Skipping ahead

I was on the road last week presenting and am heading to the airport again this morning, but thought I'd share a tip that helped me last week. I was doing a new custom program for a client and wasn't sure of the amount of material that I needed. It really depended on how much discussion the group wanted to get in to. So I added an exercise close to the end that I could use if we looked like we were going to end too early. But on my speaking notes, I wrote down that if I wanted to skip the exercise, I needed to go to slide 96. Sure enough, we didn't need that exercise, so on the previous slide, I typed "9", "6", and hit the "Enter" key on my keyboard. Skipped right over the exercise without the audience even knowing it. This is a technique that all presenters should know about. To advance to any slide in your file, type in the slide number and press the Enter key. It instantly jumps to that slide. Use this to skip sections or jump to a special slide you have prepared to answer a question that you anticipated would come up. It is so much better than advancing through slides you want to skip as the audience watches information they are missing whip by. Make sure you have the slide numbers written down to do this and you will look like a pro every time.