How To Prepare For a Presentation To Senior Leadership

you've probably heard the age-old joke where the tourists ask the new yorker how do i get to carnegie hall and the new yorker answers practice well it is no different with senior leadership how do you get to senior leadership practice stay tuned today on moxie talk i am going to unpack everything you need to know to prepare for a presentation to senior leadership [Music] hi everyone i'm fia fassbinder and welcome to moxie talk where we help you find your voice share your message and lead with confidence before we get started with today's video i would love for you to hit that alert button if you are watching me on youtube you'll get notified of any of the new videos i put out and if you enjoy this video please make sure to share it with your colleagues friends and family and subscribe to our channel before i dive into the ins and outs of preparing for a senior leadership presentation i want to go back in time to over a decade ago when i first created a workshop on how to prepare now coming from an acting background my preparation process that i was suggesting to these presenters was long it included many steps rehearsals around your voice and your body and you name it soup to nuts this was a six week rehearsal process that no executive i've ever met has time for i learned very quickly that in the real world presenters do not have time to prepare like broadway actors there are so many things to think about from your content to your delivery to the q a you name it so in the last decade i have continued to hone the preparation process that i suggest and my trainers suggest for presenters now presenting to senior leadership is a beast unto itself and that is definitely something that i have learned in the trenches working with so many teams that have to present to senior executives so the the tips that i'm going to share with you today are practical they're real world and they will help you prepare for a senior leadership presentation and the good thing about these tips that i'm going to give you now is that they can be fleshed out you can use them to present for a presentation you just found out about and as this evening or tomorrow morning or you can use them to create a really beefed out preparation process if this is a high-stakes executive briefing now i've done several videos before about preparation if you are interested in some more high-level tips about preparation please watch my video on how to practice even when you don't want to watch my video about why practice this one is really going to deep dive into preparation for senior leadership and i'm going to break down this preparation into five phases ideate execute edit practice and feedback time permitting all right here we go [Music] phase one ideation now i am a huge proponent and all of my moxie speaker coaches are huge proponents of not starting in powerpoint when you are in the ideation phase of thinking about and brainstorming the content for your presentation to senior leadership i don't care if it's a three-minute presentation or preparing an entire 45-minute presentation i always recommend that you go analog start by either using go to old-fashioned pen to paper fingers to keyboard use a google doc or a word doc but do not start in powerpoint if you are thinking i am so visual i actually imagine my entire presentation in my powerpoint then i would recommend you use sticky notes and go old school like the hollywood movie directors do and you can storyboard out your presentation before you go to powerpoint but it's really important that you do not start in powerpoint i know this is a really difficult habit to break but i can tell you right now i can always tell when a presenter has started in powerpoint because their presentations lack narrative arc they lack flow sometimes they're stuck in the weeds in areas it's really important that before you go to your powerpoint take a step back and let's plan out the narrative arc of this presentation so what should you be ideating what should you be thinking about when you go analog the first step of any presentation to senior leadership is who is your audience audience analysis is such a powerful tool and most of us don't do it we create presentations that are one size fits all and i always say that a one-size-fits-all presentation is like a one-size-fits-all suit it fits nobody well so it's really important that the first step of your brainstorming is to think about who will be in that audience and it's not good enough to just say oh the senior leaders there are specific questions you need to ask yourself about these people and we call this the no feel do remember audience analysis and this is really a bare bones if you think about nothing else ask yourself these four questions before you begin to write your presentation and even though we say no field do remember that is actually not the order that we are going to think about the questions the first question you have to ask yourself is what do i want my audience to feel when this presentation is over and i know most of us don't think about what we want our audience to feel but this is a really important first step do we want them to feel trust in us that we have the solution and we are going to take this solution and execute on it and senior leadership can feel safe and relaxed and trusting in our solution do we want them possibly to feel a little bit of anger maybe that there is a problem uh and we want them really to feel the pain of this problem so that when we present our solution uh it's really going to be uh create some buy-in or do we want them to feel light-hearted and energetic and maybe inspired so what do you want your audience to feel at the end of this presentation the next question to ask yourself is what do you want them to do at the end of this presentation senior leadership wants you to make suggestions you are presenting to them because you are a subject matter expert and they are looking to you to make recommendations and suggestions so what do you want them to do at the end of this presentation if you do not have a do if you do not have a call to action you're really missing an amazing opportunity that will make you look so shiny so great when you present that call to action at the end so what do you want your audience to feel what do you want them to do and the next question is what do you want them to know but by this i don't mean what information do they need to know what i'm really saying is what information do they need to know in order to do what you need them to do so this