3. All presentations should start with your ABT

I work with a lot of professionals who give ten-minute presentations. I have them begin with a two-minute, threeslide presentation, presenting only the And, the But and the Therefore of what they have to say. Then they set to work adding more content that is essential to strengthening it. The result is a solid narrative core.

What I don’t recommend is the typical approach of starting with a 28-minute amorphous mass of everything you think is relevant, then whittling down/paring down/chopping down to 10 minutes. When you come at it from that direction you end up removing essential narrative bits, resulting in a choppy flow that can eventually get confusing or boring. You want to start with the core narrative and never lose it.