A moment of panic when my presentation file got corrupted right before a client meeting

I was sitting in the conference room at a small marketing firm in Austin about 20 minutes before a big pitch. The file just stopped opening. I tried everything, restarting the laptop, checking the cloud backup, nothing worked. I ended up rebuilding the whole thing from scratch using only my speaking notes and some screenshots I had on my phone. The client actually said they liked the simpler version better. Has anyone else had a tech failure turn into a positive outcome like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_sam3d ago

Had a similar thing happen last year with a training deck for a big client. The file got corrupted 30 minutes before I had to present and I had to just talk through the main points from memory. Turns out the client was way more engaged because they had to actually listen instead of reading slides. Now I always keep a stripped down backup version just in case, it's saved me twice since then.

the_thomas3d ago

Well that's a pretty good way to look at it. I've had my own share of tech failures at the wrong moment and found that going without the fancy stuff forces you to really know your material. A simple backup with just the key points has gotten me through a couple tight spots too.

cole_flores443d ago

Used to be the guy who had thirty slides for everything but a couple close calls like that changed my mind completely. Now I keep my decks lean and actually talk through the content instead of reading off the screen, works way better every time.