Workiva Inc. · NYSE:WK
Workiva — tips for more effective presentations ebook j34741
37 slides from Workiva's investor presentation, Jan 30, 2018
Slide 1: Tips for More Effective Presentations
E-BOOK Tips for More Effective Presentations Lessons learned from finance professionals
Slide 2: Why should you be concerned about effective presentations?
Why should you be concerned about effective presentations? Communication matters. 70% of people who present in their workplace agree that presentation skills are critical to their success Read on to discover how other FP&A professionals build partnerships throughout the organization and deliver insi
Slide 3: Developing Your Content
1 Developing Your Content
Slide 4: How do you determine the content of your presentation?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you determine the content of your presentation? Get everyone on the same page. Typically, you first need some sort of information in order to start pulling it together, and what you'll find very quickly is that what you're asking for is not fully understood or not inte
Slide 5: How do you find content outside your area of expertise?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you find content outside your area of expertise? Leverage partnerships. In most cases, it is a collaborative process where I take input from other business units. It helps on two levels. One, I get a different business perspective, and second, it creates buy-in. —Taru
Slide 6: How do you ask other lines of business for content?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you ask other lines of business for content? Be specific. Be a partner. I try to make it clear that I want to understand what they're telling me and what they do at an adequate-enough level that I can ask intelligent questions of them. I want to come at them with my r
Slide 7: How do you gather information from the other lines of business?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you gather information from the other lines of business? Ask tactical questions in advance. Do you have the marketing lined up? Do you have operations lined up—if you have a new product that's set to roll out? If it is a technology solution that needs some type of de
Slide 8: How do you share the value of a performance review?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you share the value of a performance review? Ensure conversations are open, honest, and not adversarial. FP&A often faces some stigma from individuals in other departments who see performance reviews as opportunities to cut back on their budgets. It is up to FP&A pra
Slide 9: How do I change perceptions of FP&A?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do I change perceptions of FP&A? Show that it is about more than budgeting. I don't push for cutting the budget; that's not the role of FP&A. The role of FP&A is to say what the situation is compared to our goals and to decide with the business what the remedies to that
Slide 10: How do I deliver financial insight without overwhelming?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do I deliver financial insight without overwhelming? Plan ahead. • Review the information before the meeting • Identify relevant, special topics based on variances or surprises, different deep-dives, or internal directives • Solicit input from the business on what they w
Slide 11: How do you build your presentation? How do you organize content?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you build your presentation? How do you organize content? Stay focused. For us, what's really important is constant, targeted, and specific communication in order to make sure that we are all working in the same direction. Every time there is a slide deck, for instanc
Slide 12: How do you best present your data?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you best present your data? Set expectations early. Develop a consistent look and feel to your presentation. Consistency allows for the audience to know what data to expect, where to find it, and how to read the information. The audience can absorb the content faster
Slide 13: How do you tailor a presentation for executives?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you tailor a presentation for executives? Find the right order. When FP&A professionals get in front of the executives, they need to be able to speak on the business side, to deliver insight and be able to back that up as necessary with whatever data is there. Howeve
Slide 14: How do you organize a presentation?
1 DEVELOPING YOUR CONTENT How do you organize a presentation? Present your case. You need to be very clear in the first few slides by showing your objective. You don't want to go through the analysis first—you have to flip it and say, 'Here's the problem we are trying to solve, here's our recommendatio
Slide 15: Improving Your Delivery
@) Improving Your Delivery °°o 2
Slide 16: What is executive presence?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY What is executive presence? According to a study of 268 senior executives by the Center for Talent Innovation, executive presence is largely considered to be one's ability to display confidence, composure under pressure, and decisiveness. Communication and appearance play ke
Slide 17: How do you demonstrate executive presence?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you demonstrate executive presence? Be the expert in the room. Executive presence comes off in the knowledge that I have or in the detail and the depth of what I'm presenting. If someone asks me a question that is fairly technical in nature, I'm the expert on the ana
Slide 18: How do you establish credibility?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you establish credibility? Know your material. You need to bring information to the board and the senior leadership team in a way that is meaningful to them, without bogging them down in all the details and whatnot. I think that the way you gain credibility with them
Slide 19: How do you maintain your audience's attention and attendance?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you maintain your audience's attention and attendance? Speak their language. You may be the best analyst in the world and you may have conducted a phenomenal analysis on whatever was given to you, but it's not going to be effective if you're not able to communicate i
Slide 20: How do you handle questions?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you handle questions? Follow up after the presentation. Don't shrink away if you don't know an answer; be direct and say that you will follow up afterwards. Don't try to fake knowledge, fudge an answer, or conjecture beyond what you know. And if you say you will foll
Slide 21: How do you present with other business units?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you present with other business units? Show support for one another. If I see that a senior executive is not being fair or is missing the point that a business unit leader is trying to make, I always make the point to intervene and support the leader. It is not alway
Slide 22: How do you make monthly or quarterly presentations more engaging?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY How do you make monthly or quarterly presentations more engaging? Refresh your template and/or content. The reality is, not everything works for everyone. Sometimes the visuals work, and sometimes they don't and you need some type of explanation. —Tarun Chopra, Senior Vice
Slide 23: What are the most effective ways of presenting?
