Technical Talks: Stronger Presentations
Leadership Communication Skills: A 4-Step Framework for Clearer Presentations and Pitches
In undergrad, I sang in the choir at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where now-Senator Warnock was the reverend. And one of the things I learned during my time there was what it actually sounds like when someone knows how to communicate well.
Rev. Warnock brings you along on a hyper-specific journey, not just with his words, but with how he says them. He guides the listener so it's impeccably clear where you're headed and what matters. Everybody in the room ends up feeling a certain way. That's what strong communication does, whether you're in a pulpit or a pitch meeting.
So how do you build that skill for yourself? A lot of the professionals I work with tell me, "I just wasn't born like that. Presenting well isn't something I can do." But strong communication is a skill. Just like swinging a baseball bat or writing your name, some people pick it up faster because of how they grew up, and others need more time and practice. Either way, it's learnable, and it's one of the highest-leverage skills you can build for your career.
Here's the framework I walk clients through to strengthen their presentation and public speaking skills.
Step 1: Get it into your body
Start with an actual pitch, presentation, or speech script. If you don't have your own language handy, borrow a speech or a grab a book with colloquial language. Read it aloud, more than once, until it's comfortable in your body. You don't need 45 minutes. Five minutes on one slide is enough to start. The goal is that you're never just figuring out what word comes next while you're presenting live.
Step 2: Assign purpose to every section
Go paragraph by paragraph, slide by slide, and name what each one is actually doing. Is it building momentum? Getting the audience excited? Showing your expertise? Proving a fact? Once you know your purpose, you can make intentional choices for how you deliver it. A slide meant to excite might get more speed, more inflection, more forward resonance. A slide meant to prove a point might get slower, cleaner phonation, and richer resonance. The delivery should match the business purpose of that moment.
Step 3: Find the most important word
This is where it gets granular, and where a lot of business communication breaks down. For every sentence or phrase, pick the most important word, and the second most important word. There's no single right answer. Take a simple sentence: "My dog walked down the street." Say it with the emphasis on "my," and you're telling me whose dog it is. Emphasize "walked," and the act of walking becomes the point. Emphasize "down," and it matters that he went down the street, not up it. Knowing what message you want your listener to walk away with removes a huge amount of room for miscommunication in a meeting or pitch.
Step 4: Showcase that word
Once you know which word matters most, you need a way to show it. Inflection, silence, speed, consonant strength, vowel length, volume, etc. There are countless ways to showcase the same word differently, and each one changes what the listener hears as important.
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Put all four steps together and you get a presentation with far less room for misinterpretation, and far more room for you to actually connect with your audience, your team, or an investor.
And here’s the part I love most: once you’ve done this work on the front end, your brain starts to internalize it. Eventually you’re making these choices in real meetings and conversations without thinking about it in advance. It becomes second nature.
It will take time because you’ve been speaking a certain way for your entire life, and it requires real repetition to build something new. Put in the work, and the outcome will follow.
