Become your boss’s right-hand man: Five tips for preparing executive meeting presentations
This article (opens in a new tab) Author Liu Yiyou (opens in a new tab), for Presentation. Founder of Easy Presentation Workshop (opens in a new tab). He has more than ten years of experience in business presentations and is good at presentation structure, information visualization, strategic proposals and fundraising presentations. Thank you for authorizing “Content Hacker” to reprint. Thank you hereby.
Making presentations in the workplace has become a basic personal ability. All work reports, market surveys, event planning or business proposals will be presented through presentations. But if it is not you who is on stage to give a briefing today, but your senior manager, how should you prepare this meeting briefing?
Confirm the purpose, object and time
Whether you are preparing a briefing for others or you are the briefer yourself, confirming the purpose, target and time are basic preparations in advance.
Before making a presentation, confirm the purpose, target and time/Illustration by Liu Yiyou
However, there are so many people participating in the meeting, and they are all senior executives. How do we know what their needs are? How can it be possible to satisfy everyone? The key is to find the core audience. As long as this critical 20% are satisfied, the effectiveness of communication can be determined.
Before the meeting, it is necessary to distinguish the roles of the participating members. Who is the decision-maker? Influencer? Participants? Bystander? The key core audience is usually the decision-makers and influencers, but pay attention to the reactions and opinions of participants and bystanders; moreover, the positioning of roles may change as the meeting agenda progresses.
If possible, obtain the opinions and attitudes of the participating members on the topic of Presentation before the meeting. It is always less risky to communicate first than to engage in verbal arguments at the meeting. Seniors always tell me this: The key to meeting briefings lies in persuasion before the briefing and actions after the briefing.
Confirm the roles of the members participating in the meeting and find the core audience/Illustrated by Liu Yiyou
Start by clarifying the direction of the briefing
One of the most frustrating aspects of preparing a presentation for a senior executive is not knowing what the executive is going to talk about? Based on more than ten years of practical experience, it is recommended that you first check your familiarity with the topic of the presentation and the presenter’s mastery of the topic. There are three ways to clarify the direction of the presentation:
- Put yourself in someone else’s shoes: If you are quite familiar with the background of the topic and the ins and outs of the meeting, or even in your professional field, with a certain level of trust, you can definitely handle it for you, and the senior manager will feel comfortable leaving it to you (I suggest you develop in this direction, it is the most pleasant mode).
- Active communication: If you are not clear about the ins and outs of the meeting and are not very sure about the content, I suggest you communicate more with your senior manager, and report to him every time you complete a stage (5 to 10%) to confirm that the direction has not been missed. On the other hand, senior managers are involved from start to finish, so even if the results of the briefing are not as expected, you will not be blamed.
- Outline discussion: The worst (possibly and most common) situation is that you and your senior manager have no clue. At this time, I suggest that you try to come up with a version of the outline direction first, so that the senior manager can “correct” and “revise”. Believe me, many people may not know what they want, but they are very clear about what they don’t want. With a beginning, there will be a beginning to find the direction.
Three ways to help senior executives prepare presentations and clarify the direction of presentations
When clarifying direction and goals, remember to make good use of data to strengthen your persuasion, and use the SMART principle (opens in a new tab) to check whether your goals are specific enough? Can it be measured? Is it feasible? Is there any data basis? And the time frame (when does it start? When does it end? What are the milestones in between? What are the phase confirmation points?).
Logical architecture is necessary, but the key is to remain resilient
A logical structure is a must for all briefs. But for conference briefings, in addition to being logical, it is also necessary to show persuasiveness in a short period of time. How to do this? The key is that the method of persuasion must be consistent with the audience’s logical thinking, not the presenter’s own. Experienced senior managers all know which structure to adopt will be more in line with the logical thinking of most people.
To make a brief impression on the other party, you must first find a “clue” that runs through the entire brief, and then follow this clue to develop the overall structure of the brief.
The structure of the presentation can start from clues/drawn by Liu Yiyou
The above mentioned are some commonly used clues. For example, with the theme of “artificial intelligence trends”, you can use a combination of “time axis” and “space axis” to talk about future prospects from the current situation, from market output value, layout of major manufacturers, Taiwan industry to company opportunities (from far to near for the company).
