Pitch perfect: How to present

The ability to communicate is perhaps not the first skill that many outside the finance function associate with accountants. Indeed, to some, more jaded souls, those in finance are characterised by discomfort with presenting both themselves and the key business data. But there’s no avoiding it – the need for good presentation skills is becoming more pressing.

According to a recent EY report, “CFOs are increasingly pressured to become world-class communicators. They are challenged by the need to convey complex issues to a variety of audiences – investors, financial analysts, customers, partners and employees – as stakeholders demand accurate information and transparency in real-time.”

And there are real benefits: that same survey showed CFOs of companies that have increased revenue by at least 5% over the past 12 months are more likely to think that communication and presentation skills will be important for CFOs in the future than those with either no change or a decrease in revenue.

But where to start? “What difference would it make to your career for communication skills to be viewed as a strength of yours?” asks Freddie Daniels, a business skills coach and member of the Toastmasters, the organisation dedicated to promoting better public speaking. “Is it worth it being viewed as a strength? If it is, are you prepared to dedicate the time?”

In Daniels’s view, developing and improving presentation skills cannot be achieved overnight. “It’s like being an accountant or a lawyer. The fact is we have to spend time learning skills, so if we want to be good at this, we need to make a conscious effort to become a good public speaker.”

Richard Plenty is managing director of This Is, a consultancy that works with senior executives on coaching and development. He agrees time is required, and recommends that FDs in particular focus on understanding what their message is.

“You’ve got to make up your mind what you’re trying to achieve. Then you have to work out what’s the best way of displaying that and talking it through. Too much information and too many numbers are never a good thing. You need these as a backup, but you don’t need them to start with. You need to get the points across.”

Plenty advises his clients to consider a number of questions: What are the main messages? How do you illustrate them? “It doesn’t hurt having a variety of mechanisms to communicate. You need to use a few graphs from time to time, where that’s appropriate.

“Ultimately, you should use the facts for illumination and not like the drunk uses the lamppost for support. Some people put loads of facts into a presentation and nothing else. But that’s not really picking up the points they’re trying to make.” His suggestion: practice your script and keep PowerPoint in check.

One FD who prefers to remain anonymous remembers standing in front of 150 people doing a 30-minute speech at a business seminar. “I was 20-25 minutes in and thinking, ‘I’ve lost this audience’ and I couldn’t work out why. Then I realised I’d just been reading the slides for the past 10-15 minutes.

“We can read far faster than we can speak. The typical person can read at about 400-500 words a minute, while we speak at about 100-150 words a minute.

“So if you put text up on the screen, your audience will go ahead and read it. My audience was sitting around waiting for me to catch up and their minds started to wander; they think about other things and you’ve lost your audience.”

Freddie Daniels says one of his tasks is often to wean an audience off of their reliance on PowerPoint. “In the old days we used to describe it as a visual aid, and I think we’ve lost that today,” he says. “It’s not seen as a visual aid any more. People come to hear you speak, they don’t come to see a bunch of slides.

“The quickest way to stop is to make sure you write your presentation anywhere but in PowerPoint. Once you start putting those bullet points in, in my experience, they’re a devil to get rid of.”

Instead, Daniels says, write directly into Word, using the outlining mode. “Then I look at my speech at the end and ask what visual aids I need to reinforce the messages here.

“There are some instances where I recommend people use slides. One is where there is something that is complex and perhaps it would be useful to have a picture or a diagram or something that shows relationships, or whatever it happens to be, and definitely something with complexity.”

The only other time Daniels recommends using a slide is to make an emotional connection. “That could be a shocking statistic, or an engaging image – a derelict factory or a fire.”

But it’s not just ditching PowerPoint and taking a lead on presenting your message. FDs in particular, perhaps schooled in simply rolling out graphs, can often neglect the importance of honing their tone and delivery style. And that often involves developing the confidence to move away from a purely scripted presentation.

Consider that most communication in real life, with our family, friends and colleagues, is done using certain tools: we tell people about the things that happen in life, usually through stories. We ask them about their lives, share humorous anecdotes and so on.

“There’s something about the moment when we become business speakers, we suddenly feel that these tools are no longer applicable, so we focus very much on facts and figures and graphs,” says Daniels. He believes this is when the “basic tools of connection and engagement like stories and questions” get lost. “If you’re pulling together a presentation for someone, ask yourself, ‘What are the three or four key points that are going to reinforce the message, and then what content can we use to best make those points?’ There will be a mix of facts and figures, but also let’s see if we can share some experiences people can relate to, to bring the situation alive.”

