If it can go wrong. . .

#1 I’m travelling to a meeting and the airline loses my bag. I wait until 10pm to see if it will turn up. What’s concerning me is that tomorrow I have to present the meeting wearing the casual clothes I’m wearing now.

But it turns out ok, when the others hear my story two of them tell me that the same thing happened to them also.

#2 My colleague is going to give an important presentation to invite investors to participate in a new project. When he switches on his laptop computer, nothing happens and he is unable to make the presentation he had intended. He attempts to improvise what he was going to say, but the event is a total failure. It was expensive in both money and time to arrange and now he’s blown his opportunity.

get into this situation yourself. Work out how to make a presentation which you can give with no sales aids.

#3 Before I bought a digital projector, 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 been in places 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 8.00 and twenty minutes after that time the staff member who should have unlocked the conference room has failed to turn up.

* The meeting is scheduled to start promptly at 8.00 the delegates drift in gradually up to an hour and a half late.

* The projector is faulty and there is no replacement.

* The conference room is right next to the staff restaurant and there is a loud clattering 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|thundering hangover.

* Assume that your meeting attendees have 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 see a customer. So check and double check.

* My bags have been lost by the airline on four occasions and once someone took my suit-carrier by mistake and I picked up another one of the same type belonging to him and didn’t reaize it until I unpacked at the hotel.

* A construction crew begins noisily outside of the meeting room.

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

* You finish the event and go to pay for the use of the meeting room and discover that your credit card is declined, there is no money 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 onwards transport at that time being a taxi.

* We wait for 4 hours in the terminal because all landings in the London area are cancelled because of a snowfall. Finally we embark the aircraft, and then have two more hours delay before finally departing. 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 in the early hours of 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’.