I’ve worked with several teams recently as they prepared presentations: sales pitches, grant orals, project updates, investor decks, and “sell an idea to leadership.”
My wife says I’m 97% annoying.
Maybe this is additional evidence of her observation.
97% of the decks I see are C+ at best, even from people capable of A+ work.
My undergraduate degree was in cognitive science (visual cognition). Decades later, the basics still apply. Here are four patterns that make or break a talk, and how to fix them.
1) Trust the whitespace
What do you see?
A triangle?
But there isn’t one — just three corners.
Your brain fills the gap.
Slides should do the same. Don’t cram every fact onto the screen. Leave room for the audience to complete the picture because when they fill in the gaps, they get get emotionally engaged in the topic. They generate ideas themselves, they think of your project as their own in some way .. they engage.
Do
- One idea per slide, generous margins, big type.
- Use visuals and short cues as prompts.
- Let your spoken story supply the detail.
Don’t
- Wall-of-text.
- Small fonts and dense charts that force reading instead of listening.
- Use jargon to sound clever
2) Pick the right altitude
Above the peaks
Some talks skim the mountaintops: crisp, high-level, but thin on substance.
Into the valleys
Others dive through every ravine: rich detail, but people lose the map. It's not clear where we were or where we are going ...
The right balance
- Start high: give the route first (problem → approach → evidence → ask).
- Announce dives (“Two minutes on some details here”)
- Come back to altitude and reorient (“So what?”)
- Use backups/appendix for deep proof to be ready if asked for it; don’t drag everyone through it.
3) Stop reading the slides
Humans can’t process a rich audio stream and a rich reading task at the same time without overload. When you read your slides, people stop listening and they disconnect. At that point, you (and your mission) are likely toast. They may be polite and let you finish, but they only need one reason to say "no" and "it doesn't feel right" is plenty.
Fix
- Make slides visual cues, not scripts.
- ~ 6 words per line, 3–5 lines max (most slides should be fewer).
- Put the full detail in a leave-behind memo or appendix slides you can flip to if they ask for a detail. You say: "great question .. (click click) .. we thought about that too - here's how we have been planning to manage that situation."
- If text must be shown (quotes, definitions), you stay quiet while they read, then paraphrase.
4) Don’t confuse formality with professionalism
TED set the bar for modern attention: human, clear, time-bounded (18 minutes). Professional doesn’t mean stiff.
Do
- Speak like a person. Use plain language. Be brief.
- A little self-deprecation or humor, used sparingly, builds trust.
- Vary pace and tone; make eye contact; pause on key points.
- Dress and structure appropriately for the room—but stay human.
Don’t
- Over-script every word.
- Equate jargon with credibility.
- Deliver in a monotone “corporate voice.”
Bottom line
Great presentations choreograph attention. They trust whitespace, fly at the right altitude, never read the slides, and stay human while being professional.
These are learnable skills.