We all need a place to start when embarking upon a creative endeavor - and make no mistake about it, a good presentation is a work of creativity.  However, there are some concrete steps we can all take to make sure that the underlying core of our projects are solid.  I hope mine can speak for themselves…

10 – Stick to your Central Message

A presentation is not a survey course.  You cannot cover everything.  Make sure you know what you’re going to talk about and ruthlessly remove all subject matter which deviates from that subject.

9 – Have an Objective

As a professional, you do not have the luxury of speaking just for the sake of speaking.  Decide what you want your audience to do and the results you want from your presentation and use that knowledge to inform what questions you’ll ask and which points you’ll cover.

8 - Break it into Focused Points

Presentations are about drawing audience focus along a path of your design.  By breaking your presentation into smaller pieces you can force yourself to think about what what the audience needs to know each step of the way to get from wherever they start to the objective where you conclude.  Keep your presentation targeted on your points of focus and your audience will follow your arguments with ease.

7 – Know Your Audience

Can you speak to members of your audience before the presentation?  Ask why they are attending and what they are expecting to see.  Think about what sort of problems you can solve for your audience members and mold your points of focus to their concerns.

6 – Medium Matters, so Mind the Details

If you’re going to give a live presentation, make sure your slides cannot tell the story without you.  If someone else is controlling the slide machine, schedule a technical rehearsal with them.  Nothing kills the conversational flow like, “next slide please.”

Conversely, if you’re preparing a website, prepare for people who want to find their own path.  Put information at their fingertips, but present it in such a way that they can quickly returned to your prepared narrative.

5 - Practice for Content, not Phrasing

There you are, the night before a big presentation, running through your speech again and again until you can recite it in your sleep.  Ooops!

A presentation is more than just a recitation.  You want to come across as a human being, impassioned by your topic and knowledgeable about its applications.  So, while practice is important (some would say critical), you can’t just worry about the words.  Try practicing without looking at your cards or slides.  Be willing to change your wording.  Be confident in the knowledge that it’s the content and not the phrasing that people have come to see.

4 – Knock! Knock!

Not everything has to be on topic.  A touch of humor helps ease the tension between presenter and audience.  However, unless you are a stand up comic, a single well chosen gag ought to suffice.  Remember, as with everything else in your presentation, it is important to know your audience.

3 – Give Credit Where Credit is Due

In putting together this list I drew suggestions from Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen, Nancy Duarte’s Slide:ology, and Scott Stiefvater’s “Avoid Causing Death by PowerPoint.”

Acknowledging your sources is not only the responsible and ethical thing to do, but it ensures that you provide your audience with additional resources they can use if they want to study the topic further on their own.

2 – Include a Call to Action

It’s not enough for us mention that we are @MBIweb on Twitter, or for you to post a single slide with your telephone number.  You need to tell your audience what you want.  Right now we’re not interested in e-mails or blog comments – instead we want you to join us on Twitter!

Follow us at http://twitter.com/MBIweb and Tweet your favorite point of advice!

1 – Never Give a Presentation You Wouldn’t Want to Sit Through

Before you call a presentation done, you have to check its survivability.  Record a dry run, have someone read it back to you, gauge the faces of your test audience, do something to make sure you aren’t giving a presentation that you yourself would hate if you were on the other side of the podium.

If you can’t make it through your own presentation, it’s time to run back through your guidelines and figure out where you went astray.