2 IMPROVING YOUR DELIVERY What are the most effective ways of presenting? Find the approach that works best for you. • Keep things at a high level without drilling down too far, too fast • Use a storybook approach to lead to your recommendations • Let your audience bring you into details, so you kno
Slide 24: Handling Bad News
@) Handling Bad News
Slide 25: How do you prevent bad news from taking over a presentation?
3 HANDLING BAD NEWS How do you prevent bad news from taking over a presentation? Avoid surprises. You may be the best analyst in the world and you may have conducted a phenomenal analysis on whatever was given to you, but it's not going to be effective if you're not able to communicate it in a langu
Slide 26: How do you deliver bad news to a particular business line?
3 HANDLING BAD NEWS How do you deliver bad news to a particular business line? Demonstrate unity. I'll talk to the business line and make sure they're seeing the same thing on their side—see if they have a view as to what's occurring or what their recovery plan is going to be before communicating th
Slide 27: How do you offset any bad news?
3 HANDLING BAD NEWS How do you offset any bad news? Accentuate the positive. When we have to deliver negative news, we also highlight something that works well. It is challenging because it may be a business unit that isn't doing that great and there might not be much that stands out. But I think th
Slide 28: How do you find balance between positive news and potential negatives?
3 HANDLING BAD NEWS How do you find balance between the positive news and potential negatives? Keep everyone aware. We try to keep the business in a state of 'healthy paranoia,' which means that even though we're doing well, you never know what tomorrow may bring. So we try to be mindful of the thing
Slide 29: How can you make the most out of bad news?
3 HANDLING BAD NEWS How can you make the most out of bad news? Use the opportunity to present your case. FP&A cannot try to squirm out of delivering bad news, especially to business leaders. That will destroy executive presence and credibility. Be honest, direct, and have explanations at the ready a
Slide 30: Leveraging Technology
@) Leveraging Technology
Slide 31: Leverage technology.
4 LEVER AGING TECHNOLOGY How do you prevent bad news from taking over a presentation? Leverage technology. Advances in technology allow FP&A professionals to include greater data visualization and analysis in meetings. The opportunity to leverage centralized, connected datasets should reduce time sp
Slide 32: How can you make presentations easier to follow?
4 LEVER AGING TECHNOLOGY How can you make presentations easier to follow? Deliver what works best for your audience. Our leadership team likes some form of a visual aid. They want to look at a medium level of detail, but you don't want to get into every detail and give them too much information. So
Slide 33: How can you make your presentation stand out?
4 LEVER AGING TECHNOLOGY How can you make your presentation stand out? Let visuals tell your story. FP&A professionals can now create infographics and storybooks to assist in presentations. These visualizations often are interactive and can be drilled into to show additional levels of data. Dynamic
Slide 34: How do you make your data more compelling?
4 LEVER AGING TECHNOLOGY How do you make your data more compelling? Use dynamic reports with real-time charts and dashboards. I have created features where we can switch between an organizational view to one of several divisional views, and each of the charts updates accordingly. In addition, I've a
Slide 35: How can you create a more interactive presentation?
4 LEVER AGING TECHNOLOGY How can you create a more interactive presentation? Go paperless. • Save time and money by not printing multiple collated copies • Increase collaboration between audience and presenter with easy-to-navigate, interactive reports • Prevent your audience from flipping ahead • El
Slide 36: Put these tips to work in your next presentation
Put these tips to work in your next presentation. Presenting to the business units and senior leadership are two opportunities to excel in communication. Whoever the audience, it is imperative that finance professionals convey their messages in a way that their audiences can comprehend, while also be
Slide 37: Additional resources
Additional resources For more information on using cloud technology to create your performance reports, visit workiva.com/performance-reporting. This content originally appeared in the guide How FP&A Can Develop Effective Presentations published by the Association for Financial Professionals and spon
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