how to make a great keynote presentation

Guide to Planning, Writing, and Delivering a Killer Keynote Speech

by Janice Tomich, Public Speaking Coach

• Presentation Planning & Public Speaking Skills

Being invited to deliver a keynote address is a great honor.

It’s exhilarating. A compliment to your expertise.

I’m a public speaking coach . A client of mine recently was asked to deliver the keynote address at a large women’s tech event. She was new to public speaking. This was her first high-stakes conference opportunity.

She’s a seasoned leader in an industry with few female colleagues. Although she loves her job, at times her career has been rough. The conference organizers asked her to share her perspective with young women new to the field to help them navigate the inevitable difficulties of being a woman in tech—and also give them advice on how to enjoy the ride.

Her excitement and nervousness were palpable. That’s how it feels when you’re asked to give the keynote.

Being asked means that others value your ideas, thoughts, and vision. You know it’s a big opportunity. A keynote speech provides an opportunity to inspire others like no other.

But if you’ve been asked to share what you’ve experienced throughout your career (or even lifetime) it can be a daunting ask.

With the honor of delivering a keynote comes the responsibility to deliver an address that will inspire your audience to take action.

Table of Contents

What Is a Keynote Speech?

A keynote speech stands above other public speaking opportunities because event organizers make it the highlight of the agenda. Large events often leverage the keynote speaker to attract attendees.

The theme of a keynote is usually set by the event’s theme.

For multi-day events like conferences the keynote is often (but not always) scheduled on the last day. Scheduling the keynote for the end of the event builds excitement and anticipation. Other times the keynote is scheduled near the beginning of an event, and in this case the role of the keynote speaker is to set the tone. Knowing when you’ll be speaking (at the beginning or at the end of the event) impacts the type of keynote speech you should create.

A keynote speaker is usually given a substantial amount of time to speak, often 45 to 60 minutes over dinner. Unlike a shorter presentation, keynote addresses give you a brilliant opportunity to go deep. TO show the breadth of your expertise. To invite your audience along through the ups and downs, ins and outs of a storyline. Your speech can be complex and include unanticipated twists and turns (while of course staying on track with your core message.)

If you’re lost and unsure about how to make your presentation compelling, I can help.

How Long Should A Keynote Be?

There are only a few hard and fast rules about the length of a keynote speech:

• The length of the speech is ultimately dictated by the amount of speaking time allocated by the event organizer.
• The length of the speech should be however long it takes you to clearly and concisely deliver a speech that inspires your audience.

Essentially, just enough time and not too much. 

P ro Tip: The amount of time allocated by the organizers is not always set in stone, especially in the early days of organizing an event. Keep the line of communication open with your organizer. The time frame might be open to adjustment or negotiation.

What Makes a Keynote Speech Compelling and Memorable?

An engaging, inspiring keynote presentation encourages the audience to envision what they are capable of. The best keynote speeches don’t just inform—they compel the audience to take action.

Keep two things top of mind as you plan:

• Focus on one main message (your throughline).
• Put yourself in the hearts and minds of your audience. Think of this as a research project as much as an exercise in empathy. Take the time to learn about what your audience wants to know. Learn how they need to hear it.

Going back to my example, the key message of my client who keynoted at the tech conference was resilience .

How did this key message turn into a speech?

She told funny, heart-wrenching stories, including some stories which were excruciating for her at the time they happened. These stories showed her drive to succeed. She spoke candidly about the problems she had come up against in her career. Then she revealed how she solved these problems and the benefits that transpired. Throughout the whole speech, she tapped back into her key message— resilience.

How Much Time Should You Devote to Preparation?

More time than you think.

I have never had a client tell me, “I wish I had spent less time preparing my keynote.”

They’re always glad they invested a good amount of time. Feeling completely ready in the days leading up to the event is worth it.

Nancy Duarte, the author of Resonate , works with industry giants on their keynote speeches. Duarte recommends you spend 30 hours on content creation for a 1-hour speech. (This doesn’t include building the slide deck or practicing the speech).

Here’s my breakdown of the time it takes to be fully prepared to step on stage to deliver your keynote address:

• 30 hours to research your speech and develop the keynote content
• 30 hours to create your keynote slide deck
• 30 hours of practicing your delivery

90 hours likely seems like a lot of time, but that’s what it takes to create and develop an inspirational, career-boosting keynote.

