Dancing in Quarter to Three Time

Sunday I had to deliver a bit of a presentation to the 40 employees at my store about sales & customer service and all that crap. I had only a basic idea about what I wanted to say, and some situation cards written up for a silly seller/customer role-playing thing, but I really didn't feel to confident about what I was presenting or how the store would react to it. I had to fill up 20 minutes, of which I felt I could get a good 5 minutes of my talking, and another 5 of no volunteers for situation skits.

When it came to my turn to speak, however, I felt pretty good. I started talking about how customers could react to sellers attitudes and behaviors, and I went over the scores that our store received recently (my General Manager gave these to me just before the meeting). I didn't really care if anyone reacted to me, and one of the associates spoke up to add his bit, which I helped a bit. I thought it went pretty well and I started going a little long over my allotted time without even pulling out the situation cards.

When it was all over, my General Manager said I did a good job, but he did mention that I kept walking back and forth too much. I thought about how I was moving around, an he was right. The entire presentation I kept walking forward and backward, left and right, and I think nearly in circles. It was like I was dancing by myself to an invisible waltz beat. For all intents and purposes, I might as well have been giving a recital.

Now I realize I'm just writing this as though it were worse that it really was, but the I know the reason I kept moving like a freaking boxer the whole presentation was because I wasn't really prepared. I did well with the things I said because I knew what I was talking about, but body language never lies; I wasn't ready to give my presentation and there was no way I was going to get away with the lie.

The moral of the story is, of course, don't be the presentation. I should have broken out the situation cards first and let the group be miserable. Instead of dancing I could have looked like I was making their lives a living hell. Yeah, that's what I should have done.