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If you are a department manager for your company, or just someone within a company who has a detailed level of specialized knowledge about a particular topic, then at some point you will probably be called upon to give a meeting presentation. 

For most of us, this is an unpleasant thought at best, and a thoroughly terrifying prospect at worst. Most of us don't care for the thought of standing in a board room, being watched by a large number of executives who are waiting for you to make a mistake.

However, giving a meeting presentation can be a very straightforward process if you take the time to plan your presentation in advance. There are a number of things that you can do to help calm your nerves and make your presentation go more smoothly.

The first of these is to make an outline of your material in a PowerPoint presentation. Now, this is not to say that you can let PowerPoint deliver the message for you. Many people are tempted to jam all kinds of information into PowerPoint slides, hoping that the audience can read most of the presentation, instead of hearing it. 

According to many of the leading sales gurus, this is not a good idea for a couple of reasons  first, your audience will quickly get bored of trying to read all of the information; and second, unless you have a very large screen on which you can project your slides, the people in the back half of the room probably aren't going to be able to read the information on them (this is especially true if you are trying to fit more than about 6 lines of text on any one slide).

So, rather than trying to use PowerPoint to do all of the work for you, use it to augment your presentation, by giving just enough information to punctuate your points and help them stick in your audiences minds. Remember, your slides should contain your outline, not your story.

Another way to help make your meeting presentation go more smoothly is to take the time to know your audience. Whom will you be presenting to? Are they young, laid-back marketing types, or older, conservative executives? 

This sounds elementary, but there are many people who give the same meeting presentation to every audience, regardless of the people who make up that audience. If you have a younger audience that works in a more creative environment, you will probably want to have a lot of interaction with your audience, and use a lot of visual aids

If you are dealing with a group of senior-level bankers, however, you will want to use a no-nonsense approach that quickly and efficiently disseminates the information without taking up too much of anybody's time. In that scenario, you would also want to keep interaction to a minimum, unless one of the executives stops you to ask a question.

Using a visual outline and knowing your audience are two great ways to mentally prepare yourself for a meeting presentation. Using these techniques will show your audience that you are well prepared and knowledgeable about not only your topic, but also your audiences needs.

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