Your first rough draft will be just that … rough. Keynote speech writing is never a one-and-done process. To really nail it you need to get feedback and let the speech, slide deck, and delivery evolve over time. The results are worth it.

How Much Lead Time Do You Need?

Keynotes are a rich opportunity to give an audience perspective into who you are and what you know.

You should allow for 3 months (and a minimum of 2 months) of lead time before you deliver your keynote.

However, life does not always go according to plan. You may not have a lot of time left to prepare. I offer a presentation coaching service called Crunch Time for when you’ve been asked on short notice (a speaker may have become ill) or you have been consumed with other projects and need support to deliver an engaging speech.

Planning a Keynote Speech: Who is your audience? What is your intention?

Your goal should be to take your body of work and experience and use that to resonate with your audience. Inspire them to action. Your words of wisdom will become part of their life experience and create a legacy which will stick with them for years.

“It’s all about the audience—not about you.” These are wise words I’ve never forgotten, delivered to us on the first day of class of my communication degree.

In my work supporting clients through presentation planning, I’m always checking in to ensure that the audience will be able to understand What’s In It For Them (WIIFT in marketing terms). Remembering to center on WIIFT is crucial. It’s the foundation for a successful keynote.

Your intention is important too—equally important, actually. Why are you giving the keynote? What do you want to have happen because of it? Knowing your own “why” and how it relates to the needs of your audience puts you on track to engage and inspire.

How To Write A Keynote Speech

1. establish your throughline.

After you have a good understanding of who your audience is and what your intention is in delivering your keynote it’s time to establish your throughline. Identify which theme or concept you want to speak about.

My client who was keynoting the tech conference planned to speak on resiliency, which is a broad topic. I encouraged her to dig deeper. Upon reflection, she realized that much of her success stemmed from her commitment to creating and building relationships.

She evolved the throughline. The theme of the keynote became developing resiliency through relationships .

2. Brainstorm with an open mind and big wall

Once you’ve decided on your throughline it’s time to find an open wall and a stack of post-it notes.

In freewriting-mode write down any and all ideas that come bubbling up that will support your theme. Take lots of breaks. I promise you’ll come back with fresh ideas each time.

3. Step back and group ideas into themes

Stand back once your wall is filled with ideas. Notice common themes. Place similar ideas into three groups.

What you see is three arguments or points of proof that support your throughline.

4. Pare down to the best ideas

Now sweep through and dispense of any of your ideas that strike you as weak or you don’t feel passionate about.

5. Order your ideas

Place the ideas that remain into a logical order, so that they flow from one idea to the next. That’s your outline. Transfer these concepts to a Google Doc or put pen to paper. You’ve got the bones of a good keynote speech already.

Don’t write out a script word-for-word. Instead, think about what you want to speak about for each of your points. Flesh them out, making notes about what you want to say.

You’ve invested a large amount of time creating the content. Every component of a keynote is important. So now let’s focus on how you open, close, and title your keynote.

How To Open A Keynote Speech

I suspect you’ve been to at least a few presentations where you felt bored by the speaker after just a few minutes.

Too many speakers begin with a status quo opening such as citing their CV or meticulously outlining what they “want to talk with you about.”

You can do better.

My client started her keynote off with a dose of humor rooted in her own personal experience. She talked about the inappropriate clothes she wore to an interview and the hilarious story of what she did to gain access to the building.

Here are a few more ideas to open your keynote speech:

• Start your speech by addressing the elephant in the room to address a negative bias your audience may be thinking. Perhaps you are quite young and your audience is older. You could begin by saying, “You are probably looking at me thinking she’s twelve years old and what could she know. And you’d be right…”
• Quote a startling statistic. Often keynotes focus on living out dreams. This statement will have your audience’s interest piqued, “The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year”.
• Begin a story that you can use to weave and thread your presentation together. You could begin by sharing a story of how a mentor helped. Throughout your presentation continue the story dropping the nuggets of wisdom of what your mentor said and how she helped.

It’s crucial that you grab your audience’s attention right from the start – that you hook them with your first words.

How To Close a Keynote Speech

Finish your keynote with clarity and power. I’ve listened to too many speeches and keynotes where the ending was weak. They didn’t live up to the energy of the body of work.

My client decided to loop back to the chain of events that happened before her interview, narrating how she hung in there, even when things weren’t going according to plan.

