Everybody presents. Whether you are making a sales call, giving a report in a college class or speaking to your colleagues during a meeting, giving an extraordinary presentation is one of the best things you can do to increase you impact and success.

Many think great speaking is what happens in front of the audience, and while that is true, they fail to grasp the importance of preparation. A great presentation is given is front of people but it is prepared carefully and thoroughly in advance.

Here are eight preparation techniques used by professional speakers that you can use to crush it next time you deliver a presentation.

1. Find out things about your audience that proves you worked hard to get to know them and their needs.
2. Anticipate questions that your audience might raise and prepare the answers.
3. Anticipate problems that might arise (in the setting, with your technology, etc.), and plan how you’ll prevent them or solve them if they occur.
4. Understand the day-to-day concerns of audience members and speak about solutions to those concerns.
5. Speak from what you’ve done and learned to demonstrate expertise.
6. By your appearance and demeanor, give your performance a level of gravitas that your audience wasn’t expecting.
7. Include the indication that you have even more useful ideas and insights you can deliver if you are given more time to present in the future.
8. Design your presentation so that the audience know more and feel better when you finish.