How to Fix a Boring Presentation [Practical Strategies]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Apr 21
- 7 min read
While working on a strategy pitch deck for a client named Ray, something unexpectedly sharp came up.
He asked,
“How do you know when a presentation is boring?”
Our Creative Director answered without blinking,
“When it makes you work harder than it should.”
That hit. Because it’s true. A boring presentation doesn’t just lack energy or flair. It demands too much from the audience. Too much patience, too much decoding, too much tolerance for rambling, filler, fluff, clutter.
As a presentation design agency, we work on dozens of strategy decks, pitch presentations, and internal alignment slides throughout the year. The challenge that shows up the most? A presentation with the right information but the wrong delivery. Content that feels like homework. Slides that speak in monotone. Ideas that get lost because the structure refuses to carry them.
So, in this blog, let’s talk about how to fix a boring presentation. Not with generic tips but with practical strategies grounded in the real-world work of helping smart people tell sharper stories.
Why is it important to fix a boring presentation
No one sets out to make a boring presentation.
Yet, most decks end up there — lost in a swamp of bullet points, stock icons, and data dumps. What begins as an attempt to share something important somehow morphs into a lifeless scroll of slides that even the presenter doesn’t want to sit through.
And here's the irony: these boring presentations often come from smart teams with powerful ideas. But clarity gets buried under clutter. Energy gets diluted by safe formatting. Urgency gets smothered by over-explaining.
The problem is rarely the what. It's the how.
How the story is told. How each slide carries the weight of its point. How the audience is invited into the journey instead of being handed a textbook.
Fixing a boring presentation isn't about adding more color or switching to a cooler font. It's about rethinking structure, timing, hierarchy, and tone. It’s about using every slide as a strategic move, not just a container for more content.
This is especially true in high-stakes moments — investor pitches, internal vision decks, product launches, sales meetings. These are not places to bore. These are places to lead.
So before getting into practical strategies, it’s important to acknowledge something:
If a presentation feels boring, it’s not the audience’s fault.
It’s the signal that something deeper needs fixing.
How to fix a boring presentation
1. Replace Topic-Based Structure with a Tension-Based Narrative
Most boring presentations follow a default structure:
Intro → Background → Features → Results → Thank You.
It’s polite. It’s orderly. It’s also completely forgettable.
The fix? Replace this predictable arc with a story built around tension.
Start by identifying what the audience is struggling with — something specific and urgent that’s causing friction. Then position the presentation as the answer to resolving that tension.
Tension is what keeps people listening. It creates a need for resolution. Without it, slides become disconnected statements. With it, they become chapters in a larger story.
If the presentation doesn’t open with a “Wait, that’s exactly what we’re dealing with” moment, it’s already losing.
2. Cut the ‘Slide Count’ Obsession. Focus on Narrative Weight
The number of slides has never been the problem.
It’s what those slides are doing that matters.
Some of the most boring presentations are only 10 slides long. Some of the best ones are 60. The difference is that in great presentations, each slide earns its place. It carries a single idea. It lands one point. And it clears the way for the next one.
Bad presentations collapse ideas. They pile everything onto one slide to “keep it short.” But all that does is make the audience do the work of untangling.
Here’s a better principle: One idea per slide. Two if they’re married. Never more.
It’s not about slide count. It’s about clarity.
3. Build a Rhythm, Not Just a Sequence
A presentation without rhythm feels like a flatline.
Same layout. Same pace. Same tone. Again and again.
This monotony is what creates boredom — not because the content is weak, but because there’s no variation. No pause. No build. No shift.
Great presentations feel alive because they change gears. They have short slides and long ones.
Slides with data followed by moments of whitespace. A bold statement. Then a story. Then proof. Then surprise.
This rhythm is what makes a presentation feel like a conversation, not a report. It creates contrast — the secret sauce of engagement.
If everything is important, nothing is. If every slide feels the same, the audience stops caring after slide three.