Here are some excellent approaches to closing your keynote powerfully:

Loop back to how you began your speech. If you began your speech by talking about the elephant in the room, tag back to provide assurance that you have.

Wrap up a story you teased in your opening and then threaded throughout the speech.

If you began your keynote with a stat or quote reference it again at the end by summarizing how you proved it was true.

A tenet I firmly stand by that it’s not good enough to just leave your audience inspired . You must leave them inspired to do somethin g. Close your speech with a clear call to action to do something tangible that will make a difference to them and/or their community.

Choosing a Title for Your Keynote

Your title is your audience’s first introduction to what they will hear. Finding the ‘right’ title makes them want to listen.

If a compelling title comes to mind before or as you are developing and creating your speech, write it down. But don’t worry if you’ve planned out your whole speech and still don’t have a title idea. The best titles often come to us right at the end. You’ll have lots of ideas to play with when you’ve finished gathering your content.

Here is a trick while working with an editor at Inc.com: first craft a title, then play with variations of that title by using words that will get attention or have an inherent hook embedded within them.

Here’s an example of how I played with titles before settling on one for this article:

My initial ideas were

Both titles are merely functional. They’re lackluster and don’t reflect the complexity of the article itself, which goes beyond merely “writing” a keynote.

I rephrased it to expand on the topic and add a bit more punch:

Better, but I knew I could do better.

I liked it. It is more eye catching and it indicates a comprehensive “guide” that promises not just a “how to” article, but in-depth advice that speaks to creating an excellent keynote that will be well received.

Invest the time in finding just the right title. It’s worth it. It piques your audience’s interest from their first interaction with you.

How To Practice Your Keynote Speech

Don’t put off practicing until the last minute. Conversely, don’t over-practice until you sound like a robot and have diluted every ounce of passion out of your presentation.

Making good use of your practice time is easy.

I’ve written an extensive guide on how to rehearse for a presentation and I’ve also written on this topic for Inc.com . Read them for tips and techniques to learn your keynote speech easily so you can walk on the stage confidently knowing you’ll nail it. 

I have never had a client tell me they wished they had practiced less. I encourage you to practice only as much as you need to and not a second more.

P ro Tip: When you have a few spots that are giving you difficulties just practice those sections. It’s a poor investment of your time to practice your keynote over and over in its entirety if only a few sections are tripping you up.

​​​​Sucheta Misra Associate VP Inclusion & Diversity and Social Impact Leader

Tips For Creating Your Slidedeck or PowerPoint Presentation

My take on PowerPoint is that it’s a powerful tool that has been dropped into the laps of people who, more often than not, don’t have the training or experience to wield it effectively.

Before PowerPoint, marketing and communication teams would strategize over the best content for the slides. Graphic designers would create them.

These are the three most important things to know about your slide presentation:

• If slides won’t add or support your presentation don’t use them. 
• Create your slides so that they are primarily image-based with a limited amount of text. 
• If you are not a graphic designer hire one. It’s worth it for the stroke of elegance and professional edge they will add. A graphic designer will bring your deck to life. 

If you do decide to use a slidedeck ensure it helps your audience connect the dots and visualize what you are sharing with them.

What To Do Before You Deliver Your Speech

I’m often backstage supporting clients at their events. It’s exhilarating to feel the energy of speakers waiting to go on stage. You can feel the excitement … hearts pounding and voices warming up.

Here are a few tips and techniques professional speakers use to ready themselves, calm their nerves , and warm up their voice before giving a keynote speech:

• If you find yourself not sleeping well or experiencing anxiety in the days leading up to your speech try 4 – 7 – 8 breathing . Three or four rounds should have you feeling calmer and able to fall back to sleep. 
• Keep yourself hydrated. The day before your event up your water intake. This will keep you feeling energetic and your voice lubricated. 
• Make sure you get a good sleep before your keynote. Lack of sleep will knock you off your game. 
• Fifteen minutes before your keynote move your voice up and down through your natural register with vocal exercises so you can use your voice like the fine instrument it is. 
• Just as you are about to speak, if you suffer from dry mouth, take these lozenges to help you articulate with ease. 
• When you arrive at the podium take a few deep breaths, feel your feet on the floor, touch a favourite amulet such as a ring or necklace…and away you go! 

What You Should Do After Your Speech

When you end your speech you’re still not quite finished yet.

