Lewis Harman · 20 September 2026
Information: I lost a room of fifty strangers in just five minutes. Here's six presentation techniques I wish I knew that'll keep strangers off their phones and listening in your presentations.
On a crisp November morning, I stood next to the screen at the front of a local hall, sweat streaming down my face as the warm blue light radiated from the ceiling. In front of me, fifty pairs of eyes watched intently for the first word to leave my mouth. I knew whatever I said in the next five seconds could convince my next customer to join or kill the mood entirely. As I opened my mouth, days upon days of preparation left my memory, yet my autopilot kicked in and I somehow started speaking anyway.
The next five minutes was torture. I kept gazing around the room, scanning for even the smallest possible spark of interest. One by one, the light in every stranger’s eyes switched off as they nodded along politely, almost braindead. At this point, they were simply waiting for it to be over. Clearly, I had lost the room.
I learned a valuable lesson on that cold, autumnal morning: nobody cares how much you prepare, or how flashy your slides are, only if you’re engaging them. And the fact I’ve still got your attention three paragraphs in tells me that I’m doing something right. So, what’s the secret? How have I gone from an audience of zombies to strangers reading line after line? And, most importantly, how can you do the same?
I loved show and tell at school. When I was six, I remember bringing a stag beetle from the bottom of my garden to show the class. It sat in a jar, climbing up the sides, and all my friends thought it was really cool that we managed to catch it after thirty minutes running around our small backgarden, diving onto the grass repeatedly trying not to land on it. At the end of the day, we released it back into the wild and all my friends couldn’t stop talking about it. They even wanted to come round to see if we could catch another stag beetle together.
I don't remember what I was taught in class that day. But, decades later, I still remember that little stag beetle sat in the jar on my teacher’s desk. That’s because we naturally can’t help ourselves but to connect emotionally with each other and we do that through stories. That’s how we escape our reality for a brief second and step into another life.
Action Step: Describe your experiences in a way people can visually imagine.
Why did America elect Donald Trump? Why do old people love the news? Why have you read this far? I don’t know. But none of those would’ve happened if you couldn’t understand them immediately.
Researchers, such as Orly Kayam in 2017, believe Trump speaks at a fourth grade level, like a nine year old. The news simplifies elephant-sized concepts into bitesize chunks. And I’ve kept my points relatively simple. We don’t think you’re stupid at all, no. But we respect your time and we want to make sure you understand exactly what we mean, to get the most value from our message.
In the same way, if you’re going to stand any chance at keeping strangers off their phones, we need to speak in a way that we’re certain they’ll understand. The moment someone has to stop and work out what you mean, you’ve already lost them.
Action Step: Use the simplest words to get your point across.
Strangers are called strangers because they don’t know you. They don’t care what you’re pitching, selling, teaching, or whatever. They’ll dismiss you without a second thought and carry on with their day as if nothing ever happened. Because, to them, it didn’t. You, like that homeless guy at the side of the road, and that annoying preacher they see in the centre everyday are all in the same boat: an afterthought. That’s if you were even lucky enough to be a thought that crossed their mind in the first place.
The only time a stranger looks up from their phone is when you give them a reason to. They care about what affects them, not what affects you. So, make your presentation about them.
Action Step: Use the word “you” to make it about them.
People get bored quickly. Stop repeating the same points and techniques over and over again. What you say and how you say it should fluctuate up and down to keep things interesting.
Speak quickly, then slow down. Ask a question, then tell a story. Show them something, then make them think. Build anticipation, then give them the answer. A few long paragraphs followed by a short one. A serious point followed by something unexpected.
Think about it. If your audience knows exactly what’s coming next, why do they need to listen to you? They already know it.
Action Step: Vary your tone, topic, pitch, and pace when speaking.
When I was eight years old, my sister had a magician at her birthday party. I stood at the front of a barn and was in awe, trying to work out exactly how he pulled a bunny rabbit out a hat. Where did he keep it? Each trick kept us guessing, dropping little cues and building suspense before finally amazing us, time and time again. He managed to keep a group of hyper kids entertained for an hour.
That feeling is exactly what you want your audience to feel. Don’t give them the answer straight away. Feed them enough information to really feel the problem, but leave something missing. Make them wonder where you’re going with it. Build the story, connect the dots, and reveal the answer. It should click in their head. That’s the “aha” moment. Give them a conclusion they wouldn’t have realised without you.
The trick is to build towards a unique insight without overwhelming them and to make your audience want the answer. It should feel important and relevant to them.
Action Step: Give context, explain importance, build curiosity, and provide a unique insight.
Yes, I see the irony with this rather long article. But hear me out…
Imagine I gave you a list of twenty items to remember. You’d probably forget most of them before I’d even finished saying them. If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t even remember what you had for breakfast this morning. Yet, slide after slide, bullet point after bullet point, we keep throwing more and more information at strangers until they’re ready to burst, metaphorically of course.
We hope something sticks, but it won’t. Your audience already has a limited attention span on a good day. The more you give them, the harder it becomes to work out what actually matters. Work with it.
The important part is not burdening your audience with more mental work than what’s necessary. If you’ve got twenty points, find the seven that matter most. If you’ve got seven, ask yourself if you can get it down to five. Every slide, every point, and every sentence should serve a unique, justifiable purpose. Again, I do see the irony.
Action Step: Group information logically into the smallest number of meaningful chunks.
Remember that cold November morning? Fifty strangers. Five minutes. One bad memory.
I thought my job was to stand in front of the room and tell them what I knew. I thought I could simply stand there, take up their time, and lecture them about their business. No.
As presenters, our job isn’t just to present. Your audience doesn’t owe you their attention. Give them a reason to keep listening. You have to earn it.
Once you stop thinking about your next presentation as something you need to deliver and start thinking about it as an experience you need to create, everything changes. That realisation was my “aha” moment, and I hope it can be yours now too.
That’s also why I stuck to six points. There’s a million more tips and tricks I’ve learned from designing and presenting slides over the last two decades, but these are the ones I genuinely believe would have the most impact right now.
It’s also partially why I created Imprez in the first place. I wanted to make it so easy to design beautiful slides, even without design expertise, which you can keep re-using anywhere that you could focus on what really matters: the content and using it to build an experience worth listening to.
So, the next time you stand in front of a room full of strangers, ask yourself: “Why would they want to listen?”
