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Before you deliver your presentation, know how much time you will have allotted.

If you are the one scheduling the meeting, you have more control here, but

be respectful of your audience's time.

You don't wanna make the meeting so

short that you don't have enough time to get through everything.

But you also don't wanna book too much time and take over someone's entire day.

If you have been asked by someone else to present, for example,

the company leaders may have invited you to share a presentation at their standing

weekly meeting.

Be sure to clarify in advance how much time you will have on the agenda.

I would book 45 minutes to an hour for our call center presentation.

If you are presenting to just a few people, you may need less time.

If you are presenting to a larger group, you'll wanna book a little more time, so

that you have plenty of opportunities to field questions.

As your presentation comes together, begin reading your notes and

the content out loud.

Consider this a dry run for now and not a full blown rehearsal.

Reading out loud serves several purposes.

First something that makes perfect sense as a written sentence or bullet point,

may not sound as natural when you say it out loud.

You may decide to edit things that you've written or

say something differently when you practice speaking it.

Second, when you practice actually saying what you going to present,

it will give you a clear idea of how time you'll need for each slide.

Some slides will take more time than others.

And third, practicing aloud will help with pacing or

the rate at which your speaking when delivering the information.

Many of us have a tendency to speak quickly when we are nervous.

Or when we've spent so much time with the information,

we don't realize others may need additional time for it to sink in.

When you are practicing what you will say for each slide speak in a steady and

controlled manner.

If you are addressing particular things on the slide like a chart, or a graph,

give your audience a moment or two to digest the information.

And before you move on from one slide to the next, pause for a moment.

This will give your audience time to ask any questions.

You should add in time for interactivity,

ask your audience if they have questions or need clarifications.

You'll have a good idea of the types of questions they may have based on your

research.

With that said, it's good practice to keep your eye on the clock.

You don't wanna spend all of your alloted time on the first two or three slides, and

then have to race through or even skip important content later.

Also, if someone asks a question that you'll be covering in a future slide,

it's totally appropriate to say,

that's a great question, we're actually going to get to that in a few minutes.

Make sure to let me know then if you still need more information.

After you've run through your presentation a few times on your own,

you will know which slides take the most time.

Make a mental note before you begin presenting

that you want to get through a certain amount of content by a certain time.

For example, if your presentation starts at 11:00 AM, and

you have 30 minutes, and ten slides to get through, you may want to stay on track

to get through slides one through five by 11:10 AM.

Then, you'll want to get through slides six through ten by 11:20 AM, and

have ten minutes remaining for questions and answers.

This of course is just an example, your presentation may be heavier on content at

the beginning, middle, or end, so you may distribute your time differently.

I like to appoint someone in my audience as time keeper.

You could ask a trusted colleague ahead of time to give you a signal when you have

a certain amount of time remaining.

It's also a great idea to let your audience know at the beginning,

that you want to respect everyone's time by staying on track, leaving time for

discussion at the end.

And wrapping up the meeting as scheduled, since we all have busy calendars.