptoms when presenting . Some people experience nausea and dizziness as the brain releases adrenaline to cope with the potentially stressful situation . Remember to take deep breaths to recenter yourself and be patient, even if you make a mistake.

Losing the audience’s attention: As a presenter, your main focus is to keep your audience engaged. They should feel like they’re learning valuable information or following a story that will improve them in life or business.

Highlight the most exciting pieces of knowledge and ensure you emphasize those points in your presentation. If you feel passionate about your content, it’s more likely that your audience will experience this excitement for themselves and become invested in what you have to say.

Not knowing what content to place on presentation slides: Overloading presentation slides is a fast way to lose your audience’s attention. Your slides should contain only the main talking points and limited text to ensure your audience focuses on what you have to say rather than becoming distracted by the content on your slides.

Discomfort incorporating nonverbal communication: It’s natural to feel stiff and frozen when you’re nervous. But maintaining effective body language helps your audience stay focused on you as you speak and encourages you to relax.

If you struggle to incorporate body language into your presentations, try starting small by making hand gestures toward your slides. If you’re working with a large audience, use different parts of the stage to ensure everyone feels included. 

Each presenter has their own personal brand and style. Some may use humor to break the ice, while others might appeal to the audience’s emotional side through inspiring storytelling. 

Watching online presentations, such as TED talks, is an excellent way to expose yourself to various presentation styles and develop your own. While observing others, you can note how they carry themselves on stage and learn new ways to keep your audience engaged.

Once you’ve addressed what’s causing your fears, it’s time to prepare for a great presentation. Use your past experience as inspiration and aim to outshine your former self by learning from your mistakes and employing new techniques. Here are five presentation tips to help you create a strong presentation and wow your audience:

1. Keep it simple

Simple means something different to everyone.

Before creating your presentation, take note of your intended audience and their knowledge level of your subject. You’ll want your content to be easy for your intended audience to follow.

Say you’re giving a presentation on improving your company’s operational structure. Entry-level workers will likely need a more straightforward overview of the content than C-suite leaders, who have significantly more experience. 

Ask yourself what you want your audience to take away from your presentation and emphasize those important points. Doing this ensures they remember the most vital information rather than less important supporting ideas. Try organizing these concepts into bullet points so viewers can quickly identify critical takeaways.

2. Create a compelling structure

Put yourself in your audience member’s shoes and determine the most compelling way to organize your information. Your presentation should be articulate , cohesive, and logical, and you must be sure to include all necessary supporting evidence to strengthen your main points.

If you give away all of your answers too quickly, your audience could lose interest. And if there isn’t enough supporting information, they could hit a roadblock of confusion. Try developing a compelling story that leads your audience through your thought processes so they can experience the ups and downs alongside you. 

By structuring your presentation to lead up to a final conclusion, you’re more likely to keep listeners’ attention. Once you’ve reached that conclusion, you can offer a Q&A period to put any of their questions or concerns to rest. 

3. Use visual aids

Appealing to various learning styles is a great way to keep everyone on the same page and ensure they absorb your content. Visual aids are necessary for visual learners and make it easier for people to picture your ideas.

Aim to incorporate a mixture of photos, videos, and props to engage your audience and convey your key points. For instance, if you’re giving a presentation on anthropology subject matter, you could show your audience an artifact to help them understand how exciting a discovery must have been. 

If your presentation is long, including a video for your audience to watch is an excellent way to give yourself a break and create new jumping-off points for your speech.

4. Be aware of design techniques and trends

Thanks to cutting-edge technology and tools, you have numerous platforms at your disposal to create a good presentation. But keep in mind that although color, images, and graphics liven things up, they can cause distraction when misused.

  Here are a few standard pointers for incorporating visuals on your slides: 

• Don’t place blocks of small text on a single slide
• Use a minimalistic background instead of a busy one
• Ensure text stands out against the background color
• Only use high-resolution photos
• Maintain a consistent font style and size throughout the presentation
• Don’t overuse transitions and effects

5. Try the 10-20-30 rule

Guy Kawasaki, a prominent venture capitalist and one of the original marketing specialists for Apple, said that the best slideshow presentations are less than 10 slides , last at most 20 minutes, and use a font size of 30. Following this strategy can help you condense your information, eliminate unnecessary ideas, and maintain your audience’s focus more efficiently.

Once you’re confident in creating a memorable presentation, it’s time to learn how to give one. Here are some valuable tips for keeping your audience invested during your talk: 

Tip #1: Tell stories

Sharing an anecdote from your life can improve your credibility and increase your relatability. And when an audience relates to you, they’re more likely to feel connected to who you are as a person and encouraged to give you their full attention, as they would want others to do the same.

Gill Hicks utilized this strategy well when she shared her powerful story, “ I survived a terrorist attack. Here’s what I learned .” In her harrowing tale, Hicks highlights the importance of compassion, unconditional love, and helping those in need.

If you feel uncomfortable sharing personal stories, that’s okay. You can use examples from famous individuals or create a fictional account to demonstrate your ideas.

Tip #2: Make eye contact with the audience

Maintaining eye contact is less intimidating than it sounds. In fact, you don’t have to look your audience members directly in their eyes — you can focus on their foreheads or noses if that’s easier.

Try making eye contact with as many people as possible for 3–5 seconds each. This timing ensures you don’t look away too quickly, making the audience member feel unimportant, or linger too long, making them feel uncomfortable.

If you’re presenting to a large group, direct your focus to each part of the room to ensure no section of the audience feels ignored. 

Tip #3: Work on your stage presence

Although your tone and words are the most impactful part of your presentation, recall that body language keeps your audience engaged. Use these tips to master a professional stage presence:

• Speak with open arms and avoid crossing them
• Keep a reasonable pace and try not to stand still
• Use hand gestures to highlight important information

Tip #4: Start strong

Like watching a movie trailer, the first seconds of your talk are critical for capturing your audience’s attention. How you start your speech sets the tone for the rest of your presentation and tells your audience whether or not they should pay attention. Here are some ways to start your presentation to leave a lasting impression:

• Use a quote from a well-known and likable influential person 
• Ask a rhetorical question to create intrigue
• Start with an anecdote to add context to your talk 
• Spark your audience’s curiosity by involving them in an interactive problem-solving puzzle or riddle

Tip #5: Show your passion

Don’t be afraid of being too enthusiastic. Everyone appreciates a speaker who’s genuinely excited about their field of expertise. 

In “ Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance ,” Angela Lee Duckworth discusses the importance of passion in research and delivery. She delivers her presentation excitedly to show the audience how excitement piques interest. 

Tip #6: Plan your delivery

How you decide to deliver your speech will shape your presentation. Will you be preparing a PowerPoint presentation and using a teleprompter? Or are you working within the constraints of the digital world and presenting over Zoom?

The best presentations are conducted by speakers who know their stuff and memorize their content. However, if you find this challenging, try creating notes to use as a safety net in case you lose track.

If you’re presenting online, you can keep notes beside your computer for each slide, highlighting your key points. This ensures you include all the necessary information and follow a logical order.

Tip #7: Practice

Practice doesn’t make perfect — it makes progress. There’s no way of preparing for unforeseen circumstances, but thorough practice means you’ve done everything you can to succeed.

Rehearse your speech in front of a mirror or to a trusted friend or family member. Take any feedback and use it as an opportunity to fine-tune your speech. But remember: who you practice your presentation in front of may differ from your intended audience. Consider their opinions through the lens of them occupying this different position.

Tip #8: Read the room

Whether you’re a keynote speaker at an event or presenting to a small group of clients, knowing how to read the room is vital for keeping your audience happy. Stay flexible and be willing to move on from topics quickly if your listeners are uninterested or displeased with a particular part of your speech.

Tip #9: Breathe

Try taking deep breaths before your presentation to calm your nerves. If you feel rushed, you’re more likely to feel nervous and stumble on your words.

The most important thing to consider when presenting is your audience’s feelings. When you approach your next presentation calmly, you’ll put your audience at ease and encourage them to feel comfortable in your presence.

