Have you ever been excited to do a presentation when someone asks you weeks or even months in advance, but when the time comes you dread ever having said yes?
You know the story. Someone is excited to hear about your idea.
You brainstorm how it can be delivered. You set a date. You are thrilled that you have an opportunity to shine. It’s weeks away so you know you can forget about it for a little while.
Then all of a sudden you look at your calendar and the talk is next week! Your self talk goes something like this:
“Ok. I can do this. I can set aside time and crank out the presentation. It will be like a bootcamp, like cramming for finals at college.
But then you get a call from your boss or a client. There’s a project that needs your attention. Or your computer mysteriously crashes and all of your data is lost. Well, not lost, but you do have to rebuild and that takes up time. The time you were going to devote to preparing for your talk.
Or worse, you sit down to prepare and just dont know what to say. So you binge watch your favorite show on Netflix rationalizing that it will inspire your creativity.
And now it’s the day before your talk and you are asking yourself:
why did I ever agree to this. This isn’t what I do. I should just cancel the presentation. I’ll be crap anyway at this point. I haven’t prepared one slide.”
Don’t panic.
First, manage your expectations. This won’t be your best talk ever.
Second, identify the expectations of the audience (and the person that schedule this in the first place).
Third, spend the time you have on the talk instead of the slides – go naked.
Fourth, call your presentation coach (that would be me) and get an emergency session on the books – pronto. Actually, make that the first thing you do and we’ll work on the other steps together.
Have a presentation emergency? Book your emergency service now.
