How to Sell a Data Strategy to Business Executives Part 3: Delivering a Winning Presentation

The key to an effective executive presentation is to socialize the plan up front, identify objections, and make adjustments before finalizing your presentation deck. When you lay the proper groundwork, executives see their fingerprints on your plan, and the final presentation becomes more of a formality than a high-pressure sales event.

There are three steps to creating a winning executive presentation:

1. Prepare for the meeting

2. Create the presentation deck

3. Deliver the presentation

Although these steps seem straightforward, there are techniques you need to apply in each one to maximize your chances of success. Let’s take a look.

1. Prepare for the Meeting

Scheduling. To prepare for the big presentation, you first have to schedule it. That’s easier said than done, since executives are busy and their schedules often change without notice. The ideal meeting focuses exclusively on your presentation with no other agenda items. However, this may not be possible. So an alternative is to add the presentation to a regularly scheduled strategic or operational review meeting.

Timing. The time allocated for the meeting should be proportional to the money and resources you’re requesting. If your budget request is small by comparison to other information technology projects, then schedule 30 minutes. If it’s a larger budget request with sizable staffing changes, schedule an hour.

Socialize and refine your request. This one is most important. Before you deliver the presentation, socialize your findings to individual members of the executive team, starting with your sponsor (or boss) to get feedback. This will enable you to gauge sentiment, identify objections, and make adjustments before the final presentation. The hard work of selling to executives happens well before you start formally presenting. That meeting simply ratifies what is already known and (hopefully) informally approved.

Send the deck in advance. Be sure to send your slide deck to participants two or three days in advance so they can examine the proposal and ask thoughtful questions during the meeting. The best presentations are highly interactive; you want to encourage executives to ask as many questions as possible. That’s how they become comfortable with your proposal. But make sure you have good answers! Of course, if you’ve already met with each member of the executive team, you’ll be able to anticipate their questions and have well-constructed answers that address their major concerns. Splendid!

Put the “ask” up front. During the presentation, don’t worry if you don’t get past the first two or three slides in your deck. This is usually a good sign. But it also makes it imperative that you put your “ask” up front along with key supporting facts so it’s clear what you want executives to decide.

2. Create the Deck

Slide design. Once you’ve socialized and refined your proposal, then it’s time to create the final slide deck. Most of us know best practices when designing slides, but we often forget to apply them in the final rush. Here’s a quick checklist of best practices for designing presentation slides:

a) Template. Use the company’s official branded slide template, not a consultant’s template or an outdated template.

b) Avoid overload. Don’t overload your slides with too much text or dense visuals. Unlike reports, slides are not meant to be read or analyzed. They are aids to support a human narrator and conversation with the audience.

c) Use action titles. Create a title for each slide that describes the key takeaway or action. Don’t just summarize the content; use the title to describe what needs to be done.

d) Set context. Don’t assume your audience knows (or cares) as much about this project as you do. Explain its origins, their initial endorsement, and work you’ve done to reach this point.

e) Frame the request. Present your request up front, then work backward to justify it. Finish by summarizing your request and key supporting points.

f) Tell a story. Much like a good novel or movie, your deck should tell a story. Establish the problem, describe its costs, and show how your proposal rescues the company from pending disaster.

Tailor the story. It’s important to tailor the story to those in the room. Executives need to understand how your proposal aligns with big-picture changes and keeps them ahead of the competition. Budget approvers need to understand how the proposal fixes problems and its return on investment. Practitioners need to know how it’s going to work. Before presenting to executives, read “The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen” by Andy Raskin. Although it’s focused on selling software, the article offers wonderful advice for selling to executives based on a real-life example. According to Raskin, the ideal executive presentation follows this narrative flow:

a) Name a big, relevant change in the world. Rather than starting by describing your plan or the problem, describe a major shift sweeping across industry. In our case, maybe it’s “Digital Transformation” or the “Intelligence Economy.” Then describe the evolution of this change in major epochs. For instance, we have a slide called “Three Eras of Intelligence” that describes the evolution of data and analytics from business intelligence, to self-service intelligence, to artificial intelligence. (Feel free to download and use this slide.)

