I have a major sales presentation ???

Keep it INTERACTIVEand involve all senses in the presentation, movement, taste, smell, etc and do lots of ice breakers throughout the presentation. You may want to visit some teacher site like teachers.net and search archives for great ice breakers. Good Luck and Have FUN! www.behometoo.biz

Add humor to your presentation. If that means slipping some really funny slides in or telling some funny stories or jokes. One thing that I used to do during my presentations was do a jeopardy type thing at the beginning and throw out candy (you can buy a bag of tootsie pops cheaply at wal mart) to whoever answered my questions correctly. And then as I did my presentation I would deliberately ask questions related to it and if someone in the audience answered, they got a tootsie pop. It kept it fun and interesting.

A couple of thoughts. It sounds like there are some important subjects that you need to present. Subjects that will require support information and back up dialog from you. Fine. That's what you're there for. But 4 hours? There is no way you will be able to hold their attention for four hours without breaking it up a bit. And there is no way you are going to be able to give a four hour presentation without screwing something up. I never could anyway. So use that. Don't try to hide the parts that you screw up. Milk your mistakes for a laugh. Not only will your audience enjoy it, but you will be able to relax and go on and be much more effective. Not only will it get their attention back, but it will "humanize" you in their eyes. Which is exactly what you want. Don't forget, that's why you're there. Otherwise, they could simply read all the information off a load of passed out papers. Don't ever forget. What you are doing is something 95% of your audience would be terrified of doing. They're going to cut you a lot of slack. The first ten minutes are going to be hell. But if you can loosen it up a bit, you can have a great time. And if you are having a good time, they will too. I've never been one to use jokes. Self-depreciating humor has woked better for me. In fact I would sometimes intentionly make a mistake just to let everybody know that I was in fact human. Good luck.

I had to give a presentation for 15 mins once that seemed like a lifetime. I would try and inject some humour into it, dont make it to formal or people will just start drifting off. Make sure you have a few tea breaks!

You have no budget, but do you have how much it'll cost to implement? They can see the opportunity, and their return will depend on what they do with it, but you need to tell them how much they'll have to invest. So if you're selling a new headlight that's fantastic, you need to tell them how much it'll cost. You can also suggest different price ranges for it and tell them the profit margin per unit or whatever. If you're worried see about talking to an accountant or a bookkeeper. As for what to say for 4 hours. I don't really know. You didn't say how much time your presentation has taken before. My suggestion is to do a good lead-up. Introduce yourself, briefly describe the topic, describe especially the story of how you came up with the topic, people seem to love stuff like that. Tell them the basics of how it came to you, if it came through R&S you can always say you had the problem in mind that you wanted to address, and you all worked at it and came up with this solution. Then go on with your regular presentation. Or skip the previous step if it's all in your presentation already, you can use it for one-on-one meet and greets later. After your presentation you can fill in time by having a question/answer session. 60 people should have a lot of questions. Also keep in mind that though you have 4 hours, you may not have to present for 4 hours, and that might be boring. So field questions, and maybe allow some time at the end for people to come up and talk to you if they have additional questions. So basically use some time to engage the audience. And don't fret too much, you made it through the door, that's the biggest step, you baited the hook, they took a bite, all you have to do is reel them in now.

Please do not I repeat do not listen to mark.You say major presentation and leading automotive manufactures. these people are professional and will not cut any slack.mind you there is some slack they might cut,its just below your chin. you don't say what you have to talk about.but any way you can break it up in the middle for tea and snacks also at this time you can mix in with the group and perhaps talk to smaller groups.have you thought to take some one to help. if some one was there to help you could have more than one break. i am sure you know you can use up a lot of time .taking a break talking during the break and then starting up again.i would not be surprised that at the end you say you could have gone on longer.good luck.