How to Give a Killer Presentation

There’s no shortage of advice on presentations.

To be honest, it’s all crap:

• Here’s how many bullet points to put on each slide…
• Don’t use these color combinations…
• Make sure you structure your talk this way…
• Practice your gestures
• Remember to include these points…
• Don’t say these things…
• Your slide deck should be perfect because that’s what your audience will review

It’s all crap!

Most of the advice is designed to sell you something, now or down the line.

Most of the advice is to try and create a formula around communication.

And that’s the problem.

You can’t put a formula around communication and expect presenters to be taken seriously.

Because a presentation is communication. And communication is not supposed to need a formula.

There are really only two things you need to know in order to give a killer presentation:

1. Know your stuff

If you don’t know what you’re talking about it’s impossible to communicate effectively.

Instead of spending hours slaving over some useless slides you hope to use as big cue cards, focus your time like this:

Understand what you’re talking about and understand why the audience needs to give a crap.

Your presentation will be much stronger if you know your stuff rather than relying on some shitty bullet point to prompt you.

2. Be yourself

Every one of us has a well-developed bullshit detector.

When we’re listening to someone we pick up real quick on the genuineness of the speaker.

If the speaker is full of crap or the speaker is trying to be someone they’re not, it’s obvious.

Be yourself, regardless what that means, and people will take you seriously and your listenability increases (so your audience naturally pays more attention).

Next time you have a presentation to do, cut the crap!