Connect with people from your audience. Gather feedback. Some of the richest relationships you will create will happen if you take the time to talk with people after your speaking event. If you have the opportunity, ask for presentation feedback to help you learn what worked and what didn’t.

Don’t ask if they enjoyed your keynote because the response will probably be, “It was great!” Instead, ask what they took away that will make a difference in their life. Ask them what nugget stuck with them. The answers to these questions will provide information to improve your next keynote.

Having your keynote recorded provides a brilliant learning opportunity. Many of my clients tell me they can’t/won’t watch a recording of themselves. I ask them to separate themselves from their egos and embrace the opportunity to learn. You can gain insight into what landed and what didn’t by your audience’s reactions.

Ask for presentation feedback from a trusted advisor. Don’t ask family and friends. A trusted advisor or mentor has the perspective to provide unbiased feedback that your family and friends won’t be able to. A trusted advisor will be able to expertly able to weigh in about your content, your delivery, and the effectiveness of your speech. ¯

Keynote speeches are complex. They have lots of pieces that need to fit together to create an easy, simple flow and to hold your audience in your hands so they will be inspired and learn from you.

Do you need help with your upcoming keynote speech to make sure your audience will leave challenged to take action and be inspired? Let’s chat and learn how I might help. Here’s access to my calendar to schedule a time to talk.

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17 Presentation Techniques For A Great Keynote

• Presentation design /
• Public speaking

How much time do you take to design your presentation? Days? Weeks? Where do you get your inspiration from and how do you find the right design elements? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could create a remarkable keynote presentation in a day or two? I think anyone can do it, if they pay attention to the following presentation techniques and manage to combine them in a way that helps them put the right ideas in the right context.

Also read:  7 Things To Improve In Your Keynote Speech Presentation

Achieving presentation flow is a challenging task. Not everyone has a knack for design. So pay attention to each of these ideas, both the simpler ones and the more complex, and make your own combo to improve delivery and convince your audience.

1. Visuals are your friend

Using different types of visuals can be a great way to help your audience remember and react. Photos, illustrations, icons, symbols, sketches, figures, and diagrams are much more easy for the brain to retain than words. Think of a company logo for example – how many times has your brain recognized the logo even before you remembered the name of the brand?

Another great thing about using imagery is that it makes you more charismatic. It seems that speakers are seen as more charismatic when otherwise identical speeches contain more imagery . Here’s a great example – a former US president’s inaugural address was rewritten to create low and high imagery versions in an experiment. The audio recordings of the two speeches were played for the participants to the study who were randomly assigned. After listening to the speech, they provided ratings on various summary leadership measures. The result? The speech with high imagery was attributed to a more charismatic person.

2. Keep the presentation short and to the point

Thousands of psychological, neurobiological and social science studies have been conducted on how humans “pay attention.” The famous Microsoft “study” claimed that the human attention span went from 12 seconds on average in 2000 to just 8.25 seconds in 2015, which is shorter than that of a goldfish. What most of these studies concluded is that, most of the time, we don’t pay attention. It’s just how our brain works.

Keep your presentation short and sweet and, more importantly, simple. Even if your ideas are complex, you need to find a way to help your audience focus and follow your speech. Make sure your slides are not too busy if you want the audience to listen to you instead of reading slides.

3. The rule of three

This is a rather well-known technique that’s based on the fact that people tend to only remember three things. When you design the flow of your presentation, work out what the three messages that you want your audience to take away are. Then, structure your presentation around them, using the right design elements to separate the three.

The same rule can be applied to an individual slide –  it’s recommended that you use a maximum of three points on a slide. Make sure that they aren’t bullet points or presenter notes. Those should not be on the screen when you’re doing a keynote speech. If Google’s CEO does not  use bullet points , neither should you.

Also read:  5 Pro Tips For Giving Better Presentations

4. Focus on telling stories instead of throwing numbers

Even if you have a technical or scientific topic to present, you still need to tell a story. That is the essence of a keynote speech, to be memorable, emotional, compelling. And that means storytelling.

Tell stories and anecdotes to help you illustrate your ideas and your research. This will definitely make your presentation more effective and memorable. In a UCLA study , students were asked to recall a series of speeches they had heard. Only 5 percent remembered any individual statistic, while 63 percent remembered the stories presented in those speeches.