Tip #10: Provide a call-to-action

When you end your presentation, your audience should feel compelled to take a specific action, whether that’s changing their habits or contacting you for your services.

If you’re presenting to clients, create a handout with key points and contact information so they can get in touch. You should provide your LinkedIn information, email address, and phone number so they have a variety of ways to reach you. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all template for an effective presentation, as your unique audience and subject matter play a role in shaping your speech. As a general rule, though, you should aim to connect with your audience through passion and excitement. Use strong eye contact and body language. Capture their interest through storytelling and their trust through relatability.

Learning how to give a good presentation can feel overwhelming — but remember, practice makes progress. Rehearse your presentation for someone you trust, collect their feedback , and revise. Practicing your presentation skills is helpful for any job, and every challenge is a chance to grow.

Elevate your communication skills

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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.

6 presentation skills and how to improve them

How to write a speech that your audience remembers, how to make a presentation interactive and exciting, reading the room gives you an edge — no matter who you're talking to, tell a story they can't ignore these 10 tips will teach you how, 3 stand-out professional bio examples to inspire your own, your guide to what storytelling is and how to be a good storyteller, 18 effective strategies to improve your communication skills, writing an elevator pitch about yourself: a how-to plus tips, similar articles, how to pitch ideas: 8 tips to captivate any audience, the 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, 30 presentation feedback examples, how to not be nervous for a presentation — 13 tips that work (really), how the minto pyramid principle can enhance your communication skills, 8 clever hooks for presentations (with tips), stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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• Presentation Science

The Complete Guide To Creating A Captivating Professional Presentation

• By: Leslie Belknap

. Do you have a presentation in the near future, but don’t know how to start preparing for it?

You’re in luck!   Included below are 10 steps to help you create a truly captivating presentation, and avoid creating a conference room killer  – the infamous, dreaded  Death By PowerPoint presentation.

If you work through each of the 10 steps below, as well as watch the included videos, and review the embedded resources, you will have all of the information you could ever need to create a stunning, professional presentation, instead of a boring conference room killer presentation.

The key to success is starting early so you have ample time to complete each of the 10 steps thoughtfully. So go ahead and begin immediately; don’t delay. These tips will help you start, and finish your presentation like a presentation professional .

If you have questions about any of these tips, contact us .  We’re here to help you create amazing presentations!

10 Steps To A Captivating Presentation

1. describe your presentation in one sentence.

Simplify your presentation topic to a one-sentence summary before you begin writing or designing your presentation.  If you cannot explain your presentation in one sentence, you are not ready to create your presentation.

The one-sentence description serves as a compass during the content development process, making it easy to explore supporting ideas without getting lost in the sea of possibilities.  

If you think your idea is too big for a one-sentence summary , consider that  Daniel Pink , the chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore from 1995 to 1997, and author of three  New York Times  bestsellers, suggests writing a one-sentence summary for the purpose of your life. If it is possible to define your life in one sentence, it is undoubtedly possible to encapsulate any presentation in one sentence.

Pink derived inspiration for his advice from a story about Clare Boothe Luce,  the  first American woman  to represent her country to a major world power.  In 1962 Luce said to John F. Kennedy,  a great man is one sentence.  Luce advised Kennedy to write a one-sentence summary.  She was telling him to concentrate, to know the great themes and demands of his time and focus on them , according to the  Wall Street Journal  article,   To-Do List: A Sentence, Not 10 Paragraphs .

Summary: Write one sentence that describes your presentation topic. Think of the one sentence as your elevator pitch for your presentation. If you were riding the elevator to go up only one floor, how would you explain your presentation to someone in that short amount of time? This is your one sentence statement, and the heart of your presentation.

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2. Identify the 3 main takeaways of your presentation.

Once you have clearly defined your presentation topic with a one-sentence statement, your next step is to identify the three main ideas of your presentation. These three ideas will be the pillars of your presentation.

To identify the three pillars, ask yourself, “If the audience will only remember three things about my talk, what do I want those three takeaways to be?” Ask yourself this question because most likely audience members will indeed only remember three ideas from your entire presentation.  You will build the rest of your presentation around these three pillars, which ultimately support your core message as defined in your one sentence summary.

Every element of your presentation should, in one way or another, connect to one of your main three ideas. If you are considering including an element that cannot be directly linked to one of your three pillars, ask yourself, “Is this really necessary?” If you decide that you absolutely must include something that seems to not connect to one of your three main ideas, consider reframing the seemingly unrelated point so it can connect to one of your three main ideas, or consider changing your selected three pillars.

Summary: For inspiration, think of the Latin phrase Omne trium perfectum,  which means  everything that comes in threes is perfect, or, every set of three is complete . No matter the topic or length of your presentation, the “rule of three” should be used to structure your presentation content. By only providing three main takeaways, your presentation will be easier for your audience to remember, and your main points will be easier for you to recall when you’re presenting.

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3. Get Real.

After you have sculpted your one sentence summary and three pillars, start developing your content to support your three main ideas. Your supporting content is your opportunity to talk about your research, data, and case studies.

According to a Buffer article ,  one study published in Communication Research  found that a whole week after reading, passages with statistics were  more persuasive  than passages  driven by story . As you will read later, this claim is disputed, and many people think stories are more persuasive than data. Don’t worry about which is more important though because you will need both. Thus, if you have some data to prove your points, select your strongest stats, and use them to add weight to your ideas. Just don’t overdo the data. Get to the point, and keep moving so you don’t lose your audience by wading through unnecessary details.

As you construct your first draft of your supporting content, continually ask yourself, “So what?” Many audience members will listen to a presentation, process the information, consider the points, and then think, “What’s in it for me?” or  “Why does this matter?” Basically, they are thinking, “So what? Why should I care?”

You need to drive home the value of your material throughout your entire presentation . If you would be unable to respond to an audience member who asked, “Why should I care?” in response to a particular piece of your content, delete that point.  Every point should be relevant to your message, and your audience. If you do not answer these questions, some audience members will probably think your presentation was a waste of their time.

When considering your answer, think about what keeps your audience up at night. What are their problems, concerns, and challenges? Can your insights and ideas solve a problem for them?

As you continue to develop the supporting elements of your presentation, keep a “devil’s advocate” mindset . Once you have ensured all of your points will be meaningful to your audience, review your content from perspective of an audience member with an opposing viewpoint.

For example, it might seem like no one could argue with a presentation that proposed the idea of giving away food to prevent hunger. However, don’t forget the saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man, feed him forever.” Sharing food is a noble mission however there will still be someone who disagrees with your solution to the problem. Develop your content to sway audience members with opposing viewpoints.

Summary: Support your presentation with facts that will resonate with your audience, including any disagreeing attendees. In addition, clearly answer “So what?” for the audience. No presentation is exempt from this requirement. Get real, and cut the fluff.

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4. Find Your Story.

At this point you have defined your presentation with one sentence, identified the three pillars of your topic, and crafted your supporting content to satisfy challenging perspectives.  

Take a good look at all of these elements and then step away from working on your presentation. This is the time to do a little soul searching.  Go for a walk, write in your journal, or engage in other activities that will open your mind to inspiration.

Search your memories until you remember a story that easily relates to your presentation topic. No presentation is complete without at least one story so don’t skip this step.

Storytelling is an important part of all presentations because many credible sources claim stories are easier to recall  than stats or facts. Descriptive tales can activate up to 7 areas of the human brain, while non-narrative information typically activates only two areas of the brain.

With so many areas of the mind engaged, listeners  experience  the story instead of process  it. In addition, a carefully crafted story will likely inspire emotional reactions from audience members.  Emotions, not logic, inspire most actions .

So, not only will audience members remember a story more easily than facts, a story is also more likely to inspire action. Since all presentations need a  call to action , the more you can inspire your audience to take action, the more successful you will be as a presenter.

Learn more about the power of stories for presentations by reviewing the infographic below.

