How to Prepare for a Big Presentation at Work

You've been asked to give a big presentation at work. Is that good news or bad news?

My goal in this post is for you to see this as a welcome opportunity to demonstrate your leadership, show your bottom-line value, and prove your worth to the people in the room.

If you do this right, speaking can become an asset to your career and position you for future promotions, pay raises, and the meaningful projects you deserve.

The first step to delivering a successful presentation is to fill out this W5 Form. It will help ensure that everything you say is relevant and actionable.

1. WHAT is the purpose of this presentation? State in one sentence what you want and need to achieve? It's hard to stay on purpose, if you don't know what your purpose is. If you can't articulate your purpose in one sentence, it means you're unclear. And that's not good, because confused people don't keep listening and they don't take desired action.
2. WHO will be in the room? Who are your primary decision-maker(s)? What is their familiarity with you and this topic? What do you anticipate their mood to be? Resistant? Receptive? Describe them so you can SEE them. Put yourself in their shoes. Why might they say this won't work? How will you address their concerns and priorities so they are open to what you're saying and you can transform their NO into a YES?
3. WHERE and WHEN will this take place? Monday morning staff meeting? An international zoom call where everyone’s in different time zones? (Environment and timing matter. If people are tired or distracted, it will affect their energy and attentiveness.)
4. WHY will this be an ROI for your audience? Why is your proposal worth their valuable time and mind? What are the “makes and saves?” How will this make or save time and money? How will this reduce risk or costly errors? How will this create a competitive edge? How will this streamline operations or boost efficiency? How will this tangibly improve employee morale and customer loyalty? The more measurable you are, the more they'll value the bottom-line potential/impact of your info.
5. WHY will this be an ROI for you? What three possible outcomes would make this a win for you and your career? Do you want your budget approved? Do you want your solution to this problem adopted? Do you want executives to be favorably impressed with your ability to perform under pressure? Do you want to be put in charge of this initiative? What real-word results do you want? How will you know when this happens?

You may think, in high-stakes situations where there's a lot on the line, people would do their homework in advance, invest the time to ask and answer these W's and craft their remarks accordingly.

Hmm, not always.

I am amazed by how many people walk into important meetings, interviews, presentations and negotiations without researching the context of the situation.  

In fact, here's a favorite example of why it’s worth filling out your W5 form beforehand.

I was working with a Fortune 500 tech exec based in Silicon Valley. He was preparing for his department's annual all-hands meeting and had just shown me his power-point deck. I suggested we fill out his W5 Form to make sure this meeting was a success for all-involved.

I asked, "It costs a lot of money to bring in employees for this once-a-year meeting. What do you want them to start, stop or do differently as a result of this meeting? How do you want them to feel?”

Blink. Blink. “Feel?” (Remember, this is a tech exec.)

“Yes. This is the only time you bring everyone together to review the previous year and preview the coming year. How do you want them to feel when they walk out?"

“I guess I want them to feel proud. We not only hit all our numbers, we exceeded them.”

“Good, what else?”

“Well, I want them to feel excited. We’ve got a big launch coming up in Q1 and I want them looking forward to it.”

“Got it.” I paused, then asked. “Do you think you might want to put some pictures of people in your deck?”

He looked at me, stunned. This simply hadn't occurred to him. His deck was filled with numbers, graphs and grids; but not one picture of a human being.

The good news is, he was a quick study. He asked the company photographer to go around and take pictures of the individuals who had put in the 60 hour weeks, put out the fires, pulled off the miracles, and integrated them into his deck. Now, he had a deck that had humanity in it and that honored and showcased his team's hard work and contributions.

I also asked when this all-hands meeting would take place.

He said, "4:30 on a Friday afternoon."

Yikes. I told him, "People are going to have one foot out the door. Why don't you start the meeting by holding up your watch and saying, 'I can only imagine you're thinking that these meetings normally take an hour or more which puts you right in the middle of 101 traffic.

That's why I've distilled it into 25 minutes and I promise you we'll be out of here by 5 pm.'"

He smiled, "THAT will get their favorable attention."

"Exactly. Richard Branson said, 'Time is the new money.' In today's short-attention span workplace, time is the new trust. Taking less time than people anticipate is one of the quickest ways to win their favorable attention and motivate them to listen up."

The exec emailed me the next week, “Sam, you should have seen what happened. At the end of the meeting, people were going around high-fiving each other. The energy in the room was off the charts. It was the best all-hands meeting we've ever had.”

Kudos. That’s the power of reading the room and preparing your 5 W's in advance.

So, what's a big presentation you're preparing?

If you want it to succeed; don't WING it ... W5 it!