OK, most of us have been there. We work with Directors and VP’s every day, but once in a while, we’re called on to pitch the board, or senior executive committee, with our proposals, and additional preparation is needed. If you have ever pitched to corporate level execs, you know:
· They have short attention spans
· They are often separated from day-to-day operations, so sometimes don’t identify with the examples used in your typical presentation
· The demand details, but then interrupt constantly when you try to give them
Perhaps I’m overstating the difficulty, but it is true that you must adapt your presentation for this unique group at the top. Here are a few tips from BNET on how to do that:
1. Get over yourself. The board room is interested in facilitating business; it’s not an end unto itself. If you can’t relate your project to developing market-leading products or increasing market share, revenues, or profits, then selling it will be infinitely harder and justifiably so.
2. Make stakeholders part of the process. As a marketing manager, your key stakeholders include product development, sales, HR, finance, and in many cases, executive management. Make them part of the process - bounce your ideas off them and get their input one-on-one before pitching to the group.
3. Don’t try to shove it down their throats. Instead, build a top-down story that relates your project to key corporate goals or business fundamentals. Explain using data and logic your audience understands. Think teacher-educator, not pushy salesperson. Encourage debate and grow thick skin.
4. Stick your neck out on tough metrics. Offer up aggressive metrics that will raise eyebrows. If you end up falling a bit short but the project is still a success, nobody will give you a hard time. That said, don’t go over-the-top or you’ll lose credibility.
Finally, learn how to build consensus. Despite the long haul, iterative process that takes several meetings and revisions to move forward, keep your project or decision moving toward a consensus plan.
Building consensus should not be new to you. The lowest level salesperson learns this over time to bring his customer to close. Internally, whether leading a planning process, a task force, or developing a new product or marketing campaign, you need to be skilled at bringing a diverse group of highly opinionated managers into alignment to successfully complete the task. Some “must do’s”:
a. Define the process and ground rules. The most important task is to set up the assumptions properly. Most business disagreements are due to conflicting assumptions. So, be clear about how the process works, why you’re doing it, what you expect from participants, and what’s on the table and what isn’t. This will (perhaps) avoid lots of unproductive churn.
b. Make it “their” process, not “yours”. Even if it’s your committee, your role should concentrate on the facilitation of everyone else’s views. Design the process to be highly participative so everyone feels they have a role, and that your role is merely to assist them in reaching consensus. That puts you in an authoritative position without appearing to push a specific agenda.
Simple, right? Not really. The only way to truly learn is to first observe (by serving on a lot of committees and tasked groups, so you can see what works and what doesn’t), and then doing it yourself, and learning from your mistakes.
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
--Thomas Edison, American inventor and businessman