Great Presentations

Why This Matters  

Most presentations are painful to sit through—endless bullet points, cluttered visuals, and speakers rushing through slides like they’re reading a bedtime story to their kids, just trying to get through it.

I used to be that speaker. I’d obsess over my message but overlook the audience, thinking clarity would somehow emerge from the excess information presented in my slides.

It wasn’t until I adopted a structured framework that everything changed. Instead of guessing what people needed to hear, I learned how to craft presentations around my audience’s goals, pain points, and transformation journey.

The Core Idea or Framework

Creating a great presentation is like designing a product. It’s not about what you want to say—it’s about what your audience needs to hear.

This framework centers around three stages:

1. Plan Like a Product Manager – Set a clear goal and understand your audience deeply.
2. Design Like a Storyteller – Structure content as a transformation journey from “before” to “after.”
3. Deliver Like a Performer – Keep it clean, visual, and emotionally engaging.

At its core, a great presentation is a before-and-after experience. Your audience enters the room believing one thing and leaves believing another. Your job is to guide them through that shift.

Breaking It Down – The Playbook in Action

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Step 1 :  Understand your Audience

• Why are you giving this talk? What transformation do you want your audience to undergo?
• Create a Before/After Map: Where is your audience now? Where do you want them to be?
• Treat your audience like a product: What are their pain points, attitudes, and behaviors?

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Step 2: Develop High-Impact Content

• Brainstorm ideas that bridge the gap between “before” and “after.”
• Organize ideas using an affinity diagram to group ideas by theme.
• Prioritize only the content that drives the transformation—cut the rest.
• Ask: “Does this help move the audience from A to B?”

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Step 3: Structure for Flow and Engagement

• Outline your big idea at the top.
• Use a journey structure: setup (where they are), action (your content), and result (where they’ll end up).
• Apply the 2+2 rule: don’t tell them everything—let them connect the dots.
• Keep it simple, logical, and visual.

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Step 4: Design Slides That Reinforce Your Message

• One idea per slide. More slides are better than overstuffed ones.
• Use visual hierarchy: size, contrast, and motion guide attention.
• Stick to 6 objects or fewer per slide to make them digestible.
• Replace paragraphs with keywords and impactful titles.

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Step 5: Deliver with Clarity and Confidence

• Rehearse like it’s a performance. Record yourself, review, and refine.
• Skip the boring bio—start with a personal story or compelling question.
• Be mentally and physically prepared: backup plans, clear enunciation, and controlled movement.

Tools, Workflows, and Technical Implementation

• Audience Research & Mapping : Mural, Notion, Obsidian Canvas
• Slide Design & Prototyping : Figma, Keynote, Canva
• Presentation Recording : Loom, Zoom, Filmora
• Rehearsal : Zoom (self-record), Loom, Otter AI
• Backup & Portability : Save multiple formats—PDF, PPTX, Keynote

Real-World Applications and Impact

• Transformed internal company meetings from boring info dumps to strategy-driving conversations.
• Won project approvals by turning dry technical updates into emotionally compelling stories.
• Delivered internal discussions that led to job offers, partnership opportunities and project funding.

“Great presentations aren’t just slides—they’re a vehicle for career impact.”

Challenges and Nuances – What to Watch Out For

• Too much content : Trying to say everything weakens your message.
• Audience mismatch : Not tailoring content to your listeners is a fast way to lose them.
• Over-designing : Flashy transitions and animation distract more than they help.
• Skipping rehearsal : A polished message comes from practice, not improv.

”Remember: simplicity, relevance, and clarity win every time.”

Closing Thoughts and How to Take Action

Creating great presentations isn’t a talent—it’s a process. If you’ve ever felt like your message didn’t land, it’s not because your content was bad. It’s because it wasn’t crafted for your audience.

Start by defining the change you want to create, structure your content like a journey, and support every point with clean, focused visuals.

Action Steps:

• Use the Before/After Map to define your audience’s transformation.
• Build an outline using topic groupings and prioritize ruthlessly.
• Rehearse with real people and ask, “What did you take away?”

Your next presentation doesn’t have to be another chalkboard nail scratch. It can change minds.

References

Related Embeddings:

• Visual Thinking Playbook - create great visuals
• Business Visual Thinking - communicate to the right audience
• The NLP Business Playbook - build confidence and stage presence
• Product Management Playbook - think like a product manager
• UI Design Playbook - visual hierarchy frameworks

Books:

• Resonate by Nancy Duarte
• Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

Tools:

• Canva
• Figma
• Notion
• Obsidian Canvas
• Loom‍
• Filmora