We all have them - presentations that went completely off the rails. Mine was last month presenting a ComEd audit to a hospital board. Halfway through explaining demand charges, the head of surgery starts arguing that 'electricity doesn't work that way' and tried to redraw my load curve diagram. What's your worst presentation disaster?
War Stories: Worst Client Presentation Ever
Val, that's painful but hilarious. Mine was when I mixed up two client files and spent 20 minutes presenting Georgia Power findings to a Duke Energy customer. The awkward silence when they pointed out they don't even have Georgia Power service was deafening. Always double-check your slides!
Oh boy, Beverly wins that one! My disaster was technical - projector died, backup laptop wouldn't connect, ended up drawing charts on a whiteboard while trying to explain $45K in savings to a room full of skeptical executives. Somehow closed the deal though.
Steve, the whiteboard save probably impressed them more than perfect slides would have. My worst was when the CFO's assistant scheduled our '30-minute overview' during their board's lunch break. Tried to explain complex rate schedule changes while people were eating sandwiches and checking phones. Learned to confirm meeting context ahead of time.
Randy, lunch meeting presentations are the worst! Had one where I'm explaining a $30K error and the CEO is more focused on his sandwich order being wrong. Now I always ask 'is this the right time and setting for this discussion?' before starting.
Here's mine: presenting to a manufacturing company where the facilities manager kept interrupting with 'that's not how we do things here.' Finally asked him to explain their process. Turns out he was confusing water billing with electric billing. Sometimes you have to let them dig their own hole.
Glen, I love the 'let them explain' strategy. My nightmare was when I discovered mid-presentation that the client had already implemented half my recommendations based on a preliminary email. Spent an hour explaining savings they were already getting. Now I do implementation status checks before every presentation.
James, that's actually a good problem to have! My disaster was the opposite - client asked me to present findings to their 'energy team' which turned out to be three summer interns. Felt like I was explaining demand charges to high schoolers. The actual decision-makers weren't even there.
Tamara, been there! Always confirm who's attending. My recent disaster: client's WiFi was down so none of my online rate calculators worked. Had to do demand charge calculations by hand in front of the room. Math anxiety is real, people - especially when everyone's watching!
Karen, manual calculations in front of clients are terrifying! These stories make me feel better about my mistakes. The common thread seems to be preparation and expectation setting. Maybe we should create a pre-presentation checklist from all these lessons learned?