What do you do? If it's two in the afternoon your boss runs in and says, I just got called to headquarters. We have five important clients coming here in half an hour. I can't give the new business presentation. It's up to you. Here.

It is a handy mistake. What do you do? Obviously, you can't follow all the principles we talked about in this course. You've got limited time. What I recommend is you read it carefully, you go through the slide deck, and I'm assuming it's a typical boring data dump with lots of text. You look at it, you read it, you try to figure out in your own mind, what are the top five messages, then you figure out what's the most important thing you really want the audience to know?

And start with that just talk. looking directly at your prospects don't have a single slide up. Talk to them for the first minute. Give them the sense you really do know about this, even if you don't know that much. Then go through more or less the way it was given to you. That's the best you can do.

But you've at least established right out of the gate, that you can communicate one idea forcefully and nothing else, they'll remember that. So, don't panic. This just shows your boss respects you enough to stand in for him or her. make the best of it. Practice once if you have time, but get ready to say something so you don't just start off who I was just given this. Let me read this with you.

That's not how you want to come across.