Anything to do with your employment is political anyway and if you have been selected to make a presentation at a sales meeting you can bet your bottom dollar that it is not intended to make you look good it is intended to make the sales manager or one of his pets look good. And remember, by the time you have arrived at the podium every one else from the Managing Direct to the sales manager has done their bit and everyone is waiting to get to the bar so no one is listening anyway.

They say keep it short and start with a joke if you were the star act and being paid several million for the finally then you might just attract someone’s attention. Remember, you are the butt of the joke it was intended that you be embarrassed as you struggle to be heard over several hundred raised voices preparing to leave the room if many of them have not done so already. There are a couple of your colleagues who have been seeded with questions intended to embarrass you so any attempt at making a serious presentation is doomed to fail.

Keeping in mind that no one is listening anyway, that is until you are bushwhacked, start by taking control and asking the sales manager if he would have the decency to stop talking whilst you are making your presentation. Get the mob on your side: The sales manager started this conference with two jokes, he mentioned the commission structure and next years targets I am going to end the conference with one joke and ask the sales manger to close the conference.

I used this ploy at a European Sales Managers conference for a very large American Drugs company I worked for in the 1970s where the Sales Director used the final speech to assassinate the speaker in the hope they would leave soon after the conference and certainly before the next. Was I fired? No, Did I leave? No. I was promoted into a newly created position of international sales trouble shooter working alongside the directors. The sales director was moved to the retail division where he had started life. Today attempts to fire someone in that manner would be called constructive dismissal and compensation would be paid to the injured party. There were many competent people lost to businesses in the 1970s and 1980s because a bullying manager felt threatened by employees who quietly got on with their job.

Having left the army in 1969 Richard Reeve moved into sales starting his civilian working life as a salesman for an oil company. Within six months Richard became the area sales manager. At the age of 45 Richard owned three trucking companies moving precious metals around Europe, a Cab company so that he could go out at night and not worry about drink driving and in 1990 took on the job of Chairman of a small merchant bank operation with offices in Jersey, Switzerland and the USA. He was also asked to chair an American Marine Insurance Company. Richard gave up his directorships in the mid 1990s and began writing articles for several magazines including an arts magazine. Richard has been told by other writers that his style is sharp, punchy and humorous and a difficult act to follow.