5 Steps to Start Writing the Perfect Presentation

When it comes time to write a presentation from scratch, your first instinct might be to sit down at your computer and pull up PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides. You’re eager to put your thoughts into presentation form as quickly as possible. So pulling out your laptop seems like the best first step on your way to the perfect presentation. 

Believe me: I’ve been there. And that’s why I know this is one of the biggest mistakes presenters can make when writing a presentation.

While it might seem counterintuitive, the first step in writing a presentation has nothing to do with opening up a blank slide document on your computer. This step actually needs to come much later in the process. 

Instead, I’ve learned to think big. What do I mean by that? Let’s dive into how to write a presentation script, step by step.

1. Start with a Bird’s-Eye View
2. Record Voice Notes
3. Highlight the Big Ideas
4. Add Visuals
5. Give Yourself a Trial Run

Step 1: Start With a Bird’s-Eye View

If you jump right into creating a deck at the “slide” level, you’ll actually be working against yourself. At this point, you don’t have clarity yet on what you hope to achieve with your presentation. So essentially, you would be working backward and making the process longer and more difficult.

To avoid this misstep, I recommend to all my clients that they “start big” and “work small” from there. This means closing your laptop, pulling out a notebook and a pen, and brainstorming ideas. To get your pen moving, try these thought starters:

• Define the main goal of the presentation. Ask yourself: What is the one thing I want my audience to walk away remembering? Or fill in the blank: If there were one thing my audience would think, feel, or do after seeing my presentation, it would be ______. Use these answers as your North Star as you develop the rest of your presentation.
• Meanwhile, jot down the biggest, broadest ideas, key messages, and major themes you want to cover.

Now that you have the big ideas written down, move on to the next step.

Step 2: Record Voice Notes  

At this stage, I guide my clients to speak their narrative and record voice notes within a voice-memo app. The intention is similar to writing down big-picture concepts. The act of speaking the ideas aloud not only helps you clarify your thinking, but also helps you craft your final presentation.

As you record, you’ll have a baseline for refining your presentation script. You’ll be able to find any holes or gaps in your presentation just by talking out loud, and later you can refine the narrative.

As with written notes, define the main goal of your presentation as you speak aloud. You can then translate your voice notes into text (there are software programs that will do this for you), save them in a document, and print them to use alongside your handwritten notes.

Step 3: Highlight the Big Ideas

On your printed and written notes, use a highlighter to spotlight the big ideas. Now you can start placing text in your presentation deck, one slide at a time. 

This is important: One main idea per slide. One main idea per click.

Ensure that each idea flows naturally into the next slide. Imagine you’re having a conversation with your intended audience, so that you’re presenting concepts one at a time, and each idea leads to the next.

As you create the deck, you’ll discover if there are any holes in your presentation and script — i.e., any other big ideas you didn’t already include and are necessary to create a cohesive story from beginning to end.

Step 4: Add Visuals

Once you have your narrative and storyline built out one click at a time, and you’ve refined and edited your voiceover narrative, you can then start to pair each slide with a visual. 

You may want to enlist the help of a professional graphic designer or a presentation designer who can help create cohesive-looking design elements across your entire presentation. 

At times, you might not know what you don’t know. If you think you could benefit from getting an expert eye on your presentation draft, I’d be happy to take a look and make any recommendations or enlist my team to jump in and get creative.

Step 5: Give Yourself a Trial Run

After all the steps above are complete, then it’s time to practice, practice, practice. Get in front of a colleague, your significant other, a friend, or even your dog, and cue up your presentation deck. 

Walk them through each slide with your voiceover narrative, and get feedback. Ask them what they identify as the main takeaway. If their thoughts don’t align with the goal of your presentation, revisit your slides to identify gaps or unnecessary information or visuals.

When you’re presenting on stage, or in front of a room of people, each slide and its associated visuals should be like a billboard: just one simple idea that people can understand at a glance.

As you present, people should be able to connect the dots between your slides and your voiceover. The slides should simply support, not distract, from what you’re saying.

Thought by thought, click by click, you’re taking your audience on a journey, leading the way to the ultimate end goal you’ve pre-determined. With a carefully crafted presentation, they’ll follow along just fine.

Feel free to learn more about my presentation design and storytelling services, or message me if you’d like to discuss any presentations you’ve got in the works.