is hard for some of us that want to throw everything but the kitchen sink into our presentations no they don't need everything but the kitchen sink they need to know about the faucet so that they can act on the solution to the faucet at the end of the presentation so what do you need them to know to do what you need them to do and the last question and this is borrowed from my time as a tedx speaker coach is what do you want them to remember now we would love to say that people remember everything in our presentations but let's face it they're not going to especially senior leaders that hear a ton of presentations on the regular so if only one thing if they are only going to take away one thing from your presentation what is that one thing that you need them to remember now those are the four questions that you need to ask yourself before you do anything else and we call this beginning with the end in mind because you're really thinking about the end result and this will dictate everything that goes into your presentation everything in your presentation should feed directly into your answers to what do i want them to feel no do and remember now if it doesn't feed directly in if it's you know maybe extra information or the wrong call to action or giving them information that's going to set the wrong tone we call this murdering our darlings it's really difficult to do i know all of us we want to put so much into our presentation but we have to keep in mind that it's really important with senior leadership especially to not only end on time but end early these people are so busy time is money let them know what you need them to feel do know remember in the least amount of time possible and that is only possible if you do some audience analysis before you even start ideating and you begin with the end in mind [Music] phase two execute so now you've ideated you've brainstormed you've come up with your audience analysis and you are ready to execute uh which basically means crafting your presentation and the way i teach uh clients and the way i train all of my coaches to teach clients to craft their presentation is creating what we call an audience journey map and the audience journey map structure is so flexible that once you internalize it you can use it for an entire presentation you can use it to structure a whole meeting you can use it to answer q a you can even use it to just uh stand up in a meeting and give a five minute presentation so let's unpack what is involved in an audience journey map now an audience journey map is really a glorified outline but the reason i don't use the word outline is outline usually we think about our high school or college english classes right where we had to outline our essays the difference between that and a presentation is usually essays are for the purpose of informing in my opinion your audience journey map isn't just to inform it's not just to give them information it's to take them on a journey right from what they were thinking when they uh when you started your presentation to what they're thinking feeling and doing differently at the end that's why we do all that great audience analysis so this is really an outline but the difference is your mindset you're thinking about how you are taking those senior leaders hands and taking them on a journey so that the information you provide to them is provided in a way that will cause them to take action so the first step on that audience journey map is your introduction now most people's introductions during a presentation even to senior leaderships are boring i know it's really asking you to go out on a limb to create a hook that would be somewhat different than other senior leaders presentations but i guarantee you it will not be a waste of your time i am a firm believer that all audiences senior leaders included want three things they want to learn something and they want to learn it from you because you're the one presenting they want to be engaged nobody not even senior leaders wants this news fest and they want the presenter to do well so if you can think of a way to hook those senior leaders with um an engaging quote a statistic a provocative question an intellectual challenge even a little bit of humor with a story something that's short sweet but will get them to lean in that is the way to start your presentation think of a way to hook that audience and think of a way to do it in under two minutes i know it's a it's a big challenge but it is well worth taking the time to think about an engaging hook after your hook you need what we call your call to adventure now call to adventure is really a glorified agenda but there's nothing more boring than somebody standing up and putting up the slide of the agenda of their presentation equally as import as boring as an outline so instead of having an agenda think about your agenda in terms of why this matters why does this presentation matter to both the senior leaders and to you what is important about this so in as few sentences possible if you can give them an agenda but then piggyback this on why this is important why this matters you're going to pour jet fuel on that typical agenda and if these senior leaders don't know you you might want to have a greeting in there too you know your name your title the top the what you're speaking about if they do know you then you you can skip that so you just need in your introduction your hook and your called adventure now moving on to the body of your presentation i like to think of the body of your presentation in terms of step stones and you are again taking those senior leaders hands and you are walking them across that river step by step right and those step stones there's three of them and this is really how you are going to organize the content in your presentation and there are so many different stuff stones you can use in our workshops i uh i talk about 11 different stepstone templates that you're going to you can use in your presentation i'm just going to call out a few of them a few of my favorites that work for senior leadership presentations you can use the what why how step stone templates so one is what two is y and three is how you can use the what so what now what so step stone one is what step zone two is so what and step stone three is now what uh and another great one that works for a lot of people is problem context to problem and solution so there are three step stone templates that are pretty um versatile that you can use for senior leadership presentations and there's simply a way of organizing the information in