You have just been asked by your boss to prepare a 30 minute presentation for the next Board Of Directors (BOD) meeting which will take place in two weeks.
Your boss gives you 3-4 items he/she would like included in the presentation and has asked that you submit a draft so he/she can review before you present at the BOD meeting.
The immediate panic you feel is normal. Everyone gets a bit jittery when they have a presentation to put together, review with the boss and then eventually present to the audience.
In fact:
“47% of people in the USA are more afraid of public speaking than death”.
Ok, so now what do you do?
Hide, skip the country, come down with a virulent disease?
Actually, the process for putting together a good presentation is not difficult. The difficult part is taking care of you and your fears/worries about how you will do.
In order to take care of you and get started on the presentation notes, I suggest the following:
- Review the data points your boss gave you so you are absolutely sure you are developing the right material.
- Ask your boss for the outcome needed from the presentation – what is the goal of the presentation to the BOD?
- Decide whether you want or need to use PowerPoint for the presentation – depending on the size of the room and who the guests happen to be, I recommend NO PowerPoint for rooms with less than 30 people. Flip charts or electronic boards are your best friend and highly interactive.
- Find a story that will support the points needed to be made – make it interesting and relevant
- No jokes. DO NOT TELL JOKES. Clearly you do not want to tell jokes.
- Take care of you and figure out how to best get you ready for the presentation, i.e. rest, diet, confidence, practice etc.
- Find a mentor, colleague, friend (who has some experience presenting) to listen to the presentation and give you feedback.
- Edit, edit, edit and read out loud – print out your presentation and edit from the printed copy. Working with printed paper uses all your senses and working from a screen does not provide all the “feedback” you will want and need.
- Have your boss introduce you for your presentation and provide an interesting bio for he/she to use.
Any good presentation needs an opening that creates interest; details on the points to be made and a conclusion that will help the audience retain the information.
If you are required to provide lots of data, offer to send the presentation to anyone in the audience that is interested.
And if your boss asked you today to do this presentation, start today with your thoughts and checking back in to make sure you got the 3-4 items that he/she wanted detailed and included in your presentation.
DO NOT WAIT to start. The longer you wait, because you are nervous, the worse your avoidance will get.
My current clients are ALL working on improving their brand/impression with their team, organization, boss, clients and they are doing it through presenting at every possible opportunity. 
Not only is it providing great visibility for them, but they are also gaining in confidence each time they present.
If you would like help with your presenting/speaking, do let me know. I can help you remove the abject terror and move to confidence, faster than you ever thought possible.
I have the formula that works and I want to share it with you. You deserve to be able to easily say:
“Sure, I would love to do that presentation to the BOD in two weeks” and mean it.
To Your Success,
P.S. A great communication support for you is our new Kindle eBook “Confident Business Communication Etiquette”. You will love it as a reference again and again for your communication excellence.