How to Present in a Meeting [With attention and action]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
One of our clients, Meghan, asked us an interesting question while we were building her quarterly stakeholder update deck. She paused during the review and asked:
“What actually makes a presentation stick in a meeting?”
Our Creative Director answered instantly:
“Structure, clarity, and the ability to guide the room.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on hundreds of meetings, internal reviews, investor pitches, leadership updates, new project kick-offs. And across the board, we’ve noticed one recurring challenge: even the most prepared speakers often fail to hold the room's attention, let alone drive any action.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about how to present in a meeting in a way that not only earns attention but also leads people to actually do something about what you said.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Meetings Are a Battleground for Attention
Most meetings are a mess. Not because people don’t care, they do. But because attention is a currency, and in meetings, it’s being pulled in every direction. Someone’s replying to emails. Someone’s still thinking about the last call. Someone’s mentally checked out.
So, when it’s your turn to present, you're stepping into a distracted room. That’s your starting point.
Not a blank slate, but a noisy one. And the moment you start speaking, your audience is silently asking:
“Why should I care about this?”
“Is this relevant to me?”
“Will this be a waste of time?”
Harsh? Maybe. But very real. And that’s why the way you start matters. Too often, presenters walk into the room thinking it’s about what they need to say. But what actually works is the opposite: start by showing you understand what they need to hear.
Think of meetings like small stages. Everyone’s watching, even if they don’t look like it. You’re not just conveying information — you’re performing clarity, confidence, and command of the topic. If you ramble, apologize, or read off slides, people won’t say anything. But they’ll silently disengage.
That’s why it’s not about having 20 pretty slides or knowing your content inside out (although that helps). It’s about understanding the moment you’re in — the context of the meeting, the headspace of your audience, and what your role is in moving things forward.
When you respect that moment, you show up prepared to lead, not just talk.
How to Present in a Meeting (With Attention and Action)
1. Start with the room, not your deck
Your slides aren’t the main character. The people in the room are.
Before you even open PowerPoint, take ten minutes and write down what your audience cares about, fears, and needs clarity on. Whether it’s a team of five or a boardroom of fifteen, their priorities should shape your delivery.
For example, if you’re presenting a marketing performance update to the CFO, she’s not looking for your creative thinking. She’s looking for efficiency, ROI, and budget alignment. But if you’re presenting the same update to your creative director, she’s looking at engagement, brand strength, and storytelling.
Same data. Different lens. Different impact.
Here’s a simple prep checklist we use internally for any high-stakes meeting:
What’s the real reason they’re showing up to this meeting?
What decision (if any) do they need to make?
What’s likely distracting them right now?
What’s one thing they’ll remember, even if they forget everything else?
You answer those before slide one, and you’re already ahead of 90% of people in the room.
2. Open like you mean it
The first 30 seconds are the most underrated part of any presentation. You either buy attention or you don’t. And if you open with “So, yeah, let’s get started” — you’ve already lost the plot.
Here’s what we suggest instead: open with tension. A question. A contrast. A hard truth.
Let’s say you’re presenting a project status update. You could say: “Before we dive into tasks and timelines, let’s address the elephant in the room — we’re behind. But here’s why that’s not the full story.”
Boom. Now you’ve got their attention. And more importantly, their curiosity.
Another example. Suppose you’re pitching a new initiative internally. You start with:“We’re spending 60% of our team’s time on tasks that don’t move the needle. This project is how we fix that.”
Don’t be afraid to say the thing no one else is saying. You’re not just a messenger — you’re a sharp lens, helping the room focus on what actually matters.
3. Structure like a story, not a report
This is the mistake almost everyone makes: turning the presentation into a report readout.
Let’s be honest — nobody wants to be walked through slide after slide of numbers and updates.
That’s what emails are for. Presentations are for decisions. So structure your content like a story, not a status dump.
Every good presentation inside a meeting should follow a version of this flow:
Context — Where are we?
Conflict — What’s the challenge?
Clarity — What are we proposing?
Consequence — What happens if we do or don’t act?
Call to Action — What do you need from them, today?
This story-first approach helps you keep things tight. And it forces you to strip away fluff, which — let’s be honest — most presentations have way too much of.
And yes, slides matter. But only as a visual cue to support your thinking. We often tell our clients this:
“If your slide can speak for itself, then why are you in the room?”
Make slides visual. Not verbose. Think headlines, not paragraphs. Charts, not tables. One idea per slide. That way, people focus on what you’re saying — not reading ahead or zoning out.
4. Read the room, not your script
We’ve seen brilliant people sound painfully dull just because they’re reading off notes or rehearsed lines. Here’s the thing — you’re not giving a TED Talk. You’re in a live room. That means people’s energy is part of your feedback loop.
If people are leaning in, stay there longer. If someone looks confused, pause and clarify. If the energy drops, call it out. Literally say: “Looks like this isn’t landing. Let me reframe it.”
That’s not weakness. That’s control. That’s presence.
You can’t automate authenticity. The best presenters don’t just know their slides — they know their audience. They adjust. They respond. They’re human.
And being human wins trust.
5. Stop dumping data. Start delivering meaning.
Data is not the story. It’s evidence. But only if people know what they’re supposed to see in it.
We’ve worked on enough board decks to know this — you don’t impress with more data. You impress by making the right data undeniable.
So instead of showing a chart and saying:
“Here are our Q2 numbers compared to Q1.”
Say:
“Here’s the metric that dipped in Q2 — and the three things that caused it.”
Now you’re not just showing numbers. You’re guiding insight. You’re thinking for them, so they can think with you.
Another tip: highlight what matters. Circle the drop. Zoom into the spike. Use color intentionally.
Don’t assume people will figure it out. Make it obvious. Clarity is not optional — it’s everything.
6. Tell people exactly what you want
This is where most presentations fall apart. After 10 or 15 minutes of solid content, the presenter ends with something vague like “open to feedback” or “happy to discuss.”
And just like that, all that attention dissolves into ambiguity.
Here’s the fix: close with a specific, visible action.
“We’re recommending Option B — and we need a decision today to stay on timeline.”
“We need alignment from this team before we present this to the client.”
“Here’s the one next step I’d like from each of you by Friday.”
You’re in that meeting for a reason. Respect everyone’s time by making the ask unmissable.
And if you’re not sure what action you want — you probably shouldn’t be presenting yet.
7. Don’t aim to impress. Aim to clarify.
This one’s subtle, but powerful. A lot of presenters get caught up in wanting to look smart, sound strategic, or appear polished. And in doing so, they make their content dense, over-designed, or full of jargon.
But meetings aren’t exams. No one’s grading your vocabulary. They’re asking themselves one thing:“Do I get it?”Because if they don’t, they won’t act.
So forget the fancy phrasing. Ditch the MBA lingo. Drop the bullet points that say things like “optimize cross-functional alignment.”
Say what you mean. In plain English.
“We need the sales and marketing teams to talk more. Right now, we’re dropping leads.”
That sentence will go further than five buzzwords ever could.
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.