Read Time: 2.5 Minutes

One of my students, Shane, shared this concern with me.

"I tend to give technical presentations. Often times, I need to explain system issues to executives. How do I make these updates more engaging?"

Here's the tactical advice I gave him. It transformed how he sounded.

Identify Your Emotional Gift

 In this issue​, I shared why you need to identify the emotion you want your audience to feel by the end of your talk.

Why? Emotion drives action.

Shane wanted his executives to feel assured that his team had a critical bug under control.

It was important for him to convey assurance with his vocal delivery.

• Lower his tone at the end of his sentences
• Project by over-exaggerating his mouth movement as he spoke
• Keep his sentences short

Remember the power of your emotional gift. Smiling makes others feel the mood lighten.

You can transfer the emotion that you want your audience to feel by expressing it yourself.

 

Articulate 'The Why'

Shane was too mired in the technical details.

Instead, I encouraged him to reframe his message with one of these 3 perspectives:

• Profits: How does my update relate to increasing revenue or decreasing costs?
• Market: How does my update relate to increasing market share or decreasing time-to-market?
• Exposure: How does my update relate to increasing customer retention or decreasing risk?

Executives will listen because your work affects their bottom line.

For Shane, the bug would prevent thousands of customers from accessing his product. This would impose a massive churn risk (i.e., Exposure).

Shane needed to change the framing. His update was not about the fixes his team made. His update was about the customer churn risk his team would mitigate. His last step was to convey how his team had everything under control.

Structure The Update

I encouraged Shane to use the following speaking framework:

• What: Describe the topic you're going to cover
• So What: Describe why the topic should matter to your audience
• Now What: Describe the next steps that you're going to take to ensure success

In Shane's case, it went like this:

• What: Today, we're facing a critical bug that our team identified yesterday. I'll discuss why it matters, and how we're going to address it.
• So What: Currently, more than 1000 customers aren't able to use this feature. It is the 5th most used feature on the platform. Resolving this immediately has become our top priority. We also are working on safeguard mechanisms to identify these issues in advance.
• Now What: Our priority is to fix X, Y and Z first. We will provide an update in the next 24 hours. I'm scheduling another meeting tomorrow for us to regroup.

There are many frameworks you could use. ​Here's an issue covering three of my favorites.​ Remember this: focus on what your audience cares about, and how much time you have. What/So What/Now What is particularly impactful when you have limited time.

 

If you found this helpful, the Impromptu Speakers Academy is my 3-week bootcamp to help you become a clear and confident speaker at work. Reserve your spot today while they're still available.

 

Talk soon,

Preston