I went to a public seminar a few years ago and arrived about 15 minutes early to start. The trainer was flying around the front of a room like a bat. Out of his briefcase came his leader’s guide, followed in quick succession by overhead transparencies, flipchart markers, a large number of samples that he would later distribute to participants, and, believe it or not, a banana. For the next few minutes he was a blur as he tried to organize his materials and the equipment he would use. You may have had a very good reason for being late. Hey, this was in Minnesota. For all I know, he may have been stuck behind a snow plow for his entire trip. But whether the delay was legitimate or the result of poor planning, the result was the same: not being ready for his session drained his credibility. If he had arrived on time and had everything ready, his group would have been able to focus on the content, not the exhausted presenter.

Doing the legwork before your session sets the stage for more engaged, less distracted participants and a more effective, less stressed presenter. It ensures that you and all of your equipment and materials are ready to go. Your goal is to start appearing in control, relaxed, focused on your attendees.

Here are some tips to help you prepare for your presentations.

get a head start

Can you identify which of these examples is fiction? The presenter arrives at the session location and:

  • He finds that all the windows have been painted and boarded up. It’s 85 degrees outside. It’s warmer inside.
  • He discovers that it is being redecorated… that day. A workman is busy removing the wallpaper. He is told that the room he reserved for his group is not available, but accommodations have been made in the grand ballroom. It’s as big as a tennis court and has 35-foot ceilings.
  • Find out this is where the company stocks extra chairs. There are chairs everywhere, at least 200 of them, which works out to about 10 chairs per person scheduled to come. However, there are no tables.
  • Don’t see any of the equipment you ordered in the room.

Now for the surprise: all of this is true. And these aren’t even the really scary things that my colleagues and I have talked about over the years. The only thing worse than arriving at your presentation site and finding something terribly wrong is arriving too late to do anything about it. So how can you avoid this?

  • Please arrive 45 minutes to an hour early. In the best of situations, you have plenty of time to set up your equipment and materials and still have a minute to collect your thoughts. When the worst happens, you have time to correct problems or make other arrangements.
  • Make the room the night before, if possible. If you’re working at an offsite location that doesn’t have the room you’ll use the night before booked, management may let you set it up at that time. The next morning, you can arrive a little later (say 30 minutes early) to finish getting ready.
  • Place in each participant’s place the resources that you will use at the beginning of your session. This avoids spending the first few minutes of your time handing out materials. Save everything you’ll use later in your presentation so attendees don’t get distracted.

check your team

When you order that overhead projector, PPT PROJECTOR THING, flipchart, microphone, video/dvd player, and monitor, you assume these tools will make your presentation easier and more effective. In theory, this is true. The reality, however, may be a completely different story. Projector bulbs burn out. Flip charts have limited amounts of paper. The microphones may be dead, the video/dvd players may be short, the cable needs to be connected to the monitor, and the PPT PROJECTOR THING is not compatible with your computer. We won’t even get into whiteboards covered in indelible ink. Here are some equipment checks to perform before the session begins:

overhead projector:

  • Make sure you have a spare bulb (better yet, two) and know how to install it.
  • Turn on the projector and check that the glass is clean, not covered with ink marks or fingerprints from the last user.
  • Tape the cable down so no one trips over it.
  • screen:
  • Place it so that everyone in the room can see it. He turns on the projector and rotates the room, checking visibility from all angles.
  • Dim the lights around the screen so participants can see better, if possible. If not, consider where else you could move it that would be a bit darker.

Do you have something to write?

THING PPT:

  • Save your file(s) to three different drives if you’re using someone else’s computer to show your PowerPoint presentation. For reasons known only to the MIS world, a drive that works great on your computer will fail on another system. Hed your bets. Bring multiple copies.
  • Save your file(s) in different ways. Consider saving as a regular PowerPoint file in the current version, as a “presentation” (which is read-only), and in earlier versions of PPT (PowerPoint 95 or PowerPoint 97-2000). Again, if you are using someone else’s system, you cannot guarantee that they have the same version of software that you have.
  • Email your files if you’re working off-site or for a client company and ask the recipient to open it so they know they have a working copy. In some cases, you can send it directly to the MIS in charge of the team. Ask them to put it on their network/hard drive, so that when you get there, you can access it. This is good when you have multiple presentations to give. It is always ready to go.
  • Bring your own cables if you’re running the presentation on your computer and someone else’s PPT THING NAME so you know you have cabling that a) is present and b) works with your PC.
  • Charge your laptop battery (if that’s what you’ll be using to display your PowerPoint slides) or bring a power cord and extension cord to ensure uninterrupted power.

Microphone:

A headset or lavalier microphone can be a great advantage if you’re presenting to a large group, the room you’re working in is large, or you’re presenting over several days. I once did a five-day, eight-hour-a-day training course. By the end of the third day, my throat felt like I had a tiger trying to get out. Oh, what a blessing a microphone would have been! Since projecting your voice for hours is exhausting and can leave you too hoarse to continue, consider using a microphone. Check your microphone for:

  • How It Fits Over Clothes You don’t want it hanging around your neck like a noose, so take a minute to figure out how to fasten it properly. If you’re wearing a headset, adjust it to fit securely so it doesn’t slip off as you move.
  • If it has enough cable so you can move around the room comfortably. If it’s a cordless model, make sure you have a spare battery or two.
  • The sound quality. Resolve any creaking, dropout, or deadlock issues in the room before your group arrives.

flipchart

Ah, the flipchart! The lowest tech team he has, but he gets a workout on every presentation he gives. Believe it or not, though, he can throw you a curveball or two if you don’t take a full look at him. Check things like:

  • If the support is strong or if it will collapse if you exhale on it. Older brackets tend to bend in WHAT IS THAT THING CALLED THAT ALLOWS IT TO COLLAPSE FOR STORAGE? If necessary, open the THINGS with tape.
  • If it’s level. If it tilts every time you touch it with a marker, roll up some packing tape and stick it to the bottom of the short leg(s).
  • How much paper is in the notebook and if the remaining paper is clean. (Someone else may have used sheets on the back of the pad, leaving him with less paper than he thought he had.) If it has fewer than ten sheets, replace it. Use the remaining sheets on the original pad to hand out for group work.
  • If you have an adequate amount of markers on hand. Never trust that a) markers come with it when you order it; b) the markers that come with it aren’t dried out, worn out, or those horrible scented ones that give you a headache. Bring yours. Stick to colors that are visible throughout the room, which pretty much lets any pastel, yellow, or orange color show through.

VCR/DVD player

Make sure:

  • You know where the play, stop and pause buttons are on the video/dvd player and the volume control is on the monitor.
  • The cables are in place between the monitor and the video/dvd player.
  • The volume is adjusted correctly for the size of the room.
  • It is positioned so that people can easily see it from anywhere in the room.
  • No light, including sunlight, causes reflections on the monitor.

Check your materials

The last thing to review before your presentation is the materials you will use. Review your:

  • More transparency. They are in order? Is everyone there?
  • Video tape. Are you at the point where you want to start it?
  • Leader/Presenter Guide. Are your pages in the correct order? Are the notes you use useful?
  • Job aids, demonstration materials, brochures, samples. Are they present and accounted for? Are they ready to use?

Preparation is the most important stage of any training presentation. When you take the time to really consider the needs of the participants, they will take notice and be able to focus on the teaching points, the exercises, and how to apply what you have shared to their lives.