Summary: Tell at least one story during your presentation. Don’t settle for just any story, though. Take the time to select a relevant story that will spark an emotional response within audience members. To inspire action, speak to the heart as well as the mind.

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5. Identify a clear call-to-action.

Now that you have developed content that guides your audience to a new perspective, decide what you want the audience to do next.  

Do you want your audience to use their knowledge to grow their business? If so, quickly reiterate the process to take that action, and then send them on their way with an easy-to-remember homework assignment. Provide your contact information so they can let you know how the process went for them.

Do you want people to follow you on social media? If yes, then at the end of your presentation, ask audience members to pull out their mobile devices and follow you right then and there.  Provide an incentive to encourage engagement.

If you want your audience to purchase your product, how can you simplify that process for them? Perhaps you can sell your goods in the lobby after your talk. If that is the case, your call-to-action should be an exciting request to join you in the lobby to check out your product firsthand.  

No matter your topic, your presentation should be structured so that audience members are not left hanging, wondering what to do with their newly acquired insights.

If you choose to include a Q&A session in your presentation, do not end with the Q&A. You always want to end with a quick summary of your most important points followed by your call-to-action. To insert a Q&A before your conclusion, say something like, Before I wrap-up by telling you how to utilize these insights, I would like to open the floor to questions for two-minutes. Does anyone have any questions?

To persuade your audience to complete your call-to-action, try some of these persuasion techniques :

Summary: Use the last sentences of your presentation to deliver a clear call-to-action. Tell your audience what they should do after your presentation. In addition, offer an incentive, and create a sense of urgency.

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6. Outline your slides as a storyboard.

At this point, you have done most of the heavy lifting in regards to content development. Your content might be a collection of notes and ideas, or perhaps it looks like a college essay. Either way, now is the time to organize your content in a storyboard. A storyboard is an outline that lists the words and numbers you will include on each slide, as well as notes about the design for the slide. You don’t need to start designing yet, however this is a great time to start thinking about your presentation design since that will be the next step once your storyboard is finalized.

To begin the first draft of your outline, list your three main ideas, your stories, and your call-to-action. By first jotting down these elements, you ensure that these critical components will be the focus of your presentation. Leave room in your outline to fill in the supporting ideas later.  

Also, have your one sentence summary nearby and reference it regularly throughout the storyboard process. Even if you don’t state your one sentence verbatim during your talk, your audience should be able to easily grasp the central idea of your presentation.  If it is appropriate to feature your one sentence summary on a slide as-is, go for it!

With these items roughly in place, focus on the content for the first few slides of your presentation. These slides are significant because you need to have a strong start to your presentation. Easing an audience into a presentation, and slowly building towards a conclusion is a recipe for mediocrity. Instead, hook your audience’s attention immediately, or risk losing them forever.

To engage your audience at the beginning of your talk, consider asking a question – either a rhetorical question, or a genuine question that includes a request for a show of hands. If you have mastered the art of humor, get your audience smiling by telling a funny story at the beginning of your presentation.

In addition, you can wake up the audience during the beginning of your presentation by revealing a shocking fact. For example, you could say, “10 years from now your job will not exist.” If you’re speaking to a group of ambitious professionals, this information will surely spark their interest.

Now that you have some ideas for the beginning of your presentation, pick a solution that seems like the best fit for your speaking style, your topic, and your audience. If you’re not sure how to start your presentation, you might need to continue researching your audience. The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to edit and refine your slide outline.

After you develop the first few slides, continue to move through your outline by filling in the supporting ideas for your three main points . Remember that your outline should inspire the audience to take a specific action at the end of your talk. Craft your slide outline so that it builds towards your call-to-action.

In addition, when you arrange your content, try to include only one idea per slide.   Keep your ideas succinct since you will need to enhance your message with a visual on each slide. This might seem excessive if you typically use bullet points or numbered lists to cram a lot of information on one slide. You might save some time on your presentation development by using bullet points, but your audience will likely be bored to tears during your presentation, and you will not be as successful with your presentation as you could be.  

In 2014, the  International Journal of Business Communication  published the results from  The Use of Visualization in the Communication of Business Strategies , an experiment conducted to gather empirical evidence regarding whether the use of visualization is better than text in the communication of a business strategy.  

The results of that study confirmed that lists of text and bullet points should be avoided for presentations . Specifically, the study concluded : Subjects who were exposed to a graphic representation of the strategy paid significantly more attention to, agreed more with, and better recalled the strategy than did subjects who saw a (textually identical) bulleted list version.

In summary, bullet point lists kill presentations because your audience will struggle to pay attention to your lists, agree with your lists, and recall your lists.  Those three reasons should be enough to convince you to never use bullet points again.

Once the first draft of your outline is complete, step away from your storyboard. When you are refreshed, return to your content outline and look for holes in your logic, as well as unnecessary information, or lulls in the energy of your talk.

Edit, edit, and edit again . Don’t be afraid to alter some of the foundational elements of your talk, as long as you ensure all of the critical pieces are included after your edits are complete. Also, check to make sure all of the required content pieces still fit together appropriately after your revisions to the storyboard. For example, if you decide to change one of you three pillars because it no longer resonates with you, make sure your revised pillar still fits with your one sentence summary, as well as the other two pillars and your call-to-action.

Summary: When you organize your content in a storyboard format, stay focused on your one sentence summary, your three main points, and your call-to-action. Only include supporting content that relates to these critical components. Also, craft an exciting introduction, and remember to include only one idea per slide.

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7. Create a mood board to guide your design.

Since your content is now rock solid, you can start planning your presentation design . To ensure your design is consistent and intentional, don’t launch into designing slides without first creating a mood board.

What is a mood board? A mood board is a curated collection of influences that form a map for you to follow during the design process.  

Mood boards typically include a color scheme, your few selected fonts, photography style samples, icons, and a few design samples that match your ideal look and feel.

When developing your color scheme, take your time. Colors can dramatically influence the emotions and behaviors of viewers, so don’t rush and select colors impulsively.  Since reactions to colors vary across cultures, genders, and ages, do your homework to know what colors are the most appropriate for your presentation, and your specific audience.

For presentations, fonts are just as important as color scheme, images, and layout.   Limit yourself to using one or two fonts throughout the presentation. Too many different fonts might distract the audience, and effective fonts are something that should live in the background of your presentation. The audience shouldn’t necessarily notice them in any particular way; they should simply work with the content presented. Choose fonts that flow with the theme, narrative and content of your presentation.

Tools to Help Create Mood boards:

1.  Adobe Suite   (In-Design, Illustrator, Photoshop) Adobe Suite can be time intensive to learn, but allows you play with layouts and bring some of the proposed elements/inspiration into the design of the moodboard.

2.  Evernote – A quick and easy way to store thoughts and images through text, recordings, and images. Both mobile and desktop versions are available.

3.  Pinterest – A highly visual moodboard where you can save images from the internet to their respective “boards” or upload your own.

4.  Sampleboard – An online concept creation tool that is basically a Pinterest board on steroids. It allows users to search by color, palette, or pattern and share with ease.

5.  Adobe Color CC : To design with a unified color scheme, start by visiting Adobe Color CC; it is one of the best tools available for presentation designers when selecting color schemes. Both a web-based tool and a free app, Adobe Color CC allows you to explore and create infinite color schemes.

If you’re not sure how to devise a mood board with a look and feel that will resonate with your target audience, create a few mood boards and share them with colleagues who are similar to the demographic of your presentation audience.   Let their preferences guide your design decision.

Summary : Just like most people create a Pinterest board before remodeling a room in their house, you need to create a mood board before designing your presentation.  Carefully select fonts, colors, and inspiration pieces to build a mood board that can guide your design process.

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8. Design your slides.

The slide design stage is exciting because you finally get to see your presentation blossom into a beautiful masterpiece of visual communication.  

If you’re tired of working on your presentation, this is another great time to take a break and replenish your personal creative resources. If you get sloppy during the design process, you are essentially throwing away all of your hard work.

