“No one ever complains about a speech being too short!” – Ira Hayes

1. Be yourself

Make it personal: performing is all about you. Share your emotion, passion, dreams, curiosity, experiences, successes, struggles, humor, anecdotes ….

2. Focus on your key message

Invest time to formulate an original key message (in TED-terms: your Idea Worth Spreading). Your story should be constructed around this message.

3. Address your audience

Make eye contact, you are there for them and they came for you!

4.  Less is more

Keep it simple, keep it short, Kill your darlings. Make your story stronger by leaving out everything which does not support your key message (even if it’s your hobby horse): less key points, less digression, less details, less slides, less words on slides, less information in graphs and tables

5. Exploit the power of silence

Don’t be afraid to be silent. Silence is a powerful instrument to make your presentation more captivating.

6. And last but not least: keep practising!