Till fairly recently I had been spared the trauma of having to make a sales presentation. I have attended a number of them and although some presenters make it look like a piece of cake, between the lines, I could tell that it is not an easy thing to do. To stand before an audience, friendly or hostile, is not for everyone. Sometimes the pressure involved and the responsibility can be overwhelming. I was lucky in the fact that the presentation I had to make was to a team of chemical researchers who were very interested in a product that my company was developing that particularly interested them.

Despite the fact that I knew everything that there was to know about this product, I wanted to be really sure that the presentation will go over well. I set aside as much time as possible to learn about making presentations, and worked in conjunction with our marketing communication people to set up an impressive PowerPoint presentation, that even included some animation features to help me get some crucial points across. I have to say that when I received a hearty round of applause at the end of my presentation, I knew that all my efforts had been worthwhile.

Last year I went to Geneva on a business trip. The tour was regarding our partnership with a Geneva based client and I wanted to confirm the authenticity of the client before giving a word. We also asked the client to give us a detailed presentation of the project that we intend to take up. Initially I was reluctant to deal with a foreign client but the project was too luring to reject and so I agreed to attend the project meeting in Geneva and I am glad that I did. In Geneva, I was fortunate to witness one of the best Executive Presentations of my life. It was absolutely perfect, unique and professional as well. It was a successful tour, I ended up finalizing the deal, but the most important thing I learned from the tour was to give good executive presentations.

Those papers lying on my desk always irritated me. I had office paper clips but never felt like using them.   I never wanted to use those old looking paper clips; those boring ones irritated me a lot.   I wanted to get rid of these papers; throwing them away was one of the options. Then my colleague brought me a bunch of good looking square shaped paper clips.  They were attractive and were available in different colors. Now my desk looks so colorful I enjoy working here.   And guess what the entire office has theses colored paper clips now.  Of course not all of them square shaped.  Some are circular, some are rectangular, some are oval; almost of all the shapes are available now.  Pink, red, green, brown, orange, yellow; now the office desk looks so colorful that when a visitor comes he can't stop admiring our workplace.

If you could do this then you would be playing to your strengths. Executives need to be able to use their presentation skills all the time. They must present to communicate. They must present to convince. They must present to the board or to their employees. Their voice is a well polished tool and their ability to use it is a strength that has been well developed. Their ability to communicate is a matter of pride. Owing to their importance, many institutes offer presentation skills workshops and presentation skills classes. They help the learners master the PowerPoint tool apart from the general presentation skills.