For example, if you select visuals that don’t directly support your message, your audience members will exert unnecessary mental energy trying to connect the visuals to your concept. All of the time you spent refining your content will be wasted because your audience will not be listening to you if they are too busy trying to understand your seemingly unrelated design . Visuals should simplify your message for your audience, not muddy the meaning of your presentation.

So, how can you design slides that enhance your message?  Think BIG. Big visuals and big text are ideal for presentations because they keep your audience from straining to view the elements on your slides.

The slides below are good examples of big visuals and big text.

To create slides with big visuals, aim to use visual elements that can cover the entire slide. Never place a small visual in the center of your slide, and leave the rest of your slide empty. If your visual elements are low resolution and will pixelate if stretched to fill the slide, use the rule of thirds to find an appropriate place for your visual on the slide. However, if possible, avoid low-resolution elements at all costs.  Low resolution visuals can quickly kill your credibility.

In addition, question every design element you choose to include. Look at your slides from the perspective of an audience member who is unfamiliar with your presentation topic. Will they understand your choice of visual elements? For example, if you want to use a photo on a slide about the power of storytelling , you might want to skip over stock photos that show someone reading a book in a library, and instead opt for a picture featuring a group of people laughing around a campfire. Yes, the images that feature someone reading in a library relate to storytelling , but they do not relate to the power of storytelling. However a photo of people telling stories around a campfire demonstrates the bonding that occurs as a result of storytelling.  You need to be this nit-picky when selecting visual elements. Every detail matters when it comes to slide design .

Before you declare your presentation design complete, show your slides to a few unbiased friends who are similar in demographic to your target audience. Take their feedback seriously. If your slides don’t resonate with them, you need to make changes until the feedback is positive.

Summary : To stay on track during the design process, revisit your mood board and storyboard as you create every slide. Check to make sure you are using the correct content, fonts, colors, as well as visual elements that match your intended look and feel. Every detail matters.

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9. Practice with purpose.

Congratulations! If you’ve reached the practice stage, that means you have successfully written and designed your presentation.

Since there are many ways to practice for a talk, you should experiment with the different suggestions below. Find one that works for you and stick with it, or mix and match techniques to create your own unique approach. Whatever you do, don’t try to wing it. Some speakers worry that practice will decrease their authenticity on stage, however the opposite is true. A prepared speaker can focus on the audience, walk around the stage, and enjoy the moment, instead of focusing all of their attention on developing and delivering a structured and meaningful presentation on the fly.

The more you practice, the more authentic you can be on stage.  

For example, if you notice that audience members are falling asleep, you can spontaneously add an interactive element to your talk, and then get back on course, because you know your material that well.   If you do not know your material, being present in the moment will be nearly impossible.

As you practice your talk, don’t rehearse your content verbatim.  By practicing repeatedly in a conversational style, you will naturally learn your presentation in its entirety, however you will not feel pressured to recite your talk word-for-word when you present.

If you are only practicing in front of a mirror at home, or reading your slides from the comfort of your couch, your efforts are not going to yield impressive results. Don’t hide away when you practice your presentation.  Bring your presentation into the real world by practicing in front of real people, not the audience in your mind.   Try to make your practice feel like the real thing, as much as possible. Do not be offended by any of the given to you during the practice sessions. Remember, you are rehearsing to work out any kinks in your talk, not to collect compliments.

To prepare for presenting in front of a mentor, colleagues, or friends and family members, first  record videos of some of your private practice sessions.  Remember to stand up, use your slides, and take your practice seriously.

Try to make your practice sessions feel as much like the real thing as possible. By watching recordings of your talk you can eliminate any glaring problems with your content, slide design , or delivery.

Also, take advantage of all of the benefits of your recordings by listening to some of your practice sessions when you commute to work, or walk around your neighborhood. Listening to your presentation, instead of only reading or speaking it, will give you a fresh perspective on your material.

In order to see positive results,  studies have also shown  that your brain must engage in “mindful” practice. This means avoiding doing the same thing over and over on autopilot without actively trying different techniques and slowly working through problems.

Summary : Practice, and then practice again and again. If you know your material inside and out, you will be able to improvise to respond to unexpected occurrences or to add a conversational tone to your presentation.

The Complete Guide to Practicing Before a Presentation

Why You Need to Practice Before Presenting at a Conference

Memorize Your Speech With This Memory Trick

10. Own the stage.

To be a great public speaker, you need to be present in the moment during your presentation. You should be tuned into the reactions and cues from the audience, as well as focused on your material.  

To be present in the moment, prepare for worst-case scenarios such as spilling coffee on your shirt before your presentation, or your laptop malfunctioning during your talk.  Think through a plan for your worst fears, and bring supplies to help you survive any technical or logistical emergencies. Once you have addressed your greatest fears, let them go, and focus on being happy, confident, and focused on the present moment.

Before you take the stage, practice some power poses to raise your testosterone and lower your cortisol.  

For example, stand like superman with your fists on your hips, and your chest expanded. Hold this pose for a few minutes to get the maximum effect. Power poses are proven to help you reduce stress, and increase confidence.

When you’re on stage, loosen up. Let your hands gesture naturally during your presentation. Research has shown that presenters are judged as more effective and competent when they make hand gestures compared with when they keep their hands still , according to  The 4 Ways You Can Use Body Language To Influence Success  by Christian Jarrett.

While gesturing, be especially aware of how you use your palms.  In his TEDx talk,  Body Language, the power is in the palm of your hands ,  Allan Pease uses humor, stories, case studies, and audience interaction to deliver a compelling case for the importance of using your palms wisely when speaking.  There are more connections between your brain and the palm of your hands than any other body part , according to Pease.  So clearly, the palms have evolved as an important part of human brains,  Pease concludes. In one of the case studies mentioned by Pease, palm orientation was tested; the study concluded  the palm up speaker had up to 40% more retention of the deal than the palm down speaker . Speaking with your palms up will make you more likable and persuasive. If you speak with your palms down, you will be perceived as threatening and controlling.

In addition, remember to smile.  A recent study at Penn State University found that when you smile, you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous, but you actually appear to be more competent ,  according to the TED talk,  The Hidden Power of Smiling , by Ron Gutman.

Also, since you should never read from you slides, your body should be open to the audience, and your eyes should be scanning the audience. When you make eye contact with someone in the crowd, hold their gaze for a few seconds to let them know you see them, and want to connect with them. Don’t overdo it though. Keep eye contact as long as it feels natural, and then move on.

If your presentation is being filmed, look into the camera. A study between the University of Wolverhampton and Stirling discovered that viewers remembered a speaker better if they looked into the directly into the camera  at least 30% of the time  during a speech.

Lastly, move and pause during your presentation. Own the stage, and never stand frozen behind a podium. Adding movement to your presentation will help you keep the attention of your audience, and will also help you shake off any nerves.  

Summary: Prepare for the worst-case scenarios, and then let go of your fears. When you’re on stage, be happy, enthusiastic, and connect to the audience with your eyes and body language. Whatever you do – don’t just stand there . You’re presentation matters. This is YOUR time to shine.

What To Do With Your Hands During Presentations

The 3 Best Body Language Tips For Presentations

Fight Your Fear of Public Speaking – 4 Proven Methods

How An Improv Class Can Improve Your Public Speaking

How To Introduce Yourself Before A Presentation

Final Thoughts: 33 Presentation Tips

If, after reviewing the information above you still have questions or concerns about your presentation, don’t fret – we are here to help you!  Send us your questions on Twitter , or contact us via email or phone .

And if you want us to come teach your team how to create and deliver captivating presentations , we would be honored to schedule a training workshop for you and your staff.

The bottom line:   We are here to help you create amazing presentations!

Leslie Belknap

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Presentation Skills

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

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

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

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

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

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

These can all be considered presentations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Important Point

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

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

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

You can, for example:

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

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

Quick Guide to Effective Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

If you have more time to develop your presentation skills…

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

Our Presentation Skills section is split into two parts.

