Delivering a powerful presentation is a critical skill that all employees need today, not just leaders and managers. PowerPoint has become a ubiquitous communication tool in the corporate world. Hours and hours are spent trying to create the ‘perfect deck’ (which I believe is impossible). Changes and tweaks are made until well past the ‘last minute’. Reams of paper are wasted printing copies for everyone in the room.

As a professional speaker, I am continually learning my craft. How to weave humour into my talks. How to engage an audience with eye-catching and interactive visuals done by tools like Google templates slides in building interest, whether it’s ten people or 700 IT leaders. It’s an ongoing journey that I love and is critical to my business success. I invest time and effort into every presentation and audience, so I am sought out to speak at corporate and industry events. It’s an ongoing journey that I love and is critical to my business success. I invest time and effort into every presentation and audience, so I am sought out to speak at corporate and industry events.

Working with speakers

As a result of the hundreds of speeches I have delivered, I am often asked to work with leaders looking to improve their platform skills. I’ve been in the audience for several presentations and conference events, which is a double-edged sword. I ALWAYS learn something from the presenter’s content and often from their strengths and mistakes.

In the presentations I attended, some of the presenters excelled, while others made easily avoidable mistakes that negatively impacted the quality of their presentations. I have learned (and am still learning as I hone my skills) that public speaking is a skill like any other. Pay attention, listen to feedback and PRACTICE, and avoid ruining your next powerful presentation. Here, I set out ten ways to create the perfect PowerPoint presentation.

10 Cutting-Edge Ways to Create the Perfect Powerful Presentation

Delivering powerful presentations is an essential skill in the modern professional world. Whether you pitch an idea, lead a team, or share research, your ability to captivate and influence your audience can make all the difference. Here are ten ways to create the perfect, powerful presentation. Each method elevates your delivery, ensuring your message resonates and leaves a lasting impact.

1. Leverage Interactive Technology

Incorporating interactive technology into your presentation can significantly enhance engagement. Tools like audience response systems, live polls, and interactive whiteboards allow real-time feedback and participation. This not only keeps your audience involved but also provides you with instant insights into their understanding and opinions. For example, tools like Mentimeter or Slido let you pose questions and display the results instantly, making your presentation dynamic and responsive. The key to delivering powerful presentations is making your audience feel like active participants, not passive listeners.

2. Tell a Story with Your Data

Data is crucial in many presentations, but numbers alone can be dry and uninspiring. The most powerful presentations transform data into a narrative that’s easy to understand and remember. Use storytelling techniques to contextualize your data, showing its relevance and impact. For instance, rather than just presenting sales figures, you could tell the story of a customer’s journey and how those numbers reflect their experience. This approach helps your audience connect emotionally with the data, making it more memorable and impactful.

3. Utilize High-Quality Visuals

The use of high-quality visuals can make or break your presentation. Powerful presentations rely on visuals that are aesthetically pleasing and support and clarify your message. Invest time in choosing or creating clear, relevant, and professional images, infographics, and charts. Tools like Canva and Adobe Spark can help you design appealing visuals. Remember, visuals should enhance your message, not distract from it. Aim for a balance where your slides complement your verbal delivery, leading to a more cohesive and compelling presentation.

4. Incorporate Video and Animation

Video and animation are incredibly effective tools in modern presentations. They can be used to illustrate complex concepts, provide real-world examples, or add a layer of professionalism to your slides. Short, impactful videos or animations can break up the monotony of a slide-heavy presentation and re-engage an audience. Consider how multimedia elements can reinforce your message when learning to deliver powerful presentations. Keep videos concise and directly relevant to your content to ensure they enhance rather than overshadow your key points.

5. Master the Art of Simplicity

One of the most critical lessons in delivering powerful presentations is the art of simplicity. Overloading your slides with text, data, or graphics can overwhelm your audience and dilute your message. Aim for clean, uncluttered slides that highlight the essential information. Use bullet points sparingly, and limit each slide to one main idea. This approach makes your content more accessible and digestible and forces you to focus on what’s truly important. As the saying goes, “less is more,” and this is particularly true when creating presentations that resonate.

6. Engage with Your Audience Directly

Engagement is crucial when delivering powerful presentations. Direct interaction with your audience through questions, eye contact, or inviting participation can significantly boost your presentation’s effectiveness. This keeps your audience attentive and creates a dialogue rather than a monologue. Start by asking open-ended questions or encouraging feedback during critical moments. This approach fosters a connection with your audience, making them feel valued and involved, which is essential for delivering powerful presentations.

7. Practice Dynamic Body Language

Your body language is a powerful tool in delivering impactful presentations. How you stand, move, and use gestures can significantly influence how your message is received. Practice using open, confident postures, and make sure your gestures are purposeful and align with your spoken words. Avoid crossing your arms or pacing, as these can signal discomfort or disinterest. Instead, maintain eye contact, use your hands to emphasize points, and move around the stage to engage different sections of the audience. Mastering dynamic body language will help you convey confidence and authority, which are essential in delivering powerful presentations.

8. Craft a Compelling Opening

The opening of your presentation sets the tone for everything that follows. A powerful opening grabs attention, piques curiosity, and establishes a connection with your audience. Whether you start with a startling statistic, a provocative question, or a compelling story, your goal is to engage your listeners immediately. This sets the stage for the rest of your presentation and helps ensure your audience is invested from the beginning. Learning how to deliver powerful presentations starts with mastering the art of the opening, as it’s your first and best chance to make a strong impression.

