Don't Squander Your Presentation Opportunity

It’s Saturday morning. Fifty women sit in rows in a large meeting room at a private golf club. For the last half hour they have been drinking coffee, nibbling breakfast muffins and busily “networking,” and now they have made their way to their seats. There’s a buzz in the air. These women have come to hear how they can provide for financial independence in their mature years.

The guest speaker, a financial advisor, is a young woman of professional appearance and confident bearing. She begins by telling the audience that although it can be daunting to choose the right financial vehicles to save for the future, she will provide information to make it all clear and easy. By the end of the one hour presentation, those who aren’t actually asleep are bored, confused, frustrated—and none the wiser about their financial future!

This story is true. I was one of those women.

Unfortunately, it’s a common scenario in the financial services industry. The opportunity to speak to a group of potential clients is one that is much sought after by financial advisors, but too often when they get the chance, they blow it! To help you make the most of your next such opportunity, let’s look at three major elements of a successful presentation.

Appropriate language

All industries are rife with insider language, or jargon. We sometimes forget, however, that the general public may not understand it, and it’s often the terms we take for granted that cause the problems. That Saturday morning speaker, for example, mentioned that her company had so many millions of dollars in ‘assets under management’. Immediately, my mind began to wonder what that meant. After a couple of moments I figured it out—but then I had to think about why that should matter to me. By the time I had thought about that for a bit, the speaker had moved on and I had missed her next point. This happens every time you use a term someone doesn’t understand. Instead, you might talk about the amount of money your company invests for clients and then say, “We call that figure ‘assets under management’, and the reason it is important to you is....” If you explain jargon in this way, you can then use the terms without losing your audience.

You may be speaking to people at varying levels of understanding and experience in financial matters. You don’t want to alienate them by speaking over their heads, or bore them by being too basic. One way to get them on side is to address this issue near the beginning of your talk. You might say something like, “We have a diverse group of people here today, and I want to give all of you the information you need. So please bear with me if I repeat some things you already know—it might even help to hear them again. Also, I will be here for a short time after my presentation, so if any of you need further explanation of any of the points, I’d be happy to speak with you individually then.” This helps prepare your audience for your information.

Helpful visual aids

Many presenters think they have the visual aid issue under control now—they have Power Point!! But presentation software is just the vehicle, not the information. Because it has the scope for all kinds of fonts, colours, zooms, flashes, wipes, reveals, sound effects and who knows what else, users of Power Point are often tempted to use it all. What happens is that the visuals take over, and the dazzled audience pays little attention to the data.

Even if you are using presentation software, limit yourself to information that supports what you are saying, and keep the slides as simple as possible.  Charts and graphs are the best way to present financial information, but it’s important not to put too much data on them. If you want to show, for example, a comparison between the income earned from interest-bearing and dividend-earning products over the past five years, a simple bar chart in two colours will work well. But if you also have a graph showing the trends of investors in purchasing those investments, putting it on the same graph will simply complicate the slide and may overwhelm the audience. Show two slides and address each issue separately. Remember, if people are trying to figure out all the elements on your slide, they won’t be listening to you. When it comes to visual aids, K.I.S.S.—keep it simple, speaker!

Limited, carefully selected content

Some speakers seem to be trying to set a record for presenting the largest amount of information in a given time. Don’t try to say everything you know about the subject. There are two strategies that work much better, and your choice will depend on your audience and your purpose:

1. Focus on up to three topics, and address them in detail, or
2. Give an overview, with little detail, of a larger number of topics. 

If your objective is to have people ask for a consultation, you need to demonstrate that you know your stuff and that you can communicate information clearly. To people who already have a good grasp of financial matters, an in-depth discussion of one topic is likely to have more value, while a group of beginning investors might like to know about the range of options available to them. In either case, make it clear that you have more information and would be happy to discuss it further with them individually. Along those lines, I have selected just three presentation skills for this article, but there are many more. If you would like to have a summary of “Helen’s 9 Rules for Pithy Presentations,” call me at 416-966-5023 and I’ll be happy to send it to you.

Notice my reference to your objective. People come to your presentation with their own objectives, and you can’t control that. But you can control your own objective, and you must do that before you decide what to include in your talk. What do you want the audience to do at the end of your presentation: ask for your brochure? Call for an appointment? Buy a product or service? Make a small written note of that objective, attach it to your computer monitor as you compile your notes, and use it as a benchmark for your content. For each item you plan to include, ask yourself if it will move you closer to that objective. If it does, how can you work it in? If not, throw it out. This one technique will stop you from rambling endlessly, satisfying neither your own wishes nor those of your audience.

Since that Saturday morning meeting took place in January, my guess is that the speaker wanted our RRSP business. She certainly didn’t get mine, and I’m sure she missed the mark with many others in the room. What a pity—with an effective presentation that focused on our needs she could have added substantially to the success of her RRSP season!