Three levels of expertise

When I coach speakers I think in terms of three levels. Level I is all about the tools and basic skills. Planning presentations, using pictures and words, how you stand, how you use your voice, achieving good eye contact, rhetorical methods etc.
On the next level, Level II, it's all about connecting with the audience. If you're relatively relaxed and have good eye contact you can use it to forge a true connection. You can use stories and examples, metaphors and humour to shape people's experience of the presentation. This is where you move on to advanced presentation technique.
At the top level, Level III it's time to cut loose and be genuinely personal. The goal is to be able to present really well without any pre-warning or preparation and to be able to hold people's attention for a couple of hours, or even a day or two, without flagging. To prepare material that is both informative and motivating and which truly reaches people in order to influence them in the best possible way. And, most importantly, the end goal is to influence them to do something - to buy your product, to support you, to help with something, to be motivated.

You don't have to to work with someone else to achieve these three levels. Set up your own plan. List the things you need to polish in order to clear Level I (practice one thing at a time in each presentation you give). Start to work on making a true connection with your audience at Level II by improving your eye contact, using open gestures and moving around a bit more. If you do a lot of presentations and it's important to really get across then think about how you are perceived. Get some really good feedback from honest individuals. Look at what the real experts do. How do they use pictures videos or music? How do they start their presentations? How do they vary the content to keep people interested?

If you're a manager or a leader, a company head or a salesperson you'd better be aiming at Level III because you can bet the competition is.

 I'll just leave you with that inspiring thought...  ;)