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

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

Preparing for Your Presentation

The guide starts by explaining What is a Presentation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the Day of the Presentation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presenting Under Particular Circumstances

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

Circumstances that may be new to you include:

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

One particular special case is attending public consultation meetings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See also: Personal Appearance Interpersonal Communication Skills

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From designing one-page infographics to creating pitch decks — we cover all business-related topics and visualize data of all kinds.

We create custom-made presentations tailored specifically to your niche, precisely following your corporate style guide, tone of voice, and requirements. And a completely editable format allows you to update the delivered presentation by yourself.

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Attention to detail, proper data visualization, clear structure, embedded videos, topic-based illustrations, and easy to edit slides is what makes our presentations so unique.

Having accumulated expertise while working with teachers of different disciplines and teaching for different academic levels, we know how to deliver a presentation that will meet all your needs.

We create presentations for almost all disciplines and academic levels: from Business to Healthcare, from BA to Ph.D.

If you need to present your research in the best way, meeting all academic standards, we can help you succeed. Our designers can organize your thoughts and your research in a clear and concise way by structuring slides, creating contrast, adding charts, graphs, and other visuals.

We can also advise you on content, edit, proofread, or redesign your presentation, and help with speaker notes.

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Frequently asked questions

How fast can you do a powerpoint presentation.

The minimum possible deadline is under 12 hours. It is best suited for small orders, such as redesigning 3-5 slides without complex graphs and visuals. Sometimes, we can fulfill a larger order but must check your instructions first. In case of such a request, please get in touch with our 24/7 support team, and they’ll tell you whether it is realistic to accommodate it before your deadline.

A 24-hour deadline is perfect for urgent orders of approximately 10 slides. However, if you need 20-40 slides done within such a period, we’ll typically divide the order among several designers who’ll follow one style to ensure design consistency.

If you’re not in a rush, the recommended deadline for standard presentations of 10-20 slides is 3-5 days . This time is enough to approve the draft with you, finalize the presentation and, if necessary, make additional changes. Remember, the longer the deadline, the lower the cost of work.

Can you redesign a presentation in a language other than English?

Yes, that’s not a problem for our professional presentation company. We have extensive experience redesigning presentations in Spanish, French, Chinese, German, and other languages. However, as long as we don’t offer translation services, the content has to be provided by you.

I'm not sure about the style. How can you help me in such a case?

You can review the completed works on our website or request our portfolio to check other work samples not available online. Also, if you have any examples of the style you like, you can provide us with a link to the website or materials or describe it in writing.

In case you have any preferences regarding the color scheme or the list of colors that should not be used, upload it with the instructions, and the designer will consider your wishes. However, if you don’t know what exactly you would like to see, you can opt for a premium business presentation design service, and our experts will prepare several design options for you to choose the one that best fits your vision.

If you have a large presentation but are not sure that the final result will satisfy you, you can first order several slides, check the result, and then assign the rest to that designer.

Can I get a draft to approve the style?

Yes, of course. For non-urgent orders of 5 or more slides, we try to provide drafts for preliminary approval by default and take into account all comments before the order is completed. Therefore, if you want an initial draft of the PowerPoint presentation design, just indicate it when placing an order.

Please note that “draft” means 2-3 redesigned pages in PDF format.

What if I don't like the draft?

Such cases are extremely rare. However, should it happen, we clarify what exactly you don’t like about the draft and offer to let another designer redo it following your comments. In most cases, this is enough to hit the target.

What if I need to change something in the completed presentation?

If these are minor changes relating to the initial instructions, we will revise the presentation to perfection at no cost. That is the main reason why we usually provide a draft for general stylistic approval. Besides, in case of large orders, we can ask you to approve the completed presentation in parts so that the final result meets your expectations.

If changes are more significant and do not pertain to the initial instructions or require extensive amendments following updated guidelines, including designing extra slides, there can be an additional payment for the designer’s time and effort.

The significant advantage of our approach is that we always try to do our best so that you remain 100% satisfied with the final product.

What about the rights to images and illustrations? What sources do you usually use?

At our ppt presentation design company, we usually use images and illustrations that are provided by the client. Other sources generally include photo stocks (both paid and free) and open sources.

If the client has special requirements regarding copyright and use of images (e.g., commercial presentation design), we can either select images/illustrations that are allowed to be used for such purposes, buy the rights for such use, or provide the client with links to rights purchase.

I'm not a native speaker. Can you proofread the content for a presentation?

Yes, we can. We have experienced copywriters and editors on our team who can proofread the content, improve it, create content based on your materials, or, if necessary, do research, collect additional information, and write content from scratch.

For such a task, we recommend choosing the “Presentation from your material” option and describing your wishes regarding proofreading.

Do you help with content writing? What exactly can you do?

Yes, we have experienced copywriters who can help with writing, adaptation, and summarizing of content, both the one provided by the client or created from scratch by our team.

Please note that it is very important to choose the right type of work for such services. Here’s a brief description of available options:

• Presentation based on your material. This option is a good fit for cases when you have all the required information and just need to adapt it to the presentation, shorten it, identify the key ideas, summarize the data, or slightly refine the content.
• Presentation from scratch. As the name suggests, this service covers writing content from the ground up. It’s a perfect option for cases when the content needs to be radically revised or rewritten. As this type of work requires research, please ensure there’s enough freely available material on the topic before placing an order for PowerPoint presentation design services. However, should the creation of a presentation need narrow expertise in a specific niche, we recommend that you submit a preliminary request so that we can confirm whether we can fulfill the order.

Is it possible to incorporate my branding into a presentation redesign?

Yes, of course. Simply mention it in the instructions and provide related materials. It can be a link to the website, brand book, previously made slides, or a logo with a note to create a presentation in similar complementary colors.

Can we sign my company's NDA, or do you have your own agreement?

Yes, we can sign your company’s NDA or provide our agreement for signing. The advantage of our NDA is that it takes less time to approve it with the legal department, and both parties can sign it within 1-2 business days.

Please note that our legal department does not work on Saturdays and Sundays, so if you have an urgent presentation that needs to be designed over the weekend, our presentation design agency can take on the work and sign the agreement after the order is completed.

To sign our NDA, we require the following information from you:

• Company name (e.g., Trust Limited)
• Country of registration (e.g., USA)
• Registration number (e.g., CS513192014)
• Address (e.g., 205 East 42nd Street, New York)
• Printed name (e.g., John Smith)
• Title (e.g., Marketing Manager)
• Email address (e.g., [email protected] )

Signing your company’s NDA can take 2-4 business days, depending on the terms of the agreement and the comments of our lawyers.

Can I pay in installments?

Certainly! You can pay for just a part of the slides, wait for us to complete them, and then order the rest from the same designer.

Can I get an invoice?

Yes, you can download the invoice from the customer area, which will become available once you place an order. Here’s where you can find it:

Alternatively, you can contact our support team , and they’ll email it to you.

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As an owner of a business idea, project, or service, you put a lot of time and dedication into every detail. Planning, analyzing the market, bringing a team of experts together – that’s always a tough challenge even for a seasoned pro.

So, by the time you have to pitch your huge project to investors or your target audience, you might already be quite exhausted and deeply buried in details. Recruit presentation design service to bring a fresh perspective and highlight the essentials in your custom slideshow.

Who will do my presentation content and design?

SlidePeak design services is a professional team with extensive experience in the market. We work as your partners, striving to boost your performance and provide you with the best visual representation of any project.

Who will be my copywriter? Our copywriters are experienced in producing short, on-point texts for any industry, topic, or project. They are here to make your speech memorable, well-argued, and convincing. Provide us with anything you've got – an old presentation, pieces of material, or just an inspiring idea – and they will help with crafting a whole story behind your project.

Who will be my designer? Our designers are well-trained experts in their field, able to create the best visuals of any complexity, impress your audience and make your presentation 100% engaging. They can integrate your corporate branding and your organization’s philosophy into the PPT slides, so it will be no different from in-house production. Also, if you are not sure what design style you are looking for, they can suggest options and help you choose the right style that meets your specific design needs.