“Things are not what they seem.” It’s that to get people to sit on the edge of their chair or to get them involved in your story, the audience has to constantly discover something new.

Howard Suber, UCLA

5.  Know what slide is coming next

Memorizing every single word in a presentation is not a good idea. That’s why you shouldn’t have chunks of text altogether. But knowing what slide comes next is a must. Even if you are an amazing speaker and you’ve been really busy so you’ve had the presentation made for you, go through it at least once before.

It helps to build trust and keep the audience engaged when you say “On the next slide [Click] you will see…”, rather than than act confused when the next slide appears. It will also help with the flow of the presentation.

6. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Practice is key for public speaking. Many experts say that rehearsal is the biggest single thing that you can do to improve your performance. This technique will make you so comfortable with the presentation content that you won’t need notes or prompts and you’ll appear conversational but knowledgeable.

Perform your presentation out loud at least four times. You can try something different each time: one in front of your friends or colleagues, one alone and one in front of a real scary audience, for good measure. You should also try to do a video recording of a rehearsal. It will help you spot improvement points, from how you are standing, if you are jangling keys, to how well your presentation is structured.

Also read:  Use These Presentation Apps To Rehearse Anywhere

7. Have an emergency plan

This does not include running off the stage. But it is a well known fact that something is bound to go wrong. It’s either the projector, the lights, the audio, the laptop, the fonts, etc. It’s always good to have a back-up plan. This way you won’t be blindsided, stressed and confused in case something goes off track. A useful tip is to check out the presentation room beforehand, so that you know what could go wrong.

Murphy’s kit: Have a printed out set of slides, data stick of your presentation and a laptop with your slides on it.

8. Involve the audience

One of the most powerful presentation techniques is inviting the audience in and have them contribute in some way. This will get them emotionally invested and it will differentiate you from inexperienced, nervous speakers.

Plan a inclusion of the audience in your presentation somewhere. It can be a slide with a question, a game or just an empty slide to help you connect with people and re-gain their full attention. Here are some ideas for audience activities–from a simple show of hands, to requests for brief personal input, to role playing and games, to small group exercises- and their merits:

The show of hands is good for polling the audience and gaining real-time feedback. It lets audience members know where they stand with respect to the group.Brief personal input reveals the diversity of experience in the room.Role playing and games are excellent for practicing sales situations and interpersonal responses.Group exercises allow participants to learn from each other.

9. Don’t read off the slides word for word

Please. Your audience is surely capable of doing that for themselves. They don’t need you to be standing in front of them reading off the screen.

Build your presentation in a way that it provides context for your speech, with visual elements and clear, simple ideas. Use your slides as outlines or conversation points that you build on, just like you would in a normal discussion. Experienced speakers often use slides to add a quick parenthetical note to something they’re saying to the audience.

10. Find the right speed

Most people go too fast. Mostly because they’re nervous or they’re pressured by the time constraints of the format. It’s really easy to rush through your content and speak very quickly, especially if you’re panicked. But it’s much easier for an audience to engage with your content and remember something if your delivery falls into a natural rhythm. Pace yourself and remember to punctuate your speech with pauses to emphasise key points.

Here’s a great exercise shared by Sims Wyeth , who learned it from Marian Rich, a voice and speech teacher in New York who worked with many famous actors to help them improve their vocal presence.

“The exercise will teach you that your voice is a wind instrument, and you must have ample air in your lungs to play it well.

Mark a paragraph / in this manner / into the shortest possible phrases. / First, / whisper it / with energetic lips, / breathing / at all the breath marks. / Then. / speak it / in the same way. / Do this / with a different paragraph / everyday. / Keep your hand / on your abdomen / to make sure / it moves out / when you breathe in / and moves in / when you speak.

Before you whisper each phrase, take a full bellyful of air and then pour all the air into that one phrase. Keep your throat open, and don’t grind your vocal chords. Lift your whisper over your throat. Pause between phrases. Relax. Then, take another full breath and whisper the next phrase. Whisper as if you were trying to reach the back of the room.

Once you’ve whispered the paragraph, then go back to the start and speak it in a conversational way, but again, pour all the air into each phrase and honor the silence between phrases. I can’t stress that enough. Take your own sweet time at the forward slashes.”

