“We’d like you to present your proposal to the Board”.
When you hear those words do you think “Great!” Or, “Oh dear”?
A few years ago we worked with a large multi-national corporation. We were working on sales skills with their senior team when the MD told me – “we’ve got a pitch coming up next week for a bid worth £50m” I asked him if he was excited about it. His reply was “no, we’ll probably lose it; we usually lose the big ones”. We were shocked and offered our help. Happily he accepted and after a hard day’s coaching with the team that were pitching, they won the deal. They were delighted. And so were we.
Over the next 4 years we helped them win over £1bn of new business. Simply by helping them to present their pitches more effectively; better teamwork, better presentation skills, better handling of the Q and A session, and having a real focus on the key message and the audience.
Over the years I’ve seen presentation skills become the bane of some people’s lives. Sales are won or lost; careers are made or harmed; new job interviews are successful or not. Sometimes 15 minutes is all it takes to show the committee or the Board that you’re good on your feet or that you’re not, often with negative consequences if you fail to impress.
Maybe that seems unfair, and we could spend some time discussing why people judge us so strongly when we’re presenting. A bit like people looking at your shoes and deciding whether you’re a ‘good’ person based on how clean they are. But no matter why it happens, that’s the way it is.
I’ve been helping people for over 30 years to improve and polish their presenting skills. With my new company – Presenting Success – we’re just setting up a series of open (public) courses and I’m willing to offer members of the Marketing Compass a discount of 30% for courses booked. Go to http://goo.gl/4vr83 for dates and details of open courses.
Or if you’d like to have a chat about it before committing yourself then contact me for an informal chat on 07889 167 486 or at walter.blackburn@presentingsuccess.co.uk
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Hi Walter, Thank you for posting this. I have have shared it via my Twitter account (11.8K Followers); The Marketing Compass Twitter and Facebook accounts; GooglePlus; and LinkedIn. All the best, Nigel