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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Presentation Palpitations

As part of your role you may be required to give a presentation to clients. This can cause a lot of stress. When you speak to clients you are not just representing Plankton: for that moment in time you are Plankton. Everything you say is a reflection on the company, and it is likely that each client’s opinion of Plankton will be altered by what you have to say. So as long as you perform perfectly, there shouldn’t be anything to stress about.

If you look for help outside Rob’s Office Tips (fine, whatever, as if I care) you will be told that you should know your material. This is great if you are trying to mould impressionable minds - like a “groovy” university lecturer or a cult leader - but a presentation to clients is different. Clients desperately need to know they are the smartest person in the room. So if acting stupidly doesn’t come naturally then make sure you know nothing about your topic and provide clients ample opportunities to correct you.

One common technique to overcome fear of public speaking is to picture the audience naked. However this can be quite taxing on the imagination. Spending all your time wondering what is under Frieda’s cardigan will certainly divert you from stress, but the extra mental effort may also distract you from your actual presentation. The company database contains pictures of many of our clients and by using photo editing software to combine these photos with pictures downloaded from select internet sites, you won’t have to imagine what these people look like naked, you will be able to see it for yourself. To ensure full disclosure, include the pictures in your presentation. This also works as an icebreaker.

If all goes well your clients will walk away feeling smarter and sexier than they will ever be in real life.

2 comments:

  1. I will be doing a presentation in Russia next week and shall take everything in stride. For I am one of those "groovy" people you spake of

    Jon

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  2. Very wise Mr Rob. A question, should you include the naked images you've created as part of the presentation? I mean, sure, it's a talking point, but I can't help but think there would be a small number of people out there that would take offence to being to used for porn - strange I know, but it is probably true.

    As a practice, I used your photo from above. Let's just say the results were............surprising.

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