If you’re more of a slow talker, with a constant calm rhythm, you might run the risk of boring the audience. Keep people awake and interested by learning to increase your speaking speech without losing articulation and thought clarity. Start by learning what makes you slow. Record a one-minute monologue on tape and use a stopwatch or second hand; listen for the following types of slow spots.

11.  Include some humor

Humor can be one of the most powerful techniques for giving a great keynote presentation. You can use it in the beginning to relieve the tension in the room and help ease the transition into the bulk of the content. Appropriate humor that’s true to you let’s your audience get a sense of your personality and makes for a memorable presentation.

If you’re not a natural punster, do not despair. Anything can be learned. Here are a few techniques you can try:

Exaggeration: “Then I talked to a woman whose voice was so high only the dog could hear it.”Puns: “Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.”Self-deprecation: “And then, even though I knew it was too hot to eat, I bit into the pizza anyway. Because, clearly, I am an idiot.”Wordplay: “She brought me a plate of french fries instead. At least I thought they were French because they had an attitude and wore berets.”References: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

12. Follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule

Guy Kawasaki wrote that a presentation “should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points”. Although this was meant for entrepreneurs creating pitch decks, it’s a useful pointer for keynote speeches as well, especially from a design point of view.

Opt for a legible font and type size. Don’t use eccentric fonts that will make it impossible to make out the actual words. Stick to standard, easy-to-read fonts, preferably sans-serif (fonts such as Arial or Helvetica).

13. Pause from time to time

Both in your speech and in your presentation, white space is an important component. Whitespace is a fundamental building block of good design. Its one of the first thing any visual designer is taught. However, to many speakers it is simply a waste of space that could be used to better promote their message or express an additional idea.

Speech pauses allow you to punctuate your spoken words, giving your listeners clues as to when one phrase, one sentence, or one paragraph ends, and the next begins. Brigitte Zellner notes that pauses “participate in rendering human communication more intelligible. (…) In other words, pauses “stick out like sore thumbs”, and thus may occupy “beacon” positions in speech, serving to structure the entire utterance for both speaker and listener.”

14. Try some icebreakers

Why not reference some fun facts? Or have audience members introduce themselves? The most effective keynotes are both informative and enjoyable at the same time.

“For the brain to remember, presenters must deviate from a pattern in some significant way.”

Carmen Simon, co-founder of Rexi Media

Although not everyone is comfortable with icebreakers it doesn’t hurt to try one or two and see how they work for your keynote. Here are some different icebreaker ideas.

15. Make it thematic

Another out of the box idea is to make the most of an upcoming or recent event/holiday/movie release etc. and create a thematic presentation. Go for a memorable appearance, costume and all, and a well-designed presentation to accompany your speech. Get the audience to remember your presentation by connecting it to something they like or even dislike. The emotional connection will help spark a valuable conversation and it will increase the chances of people remembering your ideas.

Connections among elements in memory can make a real difference. Art Markman uses the analogy of a bowl of peanuts in his book Smart Thinking. He says that if you take peanuts out one at a time, you get three peanuts when you reach into the bowl three times. But, if you pour caramel over the peanuts, then when you pull one out, you get a whole cluster. After you draw from the bowl three times, you may have gotten almost all of the peanuts out. Memory functions in a similar way. By encouraging connections among the key points in your talk, you help pour caramel over the peanuts in memory and increases the amount that people remember from what you present.

16. Stay connected

Make sure you have an offering for the gods of social media. A tweetable bit on a slide, a hashtag to connect online and to encourage comments and debates or a website with online resources. Connect this technique with the one on involving the audience and you’ll get online engagement as well as offline.

Your “tweetables” should resonate with the audience and to do that they need to be catchy. Use strong verbs and keep it short. Think about what you want your audience to take away from your presentation.

17. Share your slides after the event

It’s nice to build a long term relationship with your audience. After all, they will be the ones ensuring your the growing reach of your ideas. Sharing your slides is a great way to help them recall the content of your presentation. It’s also a great way to encourage engagement after the event so don’t forget to include the date, time and title of the presentation as well as your contact details.

Let them know that you’ll be making the slides available from the very beginning of the presentation so that they don’t feel the need to spend too much time taking notes instead of watching you. But don’t share your slides before the presentation otherwise you’ll spoil the show and give people an excuse to leave without watching.

What are some other powerful presentation techniques that work for you?

If you’re looking to step up your public speaking game, check out these 10 easy steps to becoming a keynote speaker!

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