Seven Keys to Perfect Presentations

Here are seven keys to perfect presentations written by Carmine Gallo of Businessweek Online.

Start with a Sketch

Your goal should be to make the data in your presentation come alive visually and to help the audience interpret the information clearly. Before you begin, know what you want to achieve, and sketch the concept you are trying to get across for the presentation as a whole as well as for each slide.

One Theme, One Slide

Resist the temptation to give your audience all the information on one slide. Stick to one key point or theme per slide.

Crunch the Data First

All too often, audiences are presented with mountains of data and expected to figure it out. But the audience does not need to see all the data points. What they need to understand is the correlation between the data points— what the numbers are trying to say.

Create a Narrative

Presentations should be opportunities to engage the audience emotionally. Great presentations have ebbs and flows, like great movies. In a movie, for example, you wouldn't expect the entire plot to unfold in the first minute. The same goes for a presentation. It should build up to a key moment when all the information comes together.

Maintain a Visual-Verbal Balance

Maintain a balance between the speaker and the information on the slides. At times, the audience's attention should be focused on the content of the slide. But at other times, their focus should be on you. Make sure the slides complement the speaker visually without distracting from the power of his words.

Practice Design, Not Decoration

The goal of a presentation is to solve problems. Slides that are aesthetically pleasing allow the audience to understand the solution the speaker is offering. Do not "exhaust the eyeballs" with animation.

Extend the Presentation Beyond the Moment

An effective presentation's impact goes beyond the actual delivery. The ecosystem of a presentation requires the speaker to attract the audience by building up excitement about the topic, engage them during the presentation itself, and extend the experience after the presentation through complementary materials, handouts, and calls to action.

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