Improving these skills should be a continued professional development (CPD) issue, according to Daniels, with the same level of attention dedicated to learning not just the basics, but attaining a higher level of mastery. And that may mean engaging professional help or demanding feedback from colleagues.

Daniels cited an anecdote where a client had a pre-conceived idea of their public speaking difficulties and was nervous about using filler words. “It turned out that 20% of the words he spoke started off with, ‘You probably can’t read this slide at the back’, and then he spent 20% of the words, ie, two minutes out of the 10, explaining the slides. If he’d watched the videos of himself, I’m sure he would have picked that up much more quickly.”

The final word of advice comes from our unnamed FD who for years struggled with presentations. For him the best approach was to practice, hone and perfect his skills and to recognise that crafting and delivering a good presentation takes time: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across people who are doing big pitches or shareholder presentations who have spent three or four hours [just] writing a presentation. “I never deliver a speech without first running it past a colleague, improving it and getting it just right.”

• DO connect with your audience. Eye contact, interaction, movement: they all make you a compelling watch. Not everyone can be Steve Jobs unveiling the new iPad, but practice ‘walking and talking’ in the mirror – you may find moving away from the lectern liberates your delivery and gets the message across better.
• DO humanise your message and tell a story. Respected journalist Lawrence Wright teaches at a number of US universities. In both his writing and presentations he uses what he calls his ‘donkey’: a figure that delivers the key messages in an otherwise complicated story. “All this information you want to shove down the audience’s throat, the donkey can carry that if the reader or listener cares about that figure,” he has said. “It makes them willing to swallow what you have to offer.” Maybe your donkey is a real person, or an invention. Either way, put a story on his back and he should deliver your message effectively.
• DO keep it varied. It’s not easy when delivering financial information, but mixing up techniques will keep the audience's attention. Some information will work as a graph, some as a story, others still as a set of bullet points. Don't get carried away with the differences, keep it varied and you will hold the audience's attention.
• DON'T forget your audience. Sara James is a writing and presentations coach and works with FDs on both report writing and presentation skills. "One thing I say to people on the course when they start worrying about every single comma and split infinitive is 'Look, how much sleep do you get on average?' And they say 'Oh, five or six hours. It's okay'.
  
  "It's the same for the chief executive. He's tired, he's busy, he may be coming down with a cold. In other words, he's human. Don't bombard his eyes and his brain with anything that's going to make his life harder than it is." Try to put yourself in the place of the person watching you: they want a short, snappy, entertaining and clear presentation.
• DON'T get too carried away with PowerPoint's gizmos. That animated hamster in a wheel might look cool when you're playing around, but chances are it will detract from the message.

Declan Mulkeen of communications consultancy Communicaid looks at the pitfalls of presenting to an international audience.

Presenting around the world introduces a number of challenges for professionals if they do not adapt their presentation style. Here are three of the most important aspects to incorporate when presenting abroad:

1. Presentation content
   Some cultures, such as a German audience, expect word-heavy presentations, where great detail is appreciated and enhances credibility. Other cultures may prefer a few bullet points and then expect the presenter to tell their story verbally. Other cultures, such as in much of the Arab world, prefer visual presentations that contain graphs, flowcharts and pictures.
   
   Presenters should also be careful about other cultural sensitivities. For example, colours and numbers are highly symbolic in China. Using the wrong colour or showing a photo with groups of four items may convey a very different message to what was intended.
2. Presentation style and use of humour
   The level of expected formality in a presentation can vary considerably from culture to culture. For example in Japan, the well-dressed presenter is expected to be an authority figure who should never be openly challenged. Attendees expect to absorb the content of the presentation without question; disagreements or clarifications would be raised after the presentation is over, usually at a subsequent meeting.
   
   On the other hand, the British tend to be much less formal. Interaction with the audience is usually expected and often welcome. Attendees may directly challenge the presenter. The British may present in a style that is understated and may imply rather than spell out their points clearly. They may also include humour, which often works very effectively with a British audience but may be poorly received by other cultures that may not have understood it. Humour does not travel well.
3. International English
   Presenters should take care to use clear, simple English whenever they are presenting to a multilingual audience. Slang, acronyms and local cultural references should be avoided. The presenter should speak more slowly and should be careful with pronunciation and diction, especially if they have a strong regional accent that could be difficult for others to understand.

• Pitch perfect: How to present
  Finance & Management magazine, Issue 221, May 2014

The ICAEW Library & Information Service provides full text access to leading business, finance and management journals. Further reading on the art of creating perfect presentations is available through the articles below.