b) Show that there’ll be winners and losers. You then have to show that adapting to this change will lead to positive outcomes, while ignoring it will lead to negative ones. Cite examples of both winners and losers to cement your point. Then ask, “What’s the common thread among the winners?” In our domain, for example, winners have implemented a compelling data strategy and road map that enabled them to create a culture of analytics.

c) Create a vision of the promised land. At this point, it’s tempting to dive into the details of your proposal, but resist. It’s better to describe the future state when your organization has implemented the plan. Describe key business strategies that your proposal will enable, such as customer 360 or supply chain modernization. Explain how it will help business analysts work more productively and front-line operators work more efficiently.

d) Wave the magic wand. Now show how your strategy makes these things possible. Describe obstacles and how your plan addresses them. Summarize key initiatives in five or so high-level recommendations. Then, offer a three-year road map that shows activities, costs, and deliverables for each of the recommendations, which serve as “swim lanes” on the road map. Create a theme for each year

e) Provide proof. Finally, calm any fears about risk. If you’re using a consultant, provide a list of past clients who have used the consultant to deliver a similar data strategy. Or if you’ve done the work, cite your past experience at other companies.

Some executives in the room will also be budget-holders, so you may want to continue the narrative to focus on problems, costs, solutions, and ROI. The key to convincing both audiences is to show where in the road map you’ll be addressing their needs. A simple subject-area road map often helps. See figure 4 in the previous chapter, where (for example) a sales executive can see that their core use cases will be delivered in Q3 and Q4 of 2021.

Use a more detailed road map to show costs, resources, and savings. (See “Data Strategy Guidebook: What Every Executive Needs to Know” or contact Eckerson Group for sample road maps.)

2. Deliver the Presentation

If you’ve done everything right and laid the groundwork for your plan, the final presentation provides a formal stamp of approval. Here are a couple of pointers to ensure your hard work does not go unrewarded.

1. Have the business present. Your story is best told by a businessperson who will be a primary recipient of the plan. At the very least, get one or more of your primary stakeholders to present their perspectives on how your plan will help them achieve their strategic objectives and why they’re eager to work with the data and analytics team.

2. Be confident. If you don’t come across as confident and competent, executives might question whether you are. Confidence comes from deep knowledge of what you’re presenting and familiarity with the slides.

3. Mirror their style. Psychologists say we resonate better with people if we mirror their language and behavior, including manner of speaking, body language, and dress code. If the group is informal and jocular, be the same without going overboard. If they are formal and reserved, look and act the part.

4. Be succinct. Less is more. Pare back your presentation until it’s less than 10 slides. Use an appendix, if necessary, for detail. And when speaking, don’t run off at the mouth: make sure you GTTFP (get to the freaking point).

5. Change the tempo. Research shows that people become saturated with information within 10 minutes, so it’s best to frequently change the tempo and format of your presentation. For example, at Apple Computer, no presenter speaks for more than 10 minutes. They use minimal slides and pause frequently.

When presenting to executives, preparation is key. Understand their goals, drivers, and challenges, then build rapport, and finally socialize your plan in advance. When you’ve done the up-front work, the final presentation will confirm what executives have already reviewed and informally approved.

Selling a data strategy to executives isn’t easy, even if executives are data-driven. When you ask executives to spend a finite resource (like capital or cash) and hire new resources, they instinctively resist the request. Overcoming their innate reluctance to spend money requires a well-designed data strategy that aligns with the business and each executive’s goals and ambitions.

But even more, selling executives on a data strategy requires personal rapport and research—which go hand in hand. While getting feedback on a proposal and identifying objections, you can simultaneously build a personal relationship with executives and key stakeholders who will give your plan a “yea” or “nay” vote. The goal is lay the groundwork for a winning presentation well in advance. This enables you to craft a presentation that anticipates objections and aligns with corporate and stakeholder interests. Who can say no to that?