(opens in a new tab)
Expansion of the presentation structure with the theme of “Artificial Intelligence Trends”/drawn by Liu Yiyou
Internal meetings can first define the content of the briefing as a topic? issue? Topic? Still a problem? Then select appropriate clues; external proposals can combine the clues of “spatial axis” and “Sales FAB” to develop the briefing structure, starting with the market, company introduction, and then product/service solutions. As for the solution part, FAB architecture can be used to cover the solution’s features, advantages and value to customers (Benefit).
The structure of internal meetings and external proposals can start from these clues/drawn by Liu Yiyou
Depending on the topic, choose an appropriate clue or combine multiple clues to develop the structure of your briefing, and you will be able to make a logical, concise and persuasive briefing; however, remember to remain flexible in the development of content and do not make it too precise, because it is your senior manager who is going to report on stage, and he does not want to mess up the briefing because he did not memorize the manuscript well or cannot answer a detail.
Most senior managers have the ability to improvise and act on the spot. So, keep the briefing flexible, don’t reveal too many details, put the details in an attachment just in case, and watch the rest as your manager improvises.
Be prepared to only have one slide
Most of the participants in high-level meetings are senior managers and important staff. Although there is an agenda and time arrangement, if your briefing is not meaningful, you will usually step down and bow quickly. Due to the extremely high cost of each meeting, and the sudden change of agenda due to client visits or other more important matters, the presenter may only have ten minutes to give a briefing or a simple oral report. At this time, a key slide becomes very important.
Prepare a slide film, you can advance to attack, retreat to defend / Drawn by Liu Yiyou
This slide may be a conclusion, an important issue, or a key diagram. The purpose is to drive decision-makers to make decisions, agree to take follow-up actions, or obtain commitments.
An excellent opportunity to enhance your presentation vision and career heights
When a senior manager needs his subordinates to prepare a meeting briefing, I believe many people may be thinking, “Please, it’s not me…”, “I’m not the manager, it’s none of my business…”, “How do I know what he wants to report…”, right?
If you only think about this at your own role level, I think when you become a senior executive one day, you may regret why you missed these great opportunities to hone yourself. Some abilities are not required until you become that role, but you are qualified for the role because you possess those abilities. Moreover, even if you do not have this title, you can still show your influence in various ways, and making a briefing is a very good opportunity for you to show your professional value and have a chance to be seen by more senior managers.
At the same time, from the material collection and discussion before the presentation is made, you can learn the logical thinking of senior executives and the communication and interaction with relevant personnel under authorization; if you have the opportunity to participate in high-level meetings, you can even get a glimpse of how senior executives conduct briefings. How is it different from yourself? How to deal with questions and difficulties from senior executives attending meetings?
These offensive and defensive processes can never be learned in textbooks. Because I am a staff member and have good presentation skills, I have many opportunities to prepare meeting briefings for senior executives and even participate in meetings. As a result, I have learned a lot of management and business strategic thinking, which has a great impact on my workplace vision and career development.
If you are currently worried about how to prepare meeting presentations, you may wish to refer to the above practices, seize the opportunity to hone yourself, and make good use of meeting presentations to exert your influence.
★ Further reading:
- Six major trends in business presentation design in 2018: from storytelling, negative space to design intelligence
- Master the five questions and the three mores to make an eye-catching annual plan presentation
- Top ten trends in presentation design in 2018: The era of reading presentations on mobile phones is here
★This article (opens in a new tab) author Liu Yiyou (opens in a new tab), for Presentation. Founder of Easy Presentation Workshop (opens in a new tab). He has more than ten years of experience in business presentations and is good at presentation structure, information visualization, strategic proposals and fundraising presentations. Thank you for the permission to reprint, hereby thank you.
★ To improve your content power, please don’t miss the “Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands” (opens in a new tab) online course
★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL4): Create a call to action for your content [Open for registration] (opens in a new tab)
Further reading
- Three major trends in business presentation design in 2019: Scenario-based architecture, visual personalization and intelligent interface
- The second meeting of “Lun Liu Lai Briefing”: the starting point of presentation design, starting from understanding the audience
- The presentation hacker has evolved again, and you will immediately become a presentation master
Next step
Bring this topic to your team
Vista Cheng speaks and runs workshops on AI workflows, writing and content systems for companies, schools and public agencies.
