From George Torok
Start Your Presentation on Time
Respect your audience and especially
their time. Develop the habit of starting your meetings and presentations on
time. Do that and people will notice. They'll be more willing to attend your
meetings and they will make the effort to arrive on time.
They will also be in
a better mind set when they notice you starting on time. If you want to annoy
your audience, start late.
Announce the times
(start and end) and provide directions
If it's your meeting,
clearly advise all invitees exactly what time it will start. One trick to
convince people of your intentions is to state an odd time - e.g. 9:03, 1:07,
3:36.
If your presentation
is the main feature and there are some things happening before you go then it's
a good idea to state that upfront. Imagine attending a concert only to be
forced to endure unannounced warm-up bands for hours before the main act (a la
Justin Bieber).
If your meeting is in
a conference center or hotel, ensure that there are clear directions from the
main entrances to your meeting room. Check with the venue staff.
Plan to arrive early
You get there early.
If you haven't been to this location before be sure to double check the
directions and the map. Allow for travel delays and the potential for bad
directions.
If you are travelling
out of town to deliver an important presentation, you might want to arrive the
night before.
Check the room and
test your equipment
Visit the
presentation room before anyone arrives. Get into the room and get comfortable
with it. This is easy to do if you arrived the day before your presentation. At
least plan to arrive one hour before the program begins so you can get into the
empty room.
Start even if...
At the promised time
start your presentation. If you've checked the room and your equipment then you
are ready to go. If you've clearly communicated the start time and directions
then most of your audience will be ready. Someone will always be late.
To help get people
into their seats and ready as the time to start draws near, announce "Five
minutes to start", "Two minutes to start" and even "We're
starting in 30 seconds."
If your equipment
fails just before your presentation - start! Start on time and that means you
need to have a Plan B opening while the crew is fixing the equipment problem.
Don't make the audience suffer because of your equipment failure or lack of
preparation.
Don't do what one
Vice president of an IT company did at a presentation. Clearly she hadn't
checked her equipment. When she was introduced she walked up to the stage with
her laptop and handed it to the crew who were seeing her for the first time.
They scrambled to hook up her laptop and ran into problems. Meanwhile the
audience was waiting.
She watched the crew
for a couple of minutes, remembered the audience and turned to us with an exasperated
tone, "Talk amongst yourselves."
She clearly didn't
demonstrate respect for the audience or the crew who got her equipment working
in a few minutes.
Respect your audience
and start your presentation on time.
George Torok
PS: Tell me how this tip helps you.
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