Corporate Presentations

Someone who has been trusted by his company, or probably his corporation, to make a corporate presentation might be said to have reached the very peak of his profession. They face an awesome responsibility, to help win a contract that might run in to millions if not tens of millions of dollars. They may have the jobs of thousands of people in their hands, in the ability to present and to persuade.

You can rest assure that these people will go into the line of fire fully prepared and with full back of their company, bringing with them years of experience. Experience that will have taught them to leave nothing to chance. To make sure that the presentation that they were about to make was no less than 100% professional.

People who make corporate presentations rarely go in alone. They will be a head of team that will include legal people, production people and finance people. A corporate presentation of this stature will have been rehearsed and planned, and a backroom team of dozens may have worked on it, sometimes up to the last minute to make sure that it was no less than perfect.

In many instances the people at both sides of the boardroom table will have been personally acquainted with each other, they may even have done business with each other in the past. They may well have active contract running. However in the corporate world nothing is assumed or taken for granted. Every contract is negotiated as a separate entity. History and good will means very little.

So the battle begins. The person who has the overall responsibility for the presentation will provide a brief introduction of the company, possible backed up by a PowerPoint presentation and/or a short video film. The seasoned presenter will be constantly stage managing the presentation to stimulate reactions from the prospects to the levels of their seriousness on placing the contract. They will know who the key decision makers are in the group, and who are there just to make up the numbers.

The presenter will be happy to explain case histories that demonstrate the ways his company has successfully met the needs of clients in similar situations. By laying out these successful case histories the presenter will be reassuring the prospect that his corporation is capable of handling projects of the size that they are tendering for. The prospect will know this already, but there is no harm in reminding them again. It is always never a good idea to criticize or deride the companies who are competing against yours for the contract. Some times it is even better to praise them. Give them a verbal pat on the head. Make them appear small and vulnerable.

If the prospect spots a potential problem and asks the corporate presenter how he intends to solve it, the presenter will (at least within their subconscious) leap into the air and click their heels simultaneously. This is a positive signal that the prospect is considering the tender positively and that the company is in the running. He will never offer the prospect anything that he know that his company is incapable of supplying. If he can't provide an immediate and credible solution then he won't attempt to. Instead he will advise the prospect that he will get back to him. He has established an ongoing dialogue. The meeting has been a success and achieved its goals.

The legal teams and production teams will be on stand by in case the presentation begins to move in a direction where a firm conclusion is likely to be reached. This would be highly unusual as corporate business rarely makes out on the first date.

Instead the head of the presentation party will be happy to gradually wind down the meeting in a cordial fashion. Both parties will have learned a little more about each other. They will be able to head back to their various corporate bases to begin to prepare for the next round.