Any advice is appreciated. This is my first time giving a presentation for my career out of college and will affect whether I get a promotion. Everyone I’ve talked to say it’s not formal and to just explain what I’ve learned the past year during training. I very much dislike public speaking as I have a habit of forgetting what I was going to say and then start rambling or talking in circles about something that doesn’t have anything to do with the subject. There’s a 45 minute time limit with 10-15 minutes of Q&A afterwards, however my manager has asked me to try and keep it closer to 35-40 minutes. The way I started practicing was to write out a script for my slides and have been reading that out loud but whenever I open the slides and try to recall the script my mind completely blanks or I start rambling about things that I don’t want to focus on. Is there a way to get my mind to connect what I want to say from the script with the slides I’ve created and how do I make sure I’m not spending too much time on some parts of the presentation while not leaving enough time for the rest to feel rushed?
The audience is a mix of people I have daily interactions with to people I’ve never met before so I’m not entirely sure how to present myself. The presentation itself is a mix of technical and business information that I have ranging experience in from very in depth to basic knowledge. The presentation is in a conference room that will be hosting some of the audience virtually but I have to be in the front of the room so I won’t have the PowerPoint presenter notes available to me. I also have a bad habit of psyching myself out before presenting and feel that if I miss a single point I wanted to talk on then the whole thing is derailed. Do I just need to keep practicing for hours on end until I feel like I could present in my sleep? Please help. Thanks.