your presentation so that you can get that audience to do what you want them to do at the end of the presentation this is the no part of your audience analysis now to the outro in your outro you need to bring it back to the beginning right so quickly remind them of why this is important recap your main points then you need to have a call to action this is the do what do you want those senior leaders to do at the end of this presentation and it could be a think about that's also a do but more than likely it's to take action on something you've presented and then many presentations need also a bridge so this could be a bridge to other presenters other teams uh the campaigns you have going on uh bigger pro programs or projects how are you going to bridge your presentation to uh the the bigger picture of what's going on at the company so there you go those are the steps in your audience journey map you can rewind this and listen to them again if you didn't get it down but the great thing about this audience journey map is you can hit each point on this journey map quickly this could be a three minute presentation or you could flesh out each of those steps of the audience journey map and create a 45 minute presentation this journey map doesn't dictate the length of your presentation all it is doing is providing a structure that will move these senior leaders to action i would say with senior leaders and i'm gonna keep hitting on this point keep it short and sweet these are busy people and they will turn off if you start to ramble on so try to get to the end of that audience journey map as quickly as possible while still providing great content and as much content as they need now before i go on to phase three which is edit you might be thinking well where does my powerpoint come in if i have a powerpoint remember i said don't start in powerpoint so if you've now done your ideating and you've done your executing and you've created your audience journey map either in a google doc or a word doc or in sticky notes and storyboard now you can move all of those great stops on your audience journey map to powerpoint or to keynote or whatever you slide deck platform you use but you need to start without that slide deck and then transfer it in [Music] phase three is edit now editing can be as minimal or as extensive as you need it depends on again how important this presentation is how much time you have to prepare for this presentation and uh how new this presentation is to you so i always recommend that you edit through binoculars and a magnifying lens which means that you are going to edit from a macro level big picture and then from a micro level which is getting into the weeds so what would be macro editing this is looking at the the structure and the flow of your presentation are you spending about an equal amount of time on each of these stops on the journey map are you getting two in the weeds are you missing stops are you missing transitions so that it seems clunky uh are you running overtime and you need to find a place to to pare down that is all macro editing and micro editing would get into our word choice are you using too much jargon that these p these senior executives may not understand are you going uh are you sounding more like a college essay than your own authentic speaker persona or the way you would speak we want our presentations even to senior leadership to sound conversational so if you find yourself using words that you wouldn't usually say take it out murder those darlings and replace it with a more conversational tone so word choice is really the micro editing and i will say if time is of the essence then skip the micro just go to the macro what's the most important part of editing is what i call editing on your feet and what does that mean well presentations are meant to be heard not read so if you edit in your head and you are reading your presentation to yourself you have no idea of how it sounds and it's almost impossible to edit it this way so you must edit on your feet which really means editing aloud reading or saying your presentation aloud if it's not uh written out verbatim then saying it aloud and editing on uh what you're hearing now if you want to say it aloud and record yourself and then go back and edit that's great too some people can't hear themselves speaking and do the editing in real time either way works but the most important takeaway here is you must must must say it aloud in order to edit [Music] phase four is practice now i get it that you don't have time to practice like a broadway actor i told you the story of the slide getting iterated over time as i was training uh executives and presenters but there is a down and dirty practice method and i will say um i will say it over and over and over again that practice is the one way to feel confident with your presentation because when you actually give get up to give it to those senior leaders it doesn't feel like the first time you've done it it feels like the fifth sixth seventh eighth time it's just the first time in front of those leaders so practice is so important but i get it that a lot of times we don't have time to practice or we think we don't have time to practice so what is the down and dirty practice method that you can use the first thing to know is that you need to simulate the real condition so set up chairs if it's an in-person presentation in the in the um in the same form that these senior leaders are going to be in i know that sounds silly uh if it's a virtual meeting start uh start a zoom meeting and use all the tech use your slides use your mic use the camera do the breakout sessions try to do it as close to the real thing as possible so that there are no surprises you've worked out all the kinks before you get up there if this means only one time through like this better than nothing i'm telling you it's one practice is better than no practices by far it's 100 percent more than zero so it couldn't hurt uh while you're practicing here are a few things to think about first of all you're confident level you might feel super nervous inside your heart's racing you're sweating but remember that people don't know you're nervous unless you show them you're nervous so if from the outside you appear calm and confident that is going to do so much for your message to senior leadership they want to see that you are calm that you are confident that you are an authority that they can trust you you do not want their mirror neurons firing off that they're feeling squirmy and nervous for you so what specifically should you