4. Say Less but Mean More
The fastest route to a boring presentation? Explaining everything.
The most compelling presenters don’t dump information. They curate. They provoke. They leave room for the audience to lean in and want more.
This requires restraint. And clarity. And confidence in the core message.
Audiences don’t remember volumes of facts. They remember sharp points that feel like conclusions.
Instead of listing six reasons, lead with the most surprising one. Instead of detailing every feature, tell the story of the one that changed everything. Instead of stuffing the slide with proof, show one result that feels impossible to ignore.
A well-crafted silence does more than a paragraph ever could.
If a slide can’t be skimmed in three seconds, it’s not pulling its weight.
5. Use Visuals as Strategic Devices, Not Decoration
One of the most misunderstood elements in presentations is design.
Boring presentations use visuals as filler — generic icons, vague illustrations, the usual handshake or lightbulb clipart.
But great presentations treat visuals as strategic moves. Every chart, image, or graphic does a job. It adds clarity. It builds contrast. It stops the scroll.
This isn’t about “looking nice.” It’s about guiding focus. Showing the relationship between ideas. Triggering memory through layout. Creating momentum through design hierarchy.
A deck should never need to be read. It should be absorbed.
The moment design feels like decoration, the story starts bleeding energy.
6. Find the Emotional Current and Turn It Up
Data makes sense. But emotion moves people.
Even the most logical audiences — investors, executives, engineers — are not immune to emotion. In fact, the best presentations don’t just make a case. They make you feel why that case matters.
That feeling? It’s usually buried in the founder’s origin story. Or the problem the team is obsessed with. Or the belief that something in the industry is broken.
Surface that belief. Amplify it. Make it the emotional current that powers the deck.
When a presentation lacks feeling, the audience starts looking at their phones. When it carries conviction, people stay locked in — not because they agree with every word, but because they can tell it means something.
No one remembers the slide with the most text. They remember the moment they felt something shift.
7. Frame the Content Around a Big Idea, Not Just a Product
Many boring presentations make this fatal move: they lead with themselves.
They start with “We are” or “Our product does” or “Here’s what we offer.”
But great presentations begin with a point of view about the world.
This “Big Idea” isn’t about the company. It’s about the change happening in the industry. The new behavior that’s emerging. The shift that the audience needs to act on.
Then — and only then — is the offering positioned as the inevitable way to win in that changed world.
This framing shifts the entire energy of the presentation. It moves the story from here’s what we sell to here’s the game that’s being played and how to win it.
People don’t rally behind products. They rally behind beliefs. Movements. Change. And they give their attention to the teams who show them where things are going — before everyone else does.
8. Rehearse Like It’s a Performance, Not a Reading
Even the most beautifully designed presentation will fall flat if delivered like a script.
What turns a well-structured deck into a compelling performance is ownership of the story.
Rehearsal is not about memorization. It’s about internalization.
It’s knowing the flow so well that the delivery feels effortless. It’s building cues into the slides that help the presenter shift tone, pace, or energy. It’s finding the beats that land — and the ones that don’t.
Great decks are designed to be spoken. Which means they have space to breathe. They have moments of silence built in. They are engineered for storytelling, not documentation.
If the presenter sounds like they’re reading, the audience switches off. If the presenter sounds like they believe, the audience leans in.
9. Scrap the “Appendix” Mindset
Some presentations try to serve too many purposes.
They try to pitch, inform, educate, validate, sell, and future-proof — all in one. The result? A deck that’s too heavy to carry its own weight.
Fixing a boring presentation often starts with scrapping the idea that it has to be everything at once.
The goal is not to cover every angle. It’s to get to the next conversation.
That means trimming the bloat. Killing the appendix section. And resisting the urge to prepare for every possible objection in slide form.
The best presentations don’t over-answer. They spark dialogue.
When a deck tries to say too much, it ends up saying nothing with impact.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.