A Few Tips For Surviving a C-suite Pitch

Sabina Nawaz’s HBR article “How to Blow a Presentation to the C-Suite” offers solid insights for presenting to senior executives.  Her set-up:  “Dyvia, a director who leads a large engineering team, was invited to a two-day retreat with the CEO and senior executives of her Fortune 50 company.” They were asked to solve a company-wide strategic challenge and to present the idea to the CEO a day later. She did, and tanked.

Sabina correctly identifies several traps Dyvia and other future presenters should avoid: presenting an idea without its problem, an idea with no clear ROI, and explaining her idea rather than engaging her audience.

I would add some additional tips for pitch teams: recap the problem to solve, and reference it as you unfurl your solution.  As a presenter, you want to see body language that your audience is tracking with you. If you do not, ask.  It is more important you engage your audience in hopes of a good (if unplanned) outcome than to finish your planned presentation of a bad one. If you get real-time input that diverts you from your original path (off the cliff), first thank your lucky stars and the one correcting your course, then your team should be dialed-in, know their roles, be concentrating and listening and ready to respond extemporaneously to all questions to guide the pitch to success.

Hidden in Sabina’s example is another helpful insight – don’t assume to know the mind of your audience.  Her team was invited to a 2-day retreat with the CEO and senior executives of her company. The trap is that top executives chatting affably and causally on Day 1 of a retreat will be expecting a different level of discourse from Dyvia’s team in their presentation on Day 2.  The audience’s role will have changed imperceptibly and principally to judge of her idea’s merit. Dyvia’s team may not have had the experience to know that, which is potentially why she began her presentation on Day 2 without first defining the challenge that gave purpose to theiridea.  So, never assume to know what’s on your audience’s mind as they walk into the room, and always reconnect them to the premise and need for your pitch.

The CEO’s job is to make-decisions (among other things). Don’t make her/him guess what they are supposed to do with your idea – it won’t go your way.  Rather, as you put together your presentation one helpful trick is to begin with the decision you want the audience to make at the end. Specifically, how exactly is your idea the best solution (as your audience defines ‘best’) to the company-wide strategic challenge.  Or, how is your idea a no-brainer.