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20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Published: January 17, 2024

When it comes to PowerPoint presentation design, there's no shortage of avenues you can take.

While all that choice — colors, formats, visuals, fonts — can feel liberating, it‘s important that you’re careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some of my favorite PowerPoint tips and templates to help you nail your next presentation.

Table of Contents

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

Powerpoint design ideas, best powerpoint presentation slides, good examples of powerpoint presentation design.

In my opinion, a great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that doesn't detract from it.

Here are some of the elements I like to keep in mind when I’m building my own.

1. Minimal Animations and Transitions

Believe it or not, animations and transitions can take away from your PowerPoint presentation. Why? Well, they distract from the content you worked so hard on.

A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. I suggest using them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image.

2. Cohesive Color Palette

I like to refresh my memory on color theory when creating a new PowerPoint presentation.

A cohesive color palette uses complementary and analogous colors to draw the audience’s attention and help emphasize certain aspects at the right time.

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It‘s impossible for me to tell you the specific design ideas you should go after in your next PowerPoint, because, well, I don’t know what the goal of your presentation is.

Luckily, new versions of PowerPoint actually suggest ideas for you based on the content you're presenting. This can help you keep up with the latest trends in presentation design .

PowerPoint is filled with interesting boilerplate designs you can start with. To find these suggestions, open PowerPoint and click the “Design” tab in your top navigation bar. Then, on the far right side, you'll see the following choices:

Badge (Theme)

I’m particularly fond of this PowerPoint design style.

By using lines and contrasting elements — like a burst, as shown below — you add depth to your slides. This can help your content capture and hold your audience's attention more easily.

This simplistic presentation example employs several different colors and font weights, but instead of coming off as disconnected, the varied colors work with one another to create contrast and call out specific concepts.

What I like: The big, bold numbers help set the reader's expectations, as they clearly signify how far along the viewer is in the list of tips.

10. “Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling,” Gavin McMahon

This presentation by Gavin McMahon features color in all the right places. While each of the background images boasts a bright, spotlight-like design, all the characters are intentionally blacked out.

What I like: This helps keep the focus on the tips, while still incorporating visuals. Not to mention, it's still easy for me to identify each character without the details. (I found you on slide eight, Nemo.)

11. “Facebook Engagement and Activity Report,” We Are Social

Here's another great example of data visualization in the wild.

What I like: Rather than displaying numbers and statistics straight up, this presentation calls upon interesting, colorful graphs, and charts to present the information in a way that just makes sense.

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

This wouldn‘t be a true Gary Vaynerchuk presentation if it wasn’t a little loud, am I right?

What I like: Aside from the fact that I love the eye-catching, bright yellow background, Vaynerchuk does a great job of incorporating screenshots on each slide to create a visual tutorial that coincides with the tips. He also does a great job including a visual table of contents that shows your progress as you go .

13. “20 Tweetable Quotes to Inspire Marketing & Design Creative Genius,” IMPACT Branding & Design

We‘ve all seen our fair share of quote-chronicling presentations but that isn’t to say they were all done well. Often the background images are poor quality, the text is too small, or there isn't enough contrast.

Well, this professional presentation from IMPACT Branding & Design suffers from none of said challenges.

What I like: The colorful filters over each background image create just enough contrast for the quotes to stand out.

14. “The Great State of Design,” Stacy Kvernmo

This presentation offers up a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

What I like: The contrasting colors create visual interest and “pop,” and the comic images (slides 6 through 12) are used to make the information seem less buttoned-up and overwhelming.

15. “Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines,” Ethos3

Not going to lie, it was the title that convinced me to click through to this presentation but the awesome design kept me there once I arrived.

What I like: This simple design adheres to a consistent color pattern and leverages bullet points and varied fonts to break up the text nicely.

16. “Digital Transformation in 50 Soundbites,” Julie Dodd

This design highlights a great alternative to the “text-over-image” display we've grown used to seeing.

What I like: By leveraging a split-screen approach to each presentation slide, Julie Dodd was able to serve up a clean, legible quote without sacrificing the power of a strong visual.

17. “Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint,” Slide Comet

When you‘re creating a PowerPoint about how everyone’s PowerPoints stink, yours had better be terrific. The one above, based on the ebook by Seth Godin, keeps it simple without boring its audience.

What I like: Its clever combinations of fonts, together with consistent color across each slide, ensure you're neither overwhelmed nor unengaged.

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

Simple, clever doodles tell the story of Google in a fun and creative way. This presentation reads almost like a storybook, making it easy to move from one slide to the next.

What I like: This uncluttered approach provides viewers with an easy-to-understand explanation of a complicated topic.

19. “What Really Differentiates the Best Content Marketers From The Rest,” Ross Simmonds

Let‘s be honest: These graphics are hard not to love. I especially appreciate the author’s cartoonified self-portrait that closes out the presentation. Well played, Ross Simmonds.

What I like: Rather than employing the same old stock photos, this unique design serves as a refreshing way to present information that's both valuable and fun.

20. “Be A Great Product Leader,” Adam Nash

This presentation by Adam Nash immediately draws attention by putting the company's logo first — a great move if your company is well known.

What I like: He uses popular images, such as ones of Megatron and Pinocchio, to drive his points home. In the same way, you can take advantage of popular images and media to keep your audience engaged.

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

Get inspired by my ideas above to create a presentation that engages your audience, builds upon your point, and helps you generate leads for your brand.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Best Professional PowerPoint Examples For Presentations [Premium Templates]

Professional presentations have proven to be the backbone of the corporate industry. With a variety of templates available on the internet, it gets overwhelming and confusing to select one. To make your job easier, we have selected the 10 best professional PowerPoint templates to help you create an impactful presentation.

It’s crucial for professionals to deliver outstanding and engaging presentations that convey essential information to their teams and stakeholders. Professional PowerPoint presentations are the backbone of corporate presentations and meetings. Hence, it would help if you considered exploring the best professional PowerPoint examples to deliver amazing presentations. 

They improve the readability of your presentation, improve communication, accelerate decision-making, and boost your self-confidence. This blog will discuss the best professional presentation examples to get started.

What Is A Professional PowerPoint Presentation?

A professional presentation is a brief, well-organized tool for conveying information, ideas, or concepts in a clear, effective, and visually appealing manner. These professional templates can be used to deliver information in a formal setting, including business , marketing , and sales meetings, seminars, conferences, etc.

All the best professional PowerPoint examples have consistent formatting, including the theme, font, and layout. It shows professionalism. All the information is presented in a concise manner and follows a logical structure and flow of information. They have high visual appeal as multiple graphical elements are used, like images, charts, graphs, etc.

Let us understand why you should opt for the best professional presentation examples.

Importance Of Professional PowerPoint Examples

What makes professional presentations so significant in business settings is their ability to turn complex information into crisp, simple, and artistically pleasing slides that leave a long-lasting impact on your audience. Before jumping onto the best professional slideshow examples, let’s understand their importance: 

• Professional presentations maintain consistency with your brand identity and integrate them into your slides. 
• It emphasizes professionalism with its ideal yet impactful use of graphical elements, such as icons, infographics , images, and symbols. 
• It opens the door for easy communication with your audience by making things more interactive.  
• It helps you simplify complex facts, figures, and information and present them in an engaging manner that would otherwise become exhausting. 
• It engages, motivates, and inspires your peers through artistic charts, graphs, or creative animation . 
• A professional presentation also helps you cover the gaps and differences within and between the in-house departments, fostering new connections and maintaining professionalism. 

The above reasons make it a no-brainer to use the best professional PowerPoint examples. The following section will provide you with professional presentation examples.

10 Best Professional PowerPoint Examples 

Professional PowerPoint presentations have proven effective in almost every meeting in business, marketing, HR , finance , or sales. Here are our ten best professional PowerPoint presentation examples:

• Detailed 30-60-90 Day Plan
• Customer Journey

Business Review Dashboard

Company timeline.

