Don’t Stress Yourself: Nail the “Decision Focus”

Over the past month, we’ve been helping CFOs with financial quarterly data to the Board, and sales leaders with revised presentations and executives presenting company wide information. As usual, we deal with two key issues: fear-of-public speaking and the quality of the presentation material. Inevitably, it’s the executive’s feeling that the presentation is below-par (e.g., boring, too long, hard-to-read, not focused, etc.) that creates additional (and unnecessary) pressure on the presenter, creating a “downward spiral”.

Almost all these presentations have one common challenge: the inability to clearly identify the Decision Focus. Once we do, we’re able to re-write the content, structure and style of the presentation. By re-designing the presentation-speaker connection, we create much more enthusiasm about making the presentation.

By Decision Focus, we mean what you really want the audience to do about the information you’ve analyzed. This means you need to know what kind of support you need from your audience for your decision.

An example. In many of today’s quarterly financial updates to the Board, the numbers aren’t impressive. The most important issue for the Board isn’t what the numbers are and why certain sales were down while expenses certain didn’t drop as fast; the goal is to understand the implications for future decision-making. They want your ideas as to what changes should be considered, based on trend analysis and additional related research to get the company on track. That means the presenter must ask and answer these questions before designing the presentation and make sure to integrate whatever additional information is needed in the core presentation so the Board can consider the options.

This has a double benefit. First, you’re presenting the numbers in a way that helps the Board make better decisions, now or in the future (since sometimes it takes a little time for the trend to be clear). Second, as an executive, you’re demonstrating your competence, insights, and leadership skills – which raises your value within the organization.

In sum, take the initiative and identify the audience’s Decision Focus and gear the presentation to give the Board that extra value they really want from you!

This Month's Presentation Tips: Effective Webinars

The webinar is an excellent tool for reaching people a large group of people, cost-effectively, which is why more and more people are using them to pre-sell potential customers and educate people. Indeed, you undoubtedly receive lots of invitations from companies using services provided Citrix and WebEx etc. (including some by our CEO). Increasingly, we get requests from people on presentation tips for delivering webinars, so here goes:

• Goal: To get the audience to pay attention to your “pitch” and then the desired action
• Context: People who are somewhat interested in your topic will register (depending on eh quality of your invitation-presentation). How long they stay listening to your presentation depends on (1) how engaging you are throughout the presentation and (2) the extent to which there are distractions. Your webinar presentation has to be even better than it would be if face-to-face, because the normal supportive elements are missing. You can’t use eye contact, body language to engage people, and there is no “common courtesy” element: people’s willingness not to walk out of a boring presentation and disturb others in the audience.
• Audience Readiness: Attendees are prepared to give you most of the time you’ve planned for the presentation, so it’s YOURS TO LOSE! In the theater, the performers exaggerate their features, and make-up and dress to enable the audience to pick up on nuances; you need to make similarly compensating decisions.
• Presentation: The webinar presentation has to be even more succinct, engaging and compelling – in terms of structure and style – than it would be if it were a face-to-face presentation. Use the Webinar provider’s tools to help you. Use polls at the beginning of the presentation to develop “personalized” rapport. Use a conversational tone with the presentation, to encourage people to feel comfortable hearing you through and asking questions. Answer questions directly, so the relationship is maintained. In an hour-long presentation, plan to present for 20-25 minutes and use the rest of the time for polls and other interactions.
• Speaker: The key is your vocal communications – since there are no other cues. Speaking conversationally “to” the audience, not “at” them; keep the tempo quick to give it energy. Keep language simple – don’t get lost in jargon and acronyms. Modulate pitch and volume. If you’re enthusiastic about your topic and transmit it, then you will succeed.