[D485]Do I Have Pneumonia

But despite my worries, I'm lucky, when the delegates hear about it two of them tell me that the same thing happened to them also.

#2 My colleague is going to give a key presentation to invite investors to participate in a new project. When he switches on his laptop computer, it refuses to work and he is unable to make the presentation he had intended. He makes an attempt to improvise a pitch, but the event is a total failure. It was expensive in both money and time to arrange and now he's blown it.

get into this situation yourself. Work out how to make a presentation which can be done without any sales aids.

#3 In the days before digital projectors, I used an OHP supplied by the venues. Frequently they didn't work. As a result I made it my practice to travel earlier so I could have time to check the meeting room the evening before the event.

#4 Allow for the unexpected. Get to the meeting place early in case some disaster has struck.

* I've encounteredplaces where a pipe has burst in the ceiling above, a rugby club has had a party the night before and no one cleaned up.

* On a hot summer's day the heating was stuck on and the windows were non-openable.

* The event is scheduled for 9.00 and by 9:10 the facility manager who should have unlocked the meeting room has failed to turn up.

* The meeting is scheduled to start punctually at 9:00 the delegates drift in gradually through to 11:00.

* The projector is faulty and there is no replacement.

* The meeting room is right next to the canteen and there is a the noise of dishes and raucous conversation intruding into my event.

* Go for a drink the night before the meeting, and find out that a business companion is an out and out alcoholic who leads you astray. Wake up the next morning with a splitting headache|prize hangover.

* Assume that your audience has been told the wrong start time or was expecting you to talk about a different topic. And that they will have to leave early to catch a flight. So check and then check again.

* My bags have been lost by the airline 3 times and once someone took my case by mistake and I picked up his identical one and didn't reaize it until later at where I was staying.

* A construction crew begins noisily outside of the venue.

* After lunch a member of your audience is obviously drunk and starts to cause an incident.

* You get through the day and go to pay for the use of the meeting room only to find that your credit card is declined, there is no balance on your other one and you don't have a cheque book with you. (This happened to me twice. On one occasion, my client helped by coming round with my fee in cash, in an envelope).

* The flight I'm catching is delayed, then it's announced that when the plane leaves it will be diverted to another airport 200 miles from my destination. The only way to get home at that time being a taxi.

* We wait for 3 hours in the terminal because all landings in the London area are cancelled because of a snowfall. Finally we are allowed to take our seats on the plane, and then have two more hours wait before take off. On arrival at the destination it is so late that I miss my train connection, wait all night in a railway station, eventually reaching my hotel at 6 in the morning, sleep until 7.30 and go to meeting for 9.00.

* I've found myself stuck on a busy road miles from the meeting place, no taxis available, no buses and no signal on my cellular phone.

To make a sales presentation persuasive and apparently effortless ? ironically what is required is thorough preparation and practice. And a constant awareness of

Murphy's Law. ?If it can go wrong, it will?.