• 4-Step Ladder Diagram
• Strategic Initiatives Evaluation

Let’s look deep into each of these professional presentation examples.

Detailed 30-60-90-Day Plan

• The first one of our PowerPoint presentations examples is the 30-60-90 day plan. This timetable covers the first 90 days of work and is strategically divided into 30-day intervals. For each 30 days, managers can lay out their tasks and set realistic goals.
• The 30-60-90 day Plan templates serve as a compass, guiding managers to set the course for their team or department. By presenting strategic plans and objectives for the first 90 days, managers can ensure alignment with the broader organizational goals.

READ MORE: The Ultimate Guide On 30-60-90-Day Plan For Managers

Animated Executive Summary

• This is one of the best professional PowerPoint examples and is designed with a clean and polished look to effectively simplify complicated information and concepts into small pieces, which makes it one of the best professional PPT examples to be utilized in meetings.
• Pre-designed slides in the template provide an organized framework for showcasing executive summary including corporate objectives, financial summaries, and project updates.
• This adaptable template can be utilized in various business settings, such as showcasing milestones, initiatives, trends, reports, or proposals.

Customer Journey Professional PowerPoint Example

• This template helps businesses better comprehend the various stages and touchpoints that customers experience while interacting with their brand.
• Businesses can use it to pinpoint development opportunities and establish a comprehensive grasp of the customer journey .
• Marketing, sales, customer support, and product development teams can use it. It is a helpful tool for companies of all sizes and sectors who want to understand and enhance the customer experience.

• The Business Review Dashboard is one of the best professional powerpoint examples which offers a comprehensive dashboard layout, making it a useful tool for professionals to present and analyze corporate data. 
• With the help of the business review templates, users can design professional presentations that clearly express complex business facts, such as revenue model, gross profit, customer satisfaction, sales, etc., on a quarterly basis .
• It can be used by business professionals, managers, executives, product developers, sales professionals, and analysts to make judgments and carry out data analysis, financial reporting, and performance evaluations.

• This is another professional slideshow example that allows professionals to present a thorough summary of the case study procedure, including the client’s business needs, the strategies used, project milestones, and the outcomes. 
• You can use Case Study PowerPoint templates to highlight successes and accomplishments. 
• They can also be used for training and internal communication, enabling team members to learn from previous successful projects and apply best practices to upcoming ones.

BONUS: Check out our Professional PowerPoint Templates Collection

• This company time is one of the most used professional PowerPoint examples and tracks the annual progress of the company. It offers a crystal-clear and eye-catching timeline to compile and visualize the evolution of any project or the business itself. 
• This template includes a yearly schedule that can be modified so that you can monitor the development of your business, making it one of the best professional presentation templates. 
• Timeline PowerPoint templates can be used by HR, sales, and marketing professionals to demonstrate the company’s timeline.

• Another good PowerPoint presentations examples consists of the business strategy. This template layout is created to support effective strategic plans and alignment among teams and stakeholders, making it an excellent tool for organizations.
• Strategy PowerPoint templates summarize the organization’s purpose, vision, and values.
• It can be used in various circumstances when users need to convey information on a business plan.
• You can use this in meetings to formulate corporate strategy, review, pitch, conduct performance management sessions, or conduct marketing campaigns.

• These professional slides examples cover the GROW Coaching model, which has four main heads: Goal, Reality, Options, and Will. 
• This template helps users set goals, evaluate their existing reality, consider options for achieving those goals, and strengthen their will to act.
• What makes it one of the best professional PowerPoint examples for presentations is that it can be used by coaches, mentors, educators, and professionals from various fields to organize coaching sessions, career development workshops, goal-setting activities, and performance improvement efforts.

Animated 4-Step Ladder Diagram

• Each step of the ladder corresponds to a crucial aspect of business growth: technology enhancement, growth hacking, cost decrease, and revenue increase. 
• It allows presenters to communicate the sequential nature of these steps and their significance in achieving business growth.
• Business professionals and managers can incorporate this one of the top professional PowerPoint examples into strategic planning meetings, growth strategy discussions, and performance reviews.

Animated Strategic Initiatives Evaluation Template

• The Strategic Initiatives Evaluation PowerPoint Template gives a well-organized framework for reviewing and assessing strategic initiatives . 
• It allows companies to effectively communicate essential data, performance indicators, and qualitative judgments.
• It is beneficial for post-implementation analysis, assessments, performance reviews, and strategy reviews.

We discussed the best professional PowerPoint ideas with examples.

How To Use Professional Powerpoint Examples Templates From Slideuplift?

SlideUpLift provides the best professional PowerPoint templates for presentations and is also compatible with Google Slides. Whether you’re a business professional aiming to captivate your audience or an individual striving to create a compelling narrative, our collection of the best professional PowerPoint templates will save you time and elevate the quality of your presentations. 

Follow the below steps to create outstanding professional presentations using Slideuplift’s templates:

• At SlideUpLift.com , you’ll find a vast array of presentation templates to suit your needs. Whether it’s a company timeline or a sales pitch, we’ve got you covered. Simply type in your desired template in the search bar on our homepage.
• You will see multiple templates for the theme you searched about.
• Now, select a template that fits your requirements and vision.
• Download the template for PowerPoint or Google Slides . You will have the option to choose from two aspect ratios- 4*3 and 16*9.
• Once you’ve downloaded your chosen template, it’s time to make it your own. Add your brand colors, logo, and images to align them perfectly with your brand identity. With SlideUpLift, customization is a breeze. Review your final changes and save the presentation for business meetings and presentations.

These professional PowerPoint examples have been put together to help you make your presentation unique in every sense. We offer professional google slides examples also. You can explore more such templates from our vast library of Professional templates for PowerPoint and Google Slides from our website. 

ALSO READ: Best Websites for PowerPoint Templates

Presentation Tips For Professional PowerPoint Examples

These presentation tips will help you create engaging professional presentations that effectively communicate your message:

• Start with a clear purpose and statement.
• Add a self-introduction slide to let your audience know you are qualified and confident. 
• Keep it simple and minimalistic when it comes to adding visuals.
• Plan the sequence of your slides to create a coherent flow.
• Make smooth transitions between slides to maintain the presentation’s fluidity.
• Visualize important metrics that support the argument of your financial presentation.
• Whenever possible, use examples and analogies with the help of your slides to convey complex information. 

For individuals and corporations, professional PowerPoint presentations can greatly improve the impact and efficiency of presentations. We discussed the best professional PowerPoint examples that make your presentation captivating and more straightforward by providing visually appealing designs, organized frameworks, and customizable features.

SlideUpLift provides the best professional PowerPoint templates and can take your presentations to a whole new level.

How can Professional PowerPoint Templates benefit my presentations?

Professional PowerPoint templates are advantageous for your presentations because they:

• Transform your raw data to simple yet visually-pleasing slides.
• Make use of icons, images, symbols, infographic elements to captivate your audience.  
• Offer structured frameworks that increase your information’s impact. 

Who can use Professional PowerPoint Examples?

Our best professional presentation templates can be used by professionals across industries including: 

• Entrepreneurs
• Marketing experts
• Sales specialists
• Financial Analysts
• Accountants
• Project Managers

Are these templates compatible with Google Slides too?

Yes, all our professional templates are compatible with both PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Do the best professional PPT examples include animations and transitions?

Yes, most of these templates come with pre-designed animations and transitions to add a dynamic touch to your presentations.

Do I require design knowledge to effectively use the professional PowerPoint templates?

No, these templates can be efficiently altered and used without the need for advanced design skills.

