In this Tip, we highlight a simple presentation delivery tactic that is actually a best practice extending well beyond the presentation. The tactic is the act of confirming the time of your presentation as you begin your delivery.

Here is how it might sound:


"Thank you for your time today. We are excited to be able to deliver this business presentation to you and highlight the outstanding business fit we see between our companies. As we get started, I have a quick question. When we scheduled this meeting, we set aside an hour. Do you still have an hour available for our meeting today?"


Assuming the Decision Maker confirms they still have an hour for the meeting, you could continue in this way,


"Thank you for confirming this. I promise I won't stand here and present at you for an hour. Instead, I will share a brief presentation over the next 20 minutes or so, and we can continue in a roundtable discussion."


Why is this a best practice? Because being aligned on the time available for a meeting can help you pace it appropriately. This is particularly true for IMPAX-style presentations, which are designed to use a portion of the time for the presentation in an effort to set up a productive, closing-oriented roundtable discussion.

If we find out that the decision maker only has 30 minutes for our meeting when we're 25 minutes into the presentation, it would be a huge disappointment. By uncovering this at the beginning, we're able to edit the presentation in real time, making sure to hit the most important points before an abbreviated roundtable discussion. (Similarly, if we find out they only have 20 minutes, we might want to reschedule our meeting, knowing we can only get so much done in such a short amount of time.)

In the end, it is up to us as presenters to make the best use of whatever time we have with decision makers. Knowing how much time we have can only help us.

This simple tactic should also be used at the beginning of any scheduled phone call or virtual meeting. It is a simple question that can give us significant benefit.