Some people are naturally gifted speakers, who could command the attention of their audience even if they were reading the ingredients off a box of corn flakes. For the rest of us, preparing a good conference talk is hard work, but it’s not rocket science: the key is to understand how to structure your talk so that your contributions – and why they are important – come through loud and clear. In this talk, I’ll explain the common structural pitfalls that can prevent your audience from following your talk, I’ll present a simple set of concrete principles for avoiding such pitfalls, and I’ll demonstrate how I applied these principles in developing one of my more successful conference talks.