Where to begin, there's so much … but let's cover the top items.
1) Practice before you go. How many times you practice depends on how important this presentation is.
2) Get rid of all of the text on your slides (I'm exaggerating, but not much). When there's text on your slide, people can choose to read and not listen to you or listen to you and ignore the text. And you are more persuasive than text on your slides. And high on the list of most hated things in presentation are presenters who read slides to them; they can read it faster than you can talk.
3) Declutter your charts.
4) What's the most important thing on each slide. Make sure that's what their attention is attracted to first.
5) Decide what are the one or two things you especially want them to remember from your presentation. I like to take polls a couple of days after a town hall. Hardly anyone remembers any specifics from most town halls. Emphasize that key point. Repeat it. Tell people that if they only remember one item, this is it.
6) Talk to your audience as you would one-on-one. Look at individuals as you talk.
7) At the end, be clear about what you expect them to do next.
8) There are several effective ways to start the presentation, but they have to answer the question "why should I care" for the audience to keep their attention.
How's that for a start?
