10 Corporate Presentation Skills Your Team Needs to Master

As strategic communication coaches, we’ve observed common struggles experienced by presenters in various sectors. These individual challenges often translate into wider organisational issues: wasted time in meetings, unclear strategic messaging, and sales pitches that fail to connect. This article shares our top tips for building corporate presentation skills across your team to drive better business outcomes.

Rate Your Team’s Preparedness

Sadly, one of the greatest misconceptions around preparation is that it simply means scrolling through slides the night before. While familiarity with a slide deck is important for segues and timing, visual media is only one aspect of a presentation.

The coherence of a presenter’s vocal narrative, their emphasis, and their eloquence in delivery cannot be negated. What may seem like a coherent flow of information on paper can be far from reality when spoken out loud. We believe the higher the stakes, the more preparation should go into each presentation. Practising content is how presenters honour an audience for their time. There is no substitute for verbalising designed content as a dry run (at least once) to finetune delivery and narrative.

Consider the Audience’s Needs

Sometimes, the commitment to a pre-set message can cloud a presenter’s empathy for their audience and what they really need to hear.

Overattachment to a message without enough consideration for the audience’s needs is a critical mistake. It results in a lack of connection and presentations that waste time and damage the team’s credibility.

Presenters must ask themselves: What are the most important things this audience needs to hear from us? Learning to adapt the message to serve the audience is the most important lesson for any corporate presenter, whether presenting internally or for pitches to external stakeholders.

Stop Overstuffing corporate Presentations; It Won’t Impress

Shorter presentations are best. Research is clear that cognitive overload is a real phenomenon and audience attention spans are limited! We know that the ideal length for a presentation is twenty minutes or less, yet far too many presentations are much longer and diminish in effectiveness as a result.

While presenters may think that large amounts of data earn them credibility, the reality is that audiences disconnect and only absorb a fraction of the message.

Can the presentation be reduced to one central theme and presented well? Peers, leadership and clients will appreciate a concise and coherent session, leading to more efficient meetings and outcomes. Presenters can always bring extra data ready for any questions that arise but consider carefully what content truly needs to be included in the main presentation.

Ensure Clarity of Purpose

A surprising number of presenters cannot articulate in a few words what the point of their presentation is. If the purpose isn’t clear to the presenter, the audience is guaranteed to get lost.

Teams should think clearly about why they are crafting a presentation. What is the key objective? Clarity of purpose results in clear communication and better outcomes for the business and the audience.

We also often observe team presentations that do not speak to each other. Conduct dry runs and ensure there is no repetitive content and that all presentations are aligned to the same golden thread, showcasing the organisation’s voice.

Time All Content Properly

Audiences will be antagonised by presenters that take up more time than is allocated. It’s disrespectful to other meeting participants, and the presentation may be cut short, preventing the presenter from reaching their crucial conclusion.

Far too often, we observe content that has been poorly timed or not timed at all, usually due to a lack of practice. The only way to time a presentation with accuracy is by speaking it out loud and building in buffer time for anticipated interaction. It is always better to arrive with a presentation that is slightly shorter than one that is longer! An audience will forgive a presentation for being shorter – unless of course a presenter has failed to craft impactful messaging, and the content is ‘too lean’. Start with inserting the most critical content then consider how much detail is required to elaborate for credibility and clarity.

Ensure Professionalism with a Polished Delivery

Overuse of filler words (like ‘um’ and ‘ah’) or colloquialisms that don’t belong in a business context can erode a presenter’s credibility and undermine the impact and preparedness of the team.

Recording a practice run is an invaluable tool for assessment. Be careful to make sure words are being finished properly and avoid “gonna, etc.” Are there excess filler words or sounds that should be eliminated? Polishing a team’s vocal delivery is a high-impact activity—and a core focus of our corporate training workshops—that significantly improves how an organisation is perceived.

Design presentation Visuals That Captivate, Not Complicate

A simple rule: if the presenter struggles to see the slide’s content, the audience will too. If visuals are crowded, they will result in disconnection.

A key question for any team is: ‘Is this slide a teleprompter for our presenter, or a visual aid for our audience?’ A text-heavy slide deck doesn’t require a presenter; if it can be read it can be emailed and your audience is likely to disconnect and request ‘a copy’ rather than endure being read to! The presenter’s role is to share their insights and provide context.
Cut the text, insert narratives, have a conversation with the audience that is complemented with visual impact and show the audience the meaning behind data. Ditch any slides that do more harm than good.

Focus on Dialogue: Train Teams to Engage Effectively

Relying solely on non-verbal feedback to gauge audience engagement is a dangerous assumption. In a corporate setting, most people are skilled at maintaining a ‘poker face’ in meetings when their minds are elsewhere! The worst mistake is to wait until the end, only to discover the audience was lost from the beginning.

Train teams to engage their audience by building in planned interaction points. Asking questions or running a quick poll are effective ways to actively read the room, even when presenting online! It’s also crucial to have backup plans ready in case it is clear content is not resonating and an audience is disconnecting and would prefer a different conversation to the one the presenter mapped out for the session!

Master Pacing for Maximum Impact

A team puts significant effort into crafting a communication, but often presenters rush through their delivery. The reality is, the faster someone speaks—especially when conveying dense financial or technical data—the harder it is for the audience to follow.

Presenters need to slow down and practice the art of pacing and pausing, considering the processing time listeners need. Verbal emphasis is also vital to highlight key takeaways. It is far better to present less content well, ensuring the audience can fully absorb it.

Craft a Powerful Conclusion That Inspires Action

After a solid presentation, it’s tempting to rush the conclusion—or worse, to not have one planned at all! Psychologically, you can anticipate that the audience is listening intently for a final summary that reassures them they understood the core message.

A weak ending can undermine all the preceding hard work. A well-rehearsed, thoughtful conclusion can be the difference between a presentation that is forgotten and one that inspires action. Its importance cannot be overstated.