look for what are the clues you can look for that you are uh appearing confident your voice how is your voice are you speaking at a great pace are you pausing is your voice quivering if so can you stop it from quivering are you able to emphasize certain words to uh break up the monotone of your presentation and i could ask the same thing about your body are there any clues that your body is nervous are you shaking are your eyes downcast are you getting small with your body language all of these are major clues to those senior leaders in the room that you're nervous and i know all of us get nervous but there is nothing worse than your message to these senior leaders being undermined before you even start because you're nervous and i'm telling you right now if you are that nervous in front of these senior leaders they will either feel sorry for you or start to discredit you and what a shame that is especially because i know you all have amazing messages to present now you might be thinking that i have no idea how to correct my quivering voice or to correct my body language i watched myself back and i now know i'm doing these things and i have no idea how to correct them i have videos i've got your back i have many videos on how to display confidence when you're presenting in your voice and your body so please take a look and watch those so that you can find ways to coach yourself through those nerves uh is speaking of coaching yourself through those nerves a lot of the work i do with presenters is not about adding tools to their speaker toolbox in terms of delivery it's about just taking or eliminating any kind of speaking habits that would undermine your message of authority so whether that's speaking too quickly or using too many filler words or uh wishy-washy body language lack of eye contact these are all speaking habits that are easily correctable so that what people are focusing on is your amazing presentation and not your nervous speaking habits [Music] phase five last but not least is feedback and i say feedback is phase five um with the caveat that this is if time permits i know sometimes there is not time for feedback but if you can get feedback again this is dictated just like everything else by how new is this presentation how long is this presentation how much time do you have to prepare for this presentation and how high stakes is this presentation obviously if the answer to those questions is it's very high stakes and i have a lot of time to prepare and it's brand new i would think that your feedback uh and your preparation process should be a lot more comprehensive and robust than this is a presentation you just found out about and you have to give it an hour so that being said what kind of feedback should you get first and foremost feedback from yourself if you only get feedback from one source get it from yourself i spoke earlier about when you are practicing uh looking for clues that you're nervous in your body and your voice well you'll only see those clues and hear those clues if you watch yourself back so i know you're thinking oh this is such an awful idea no it actually is one of the best things you can do for yourself as a presenter and uh the awful idea is actually to watch yourself in a mirror that is awful you're not able to stay present you're going to spend your entire time thinking about wow my mouth looks weird i didn't know i had a crooked face do not watch yourself in a mirror if you want feedback on your own presentation i highly recommend you record yourself and then watch it back whether that's on your phone or start a zoom meeting or a teams meeting or a google meet meeting and watch it back that is the best way to get feedback on your own presentation skills and i can guarantee you from years of experience doing this so much for myself and for clients and for my trainers it gets easier i promise you your eyes will not melt out of your head you will not go down a rabbit hole of despair and misery watching yourself instead set yourself up for success by asking yourself what am i looking for in my presentation eye contact vocal variety speaking at a good pace set some standards for yourself and some metrics so that those are the things you're specifically looking for in the feedback from yourself if you have time for any other feedback i would highly recommend that you get feedback from a trusted advisor and whether that's somebody on your team who's a great presenter or has presented to senior leadership before uh you know somebody that you trusted their advice and then if there's even more time for feedback and this is insanely high stakes try to get feedback from somebody that is going to be like kind to your audience so maybe you could uh request you know a rehearsal session or a feedback session from a senior leader that's not going to be in that meeting but would be somebody akin to the audience in that meeting they will give you such great insight and feedback on on that presentation that nobody else would be able to give you because they're not in the heads of your audience so that's it those are the five phases for preparation to any presentation to senior leadership from a three minute to a 45 minute from one the next morning to one a month away the only caveat i would add to this is if this presentation is more than a day out schedule it into your calendar make time for it make it important do yourself that favor and confirm those presentation rehearsals and preparation meetings and do not waver from them do that for yourself and i promise you once you get the hang of this five phase preparation project you'll be sailing through your senior leadership presentations like it's nobody's business so thank you so much for watching i hope this video was valuable for you if it was please make sure to share it with friends and colleagues and once again subscribe to our channel so you get all of our great content and if you want to know more about the work we do here at moxie if you're interested in maybe some coaching around your preparation process or if you're a senior leader and you'd like some coaching around your executive presentations check out moxieinstitute.com until next time make sure to live brilliantly lead boldly and speak with moxie

Channel: Moxie Institute

Views: 17,871

Keywords: public speaking tips, public speaking skills, communication skills, business communication, presentation skills, presentation skills training, presentation tips, presentation company

Id: N4ORBjoKEiY

Length: 30min 18sec (1818 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2022