Background
Just about a year ago, we got an anxious phone call from the
vice president of marketing at a major Fortune 100 company, a
regular client of ours. "We have a young executive here who's
scheduled to make a presentation about a new product of ours,
and we wonder if you could help him prepare." "Fine,"
we replied,
"Let’s book a three-day program for him." There
was a slight
pause on the other end of the line. "Unfortunately, we’re
really
pressed for time. Our executive has only one day. Can you get
results in one day’s time?" "We’ll try,"
we said.
Challenge
With
only one day we had to decide where to spend our time.
Should we work on the executive's voice, body language or the
story he had to tell.
Canunn's
Solution
We decided to focus our time on helping our presenter
develop his story about what the product was designed
to do, about the markets his company hoped to serve with
it, and the benefits to its users. We helped him identify what
elements were most compelling to his audience; which details
were important and which ones were superfluous. Then we
helped him organize the flow of his presentation so that the key
ideas were easy to grasp. By the end of the session, our young
executive was in command of the material and comfortable
about delivering it. The results? His presentation went over
phenomenally well. Today, he’s a prominent and effective
spokesmen for his company.
