How much time in advance should my presentation be ready?

How many times!? How many times I have seen people preparing their presentations in the last minute before they go on stage! How many times I have heard those same people saying that “they still do not have slide deck, but that’s not a big deal, they will just create it during their flight or at the evening before the conference“. And at the same time there are people who ask me the question above – how much time in advance should my presentation be ready? In this blog post I want to give my 2 cents on the subject and explain you why I think the way I think. Sounds good? Let’s do it then.

Every single time you are about to present remind yourself the 3 important reasons why you should always care about your presentations. Once you remember those and add the fact that you are speaking and delivering what you are delivering mostly because and for your audience, you should quickly realize that preparing yourself in the room and 1 hour before your talk is not the best possible option to say at least.

You have to be ready at least 1 week in advance with your presentation. And I mean with both the content and the slide deck. Now, what are you achieving this way:

1. You respect your audience – preparing earlier shows that you care about the quality of your delivery!
2. Make your life easier – no last minute pressure, so you can do cooler things – socializing with your audience, for example.
3. Set yourself up for success – having at least a week to refine your content and rehearse more is only helping you.

So what’s your opinion on the topic? We would love to hear it from you!

P.S. Imagine that you decide to contact an agency like ours to help you with the design of your slides. Then you have to start the overall preparation even earlier. That does not mean that agency like us will not be able to help you if you are just 2 or 3 days away from your talk. It just means that if you contact us, for example, we will have to charge you higher rates because of the unpredicted workload that will be added to our team. So here – one more reason why you should start preparing your talk earlier! 😉