By Dixie 
Most people literally prefer dying to making a presentation to an audience. Really. Surveys have shown three out of four people would rather be lying in the casket than giving the eulogy.
All of us are afraid of saying something stupid, looking stupid and doing something stupid in front of a group of people. But it is especially true when the boss has given you the assignment and your career could be effected positively or negatively. It’s scary. It feels like you are completely out of control and at the whims of the public speaking gods…
But it does not have to be that way. Here are five (fairly) simple steps to make giving a speech at least survivable and maybe even pleasurable.
1. Find out some basics. Talk with your boss about his/her expectations and goals for this presentation. Get details on:
Subject matter
Location, date and time of the presentation
Who is the audience, how many people expected
Time allotted for you to speak
Should this be a Formal PowerPoint presentation or a more conversational presentation?
If PowerPoint, is there someone internally to handle the audio visual equipment or are you expected to do it?
Handouts or no? If yes, simple marketing materials or something you would need to create?
2. Put together your presentation. There are many ideas and preferences for presentations, but here are the basics. The slides should consist of:
One or two slides about your company that includes your name and job title as well as co- workers (especially higher ups!) who will be attending. Make certain to get the names and titles right!
One slide that tells your audience what the presentation is about and how this information will benefit them.
The rest of the slides will highlight clear points you want to convey. Keep it simple-the slides should help you move from point to point easily as well as remind the audience of what your main points are. Don’t read the slides! There is nothing more boring! Use simple statements, pictures, graphs or bullet points and use stories and examples when you can rather than statistics. People tend to listen to and remember stories.
After the main points of your presentation, have one or two slides that quickly tell the audience what you just told them. This is also where you would put any next steps if appropriate.
The last slide should just read “Thank you” along with your name and contact information.
And very important: meet again with your boss to make sure the presentation matches his/her expectations. Make any suggested changes and run it by your boss one more time for any further revisions. You probably won’t have to do this every single time you give a presentation in the future, but this is a good practice for the first one or two. After the first presentation just ask your boss if he/she wants to review your presentations each time or not.
3. Practice your presentation. Most people skip this step but it is so important to help you to be calm and confident. Get somewhere where you won’t be disturbed and do two or three complete practices. Doing this will not only help with your emotions, but will show you how long your speech will take, as well as uncover any minor changes needed for clarity and presentation flow. The day of the presentation do one final practice. It is really important to do this.
4. Plan how you are going to look. This is the time to dress up, not down. As a basic rule, dress how your boss does in front of clients. For most business speeches, this means a well fitted dark suit, polished shoes and “TV anchor” (conservative) hair. You want to look like an authority figure, not some kid right out of college. Make sure your shoes are polished, your suit lint free, hemlines straight and long enough, and any make up on correctly. Keep in mind that your audience will be looking at all of you, not just your upper body. You don’t want them fixated on your wild bedhead, too short pants or smeared lipstick.
5. Take care of final preparations on the day of your presentation.
Double check on AV equipment and make sure it is onsite and working properly.
Make sure you have your hand outs as well as a printed copy of your presentation. Take a copy of the presentation on a thumb drive as well as have a copy on the desktop of the laptop you are using. This is in case anything goes wrong with the laptop so you can either use another laptop or (worse case) give the presentation without the audience seeing the PowerPoint presentation.
Eat breakfast. You don’t want your stomach growling during your talk!
Double check your make up, suit, shoes, hair. Go to the bathroom!
Be sure to go out and introduce yourself to several people in your audience right before you begin. That way you will see them as just people, and they will also see you the same way. Realize that most people admire you for speaking because they are afraid of doing it themselves!
Most importantly, take a deep breath and have fun. Realize that you have information that will help your audience. You are the expert today.
Enjoy the look on your boss’s face! You nailed it!