9. Use the Power of Pause

Silence can be as powerful as words in a presentation. Strategic pauses allow your audience time to absorb information, reflect on what’s been said, and anticipate what’s coming next. It also lets you collect your thoughts and emphasize key points. When you learn how to deliver powerful presentations, understanding the rhythm and timing of pauses is crucial. Don’t rush through your material; instead, use pauses to punctuate your points, create suspense, and maintain control of the flow of information.

10. End with Impact

Your conclusion is your final opportunity to leave a lasting impression, so it needs to be as powerful as your opening. Summarize your key points succinctly, reinforce your core message, and end with a call to action or a thought-provoking statement. Consider revisiting the story or theme you introduced at the beginning to create a sense of closure. The goal is to leave your audience with something memorable, whether a new idea, a challenge to think differently, or a clear next step. Understanding how to deliver powerful presentations means recognizing the importance of a robust and impactful conclusion that resonates long after the presentation ends.

By integrating these cutting-edge strategies, you’ll be well on your way to mastering the art of delivering powerful presentations. Each technique, from leveraging technology to mastering the art of body language, is designed to enhance your delivery and ensure your message resonates with your audience.

If you are uncertain what to do (or what NOT to do), here are five actions to avoid to ensure you deliver a powerful presentation:

1. Steady Eddy

One of the presenters I listened to last week delivered their presentation consistently and steadily.   Unfortunately, without pausing to allow their points to land, it became a uniform torrent of information that became increasingly hard to follow. As it went on, the speed of delivery increased like a train leaving the station until it blurred into one long monotone.

As a powerful presenter, you must remember that inhaling is OK regarding public speaking. You are allowed to breathe. Please pause and count to three as you move between slides, key points or when you ask a question. That way, your audience has time to hear your words, process them, and decide to respond.

2. Too Quiet

One event was in a lovely large room. There was plenty of light and space, but unfortunately, not many sounds. Most speakers used their ‘inside voice’ and did not attempt to project their words. In one case, a speaker stood up and uttered the immortal words.

“It’s OK I speak loud enough. I don’t need a microphone.”

As a powerful presenter, you must remember that while you might not think you need a microphone, your audience does. If a microphone is available, use it to make it easier for us to hear you so we don’t have to strain.

If you are unfortunate enough not to have a microphone, remember that as the size of the group and room increases, you have to increase your volume and use your ‘presenting and projecting voice’. Consider standing in the middle of your audience (unorthodox to some) rather than the traditional ‘front of the room’. It will help.

3. Reading the script

I don’t care how good your hairstyle is, I don’t want to see the back of your head, and if you are a quiet speaker (who isn’t using a microphone) when you turn to face your slides to read them we definitely can’t hear you.

If we can read the words, then we don’t need you. Your slides should be a support mechanism. The same goes for your script; by the time you stand up to present, you shouldn’t need to read it.

As a powerful presenter, you must practice and learn your presentation! While I never speak without having my script nearby, it’s there in case my mind goes blank (and it does occasionally). I practice and make sure I KNOW my presentation before I stand up in front of my audience. If you are reading it, you may email it to me since I also learned to read it in primary school.

4. Boring Slides

It would appear that ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is a real issue. Just because you can fit 15 bullet points onto a slide and it automatically adjusts to micro-font doesn’t mean you SHOULD! Stop it! Your clue that your slides need work is when you say something like

“You probably can’t read this, let me talk you through it.”

Nor should you go with the 5-bullets/5-word approach throughout – that, too, is boring.

As a powerful presenter, you must find a happy medium between words and images that also helps communicate your message. Remember—use visuals judiciously, not viciously. PowerPoint is not your friend.

5. Winging It

The idea that presenters can wing it and everything will be OK seems to be particularly endemic when leaders present to their colleagues. I would suggest that we practice even more when explaining to people we know, and in any case, we should all practice every time we present to a new audience.

As a powerful presenter, you must practice out loud. Practice doesn’t mean thinking about what you are going to say; it means standing up and saying it. Trust me, what you think and what you hear can be two very different things! Better still, involve a friend to be your trial audience and give you feedback. You won’t regret it.

Don’t inflict death by PowerPoint on your colleagues. Avoid bad habits and apply these five steps, and I promise the quality of your communications will go up. You will produce a powerful presentation.

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

Morag Barrett helps leaders achieve outstanding results through the power of their professional relationships. She is an in-demand keynote speaker, executive coach, leadership expert, and bestselling author of three books: Cultivate: The Power of  Winning Relationships, The Future-Proof Workplace, and You, Me, We: Why we all need a friend at work (and how to show up as one!). 

Morag excels at helping leaders and organizations see the gaps in their development and discover new ways to move past them. A pragmatic ideator, she finds unique solutions to problems (usually through the power of connection). Her greatest joy lies in giving leaders the tools, encouragement, and resources they need to become the best authentic versions of themselves they can be. 

She also…

  • Has helped more than 15,000 leaders from 20 countries on 4 continents improve the effectiveness of their leaders and teams.
  • Is the proud mother of three 6ft tall sons who can thoroughly beat her in basketball, but don’t stand a chance in Scrabble.
  • Has been featured by Entrepreneur.com, Forbes, and The American Management Association among others.
  • Spent three weeks at sea with a group of Estonian sailors.
  • Prefers gin to scotch, despite having a Scottish name (it means “great” …and she is!).
  • Is a member of the 100 Coaches organization formed by Marshall Goldsmith.
  • Has more than 50 unicorn themed items at home (none of which she has bought for herself!)
skyeteam.com