Table Of Content

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Milestone PowerPoint Template

Project Status Report PowerPoint Template

Business Proposal Summary Template

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10 Bad PowerPoint Slides Examples to Avoid

10 Best Animated PowerPoint Templates

10 Best Business PowerPoint Templates for Presentations

10 Best Business Presentation Topics to Captivate Your Audience

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Mission and Vision PowerPoint Template

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What the New Overtime Rule Means for Workers

One of the basic principles of the American workplace is that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. Simply put, every worker’s time has value. A cornerstone of that promise is the  Fair Labor Standards Act ’s (FLSA) requirement that when most workers work more than 40 hours in a week, they get paid more. The  Department of Labor ’s new overtime regulation is restoring and extending this promise for millions more lower-paid salaried workers in the U.S.

Overtime protections have been a critical part of the FLSA since 1938 and were established to protect workers from exploitation and to benefit workers, their families and our communities. Strong overtime protections help build America’s middle class and ensure that workers are not overworked and underpaid.

Some workers are specifically exempt from the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime protections, including bona fide executive, administrative or professional employees. This exemption, typically referred to as the “EAP” exemption, applies when: 

1. An employee is paid a salary,  

2. The salary is not less than a minimum salary threshold amount, and 

3. The employee primarily performs executive, administrative or professional duties.

While the department increased the minimum salary required for the EAP exemption from overtime pay every 5 to 9 years between 1938 and 1975, long periods between increases to the salary requirement after 1975 have caused an erosion of the real value of the salary threshold, lessening its effectiveness in helping to identify exempt EAP employees.

The department’s new overtime rule was developed based on almost 30 listening sessions across the country and the final rule was issued after reviewing over 33,000 written comments. We heard from a wide variety of members of the public who shared valuable insights to help us develop this Administration’s overtime rule, including from workers who told us: “I would love the opportunity to...be compensated for time worked beyond 40 hours, or alternately be given a raise,” and “I make around $40,000 a year and most week[s] work well over 40 hours (likely in the 45-50 range). This rule change would benefit me greatly and ensure that my time is paid for!” and “Please, I would love to be paid for the extra hours I work!”

The department’s final rule, which will go into effect on July 1, 2024, will increase the standard salary level that helps define and delimit which salaried workers are entitled to overtime pay protections under the FLSA. 

Starting July 1, most salaried workers who earn less than $844 per week will become eligible for overtime pay under the final rule. And on Jan. 1, 2025, most salaried workers who make less than $1,128 per week will become eligible for overtime pay. As these changes occur, job duties will continue to determine overtime exemption status for most salaried employees.

The rule will also increase the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (who are not entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA if certain requirements are met) from $107,432 per year to $132,964 per year on July 1, 2024, and then set it equal to $151,164 per year on Jan. 1, 2025.

Starting July 1, 2027, these earnings thresholds will be updated every three years so they keep pace with changes in worker salaries, ensuring that employers can adapt more easily because they’ll know when salary updates will happen and how they’ll be calculated.

The final rule will restore and extend the right to overtime pay to many salaried workers, including workers who historically were entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA because of their lower pay or the type of work they performed. 

We urge workers and employers to visit  our website to learn more about the final rule.

Jessica Looman is the administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Follow the Wage and Hour Division on Twitter at  @WHD_DOL  and  LinkedIn .  Editor's note: This blog was edited to correct a typo (changing "administrator" to "administrative.")

• Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
• Fair Labor Standards Act
• overtime rule

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Commencement

Spring Spotlight

Spring Spotlight showcases current research in the Conservation Sciences department and raises funds for the Conservation Sciences Graduate Student Travel Grant. The grant exists to help students attend and present their research at conferences and professional meetings. This year's Spring Spotlight features a student poster presentation, a social hour for guests to pick the brains of researchers and a silent auction.

SAVE THE DATE! - Thursday, May 2nd from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Schedule of Events

4:00 to 5:00 PM: Social hour, silent auction, student posters - Larson Gallery, St. Paul Student Center

5:00 to 5:30 PM: Student and alumni awards presentation - Theater, St. Paul Student Center

5:30 to 6:30 PM: Distinguished Faculty lecture by Dr. Susan Galatowitsch, Professor, FWCB: Restoring Plant Communities of Freshwater Wetlands

Additional event details can be found on the official Spring Spotlight webpage .

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Create and add an email signature in Outlook

In Outlook, you can create one or more personalized signatures for your email messages. Your signature can include text, links, pictures, and images (such as your handwritten signature or a logo).

Note:  If the steps under this New Outlook tab don't work, you may not be using new Outlook for Windows yet. Select Classic Outlook  and follow those steps instead.

Create and add an email signature

On the View tab, select   View Settings . 

Select Accounts > Signatures .

Select    New signature , then give it a distinct name.

In the editing box below the new name, type your signature, then format it with the font, color, and styles to get the appearance you want.

Select Save when you're done.

With your new signature selected from the list above the editing box, go to  Select default signatures and choose whether to apply the signature to new messages and to replies and forwards.

Select Save again.

Note:  If you have a Microsoft account, and you use Outlook and Outlook on the web or Outlook on the web for business, you need to create a signature in both products.

Create your signature and choose when Outlook adds a signature to your messages

If you want to watch how it's done, you can go directly to  the video below .

Open a new email message.

Under Select signature to edit , choose New , and in the New Signature dialog box, type a name for the signature.

Under Edit signature , compose your signature. You can change fonts, font colors, and sizes, as well as text alignment. If you want to create a more robust signature with bullets, tables, or borders, use Word to create and format your signature text, then copy and paste it into the Edit signature box. You can also use a pre-designed template  to create your signature. Download the templates in Word, customize with your personal information, and then copy and paste into the Edit signature box. 

You can add links and images to your email signature, change fonts and colors, and justify the text using the mini formatting bar under Edit signature .

You can also add social media icons and links in your signature or customize one of our pre-designed temlates. For more information, see Create a signature from a template .

To add images to your signature, see Add a logo or image to your signature .

Under Choose default signature , set the following options. 

In the E-mail account drop-down box, choose an email account to associate with the signature. You can have different signatures for each email account.

You can have a signature automatically added to all new messages. Go to in the New messages drop-down box and select one of your signatures. If you don't want to automatically add a signature to new messages, choose (none). This option does not add a signature to any messages you reply to or forward. 

You can select to have your signature automatically appear in reply and forward messages. In the  Replies/forwards drop-down, select one of your signatures. Otherwise, accept the default option of (none). 

Choose OK to save your new signature and return to your message. Outlook doesn't add your new signature to the message you opened in Step 1, even if you chose to apply the signature to all new messages. You'll have to add the signature manually to this one message. All future messages will have the signature added automatically. To add the signature manually, select Signature from the Message menu and then pick the signature you just created.

Add a logo or image to your signature

If you have a company logo or an image to add to your signature, use the following steps.

Open a new message and then select Signature > Signatures .

In the Select signature to edit box, choose the signature you want to add a logo or image to.

To resize your image, right-click the image, then choose Picture . Select the Size tab and use the options to resize your image. To keep the image proportions, make sure to keep the Lock aspect ratio checkbox checked.

When you're done, select OK , then select OK again to save the changes to your signature.

Insert a signature manually

If you don't choose to insert a signature for all new messages or replies and forwards, you can still insert a signature manually.

In your email message, on the Message tab, select Signature .

Choose your signature from the fly-out menu that appears. If you have more than one signature, you can select any of the signatures you've created.

See how it's done

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Note:  Outlook on the web is the web version of Outlook for business users with a work or school account.

Automatically add a signature to a message

You can create an email signature that you can add automatically to all outgoing messages or add manually to specific ones.

Select Settings   at the top of the page.

Select Mail >  Compose and reply .

Under Email signature , type your signature and use the available formatting options to change its appearance.

Select the default signature for new messages and replies.

Manually add your signature to a new message

If you've created a signature but didn't choose to automatically add it to all outgoing messages, you can add it later when you write an email message.

In a new message or reply, type your message.

If you created multiple signatures, choose the signature you want to use for your new message or reply.

When your email message is ready, choose Send .

Note:  Outlook.com is the web version of Outlook for users signing in with a personal Microsoft account such as an Outlook.com or Hotmail.com account.

Related articles

Create and add an email signature in Outlook for Mac

Create an email signature from a template

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