I have to admit, the experience of presenting to the client was very different from what I expected it to be.
Due to problems that were out of our control, we were unable to present personally to the client, and had to reschedule to present to him via skype.
At first I was very skeptical about this, mainly because I felt that presenting live to a client gives you the opportunity to personally interact with them throughout and hence creating an immediate connection; something that skype would not allow. However, it's true that these type of situations do happen in real life and all that was left to do was prepare for this type of presentation and find an approach that would allow me to achieve the same goals as if it were a live presentation.
I decided to do a powerpoint presentation, because I would then be able to guide him through step by step without the need to single out particular aspects of it.
I practiced a couple of times, but as in any presentation you can never prepare enough. Halfway throughout my presentation, I realized I was not going to have enough time to finish up in 7 minutes, and had to improvise and cut off some aspects that I considered weren't as important as others; and fortunately was able to finish in time for him to ask a couple of questions.
If I were to think about something I did to make myself memorable, it would have to be the way in which I presented. No matter how nervous you are, you cannot let that show through your presentation. Rather stand up and present your project as if it's the award winning piece and believe it throughout. I found that by doing this and showing that confidence (even if you may not necessarily feel that confident with it) you're able to grab the clients attention and get him equally excited about your project!
His feedback was very positive, and his enthusiasm towards all of our presentations I think helped us calm down quite a bit!
It was definitely a learning experience throughout the project. I would like to keep on working on client presentations and maybe even consider doing mock presentations for other clients in order to get the hang of it and gain that confidence that we all need when pitching our ideas!
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