Assembling a brilliant group of experts to sit together on a stage and discuss an important topic—a live panel discussion event—can be a great idea. If you do it right, you’ll end up with engaged listeners who learn a lot. But you—event planner, moderator, and panel member alike— need to plan ahead to keep it running smoothly and avoid becoming just another boring session.

Many companies and organizations hold events like this one: a sizable group of sales staff or employees gather in a hotel for a few days for a series of meetings to discuss corporate vision or a new direction, to celebrate a job well done, and to keep a team motivated. We recently helped a company’s leadership team prepare for their presentations at an important all-employee conference. We share a few general recommendations on how you can help prepare your team for your next-such event.

Sometimes we hear presenters—both within our workshops and in the real world—who try to lower our expectations before they even get started. They open by saying things like “I’m not really very good at this” or “I’m not exactly the world’s greatest expert on this topic” or even “I’m sorry I didn’t really get time to proof my slides.” These all fall into the category of “Bad Ways to Start a Presentation.” But there are other bad openings as well…