I’ve probably made several hundreds of presentations in my time, too many times by my reckoning, taking up altogether too much of my time. They seemed to detract – or at least distract me – from the business of doing my job. My boss, the then CEO, told me that selling – which when distilled down to its essence was what my presentations were – was precisely my job…and indeed that of all senior managers. We sell our plans to the Board, he went on, to the banks, to employees. We sell ourselves to customers, to suppliers, to analysts. He was right, of course. Once again. This was a disturbing trait that I never got used to. Anyway, I did learn a few things over the course of these presentations, which I share here:

Five Dos:

1.    Control the conditions. If at all possible, do the presentation on your premises. There are several reasons for this:
-    You won’t have to worry about being waylaid en route by snowstorms, cancelled flights, or traffic tie-ups. You won’t have to worry about arriving late, stressed or sweaty. Forget the commercials; getting there is not half the fun.
-    You can prep the room in advance, control the lighting, check the equipment and, even have time for a last minute run-through. If you are off-site, despite all the reassurances, you can never be sure that the room or the equipment will work for you.
-    You can tack on a tour, bring in support staff as appropriate (you don’t want to be out-numbered), and have complete control over the menu and washrooms…in short, you have at your disposal all the advantages and comforts of home.

2.    A two parter: First, Know your stuff! I find most nerves are related not to discomfort with the audience but with the material. If you know your stuff cold, you will be much more relaxed. If you don’t, frankly, call the whole thing off. Part 2: Get your facts right. Nothing makes you look stupider than being called out on information that is inaccurate. Even incorrectly added columns of numbers makes you appear incompetent and your thesis untrustworthy. Check and double-check your material. Ensure that anyone else present is using the same numbers as you so that your own people don’t embarrass you.

3.    Provide a context. There might be a rhyme to your presentation but, more importantly, there has to be a reason. Everything should be part of a whole. A strategic plan, perhaps. Or a response to the economic or competitive environment. Even something like the launch of an important new product portfolio or marketing program, seemingly big enough items to stand on their own, can be placed in a larger context. Just ask yourself, what is the driver of change? I once did presentations to what some of us considered corporate raiders. Talk about mixed emotions. We didn’t want them to acquire us but, just in case they did, we had to look good to keep our jobs. I had to find a context to cover both eventualities. I came up with ‘value’.

4.    Make sure you have enough meat. Don’t waste people’s time. Present something interesting, something with take-aways. They should leave the room thinking about what you presented. I always worry when people don’t ask questions. It usually means that they didn’t get it. Or worse, that they did and were disinterested. Which brings up the corollary: Do let people ask questions…the more the merrier. Even if they are distracting. Even if they cut into your presentation time. Questions mean involvement. Involvement means commitment.

5.    Say it like you mean it. Show some passion. We had a bright young analyst who not only kept coming up with brilliant concepts, but was a master at Power Point and could capture and illustrate these concepts in a compelling way. The problem was, his presentation skills were lacking; he would stand in front of an eager audience and put them to sleep. I once made his presentation and began this way: “I am going to show you something incredible, something different and exciting. It will knock your argyle socks right back to the old country. This is highly classified information, however, so there will be no handouts. If you are caught with this material, we will have to kill you. Thank you.” The audience was mesmerized, not because I was so compelling or because they were so easily charmed. I had them simply because they came in receptive and I told them to be excited for me so they were. Try it.

Five Don’ts

1.    Don’t get cute. At least, don’t get too cute. You can have a prop. I always use props. They could be relevant quotes, nifty graphics, working samples, whatever. But you don’t want too many of anything. You don’t want to have too much animation, too many link buttons, too many distractions. Accents give flavor to your presentation. Too much flavor, however, becomes cloying.

2.    Don’t eat beforehand. At least, don’t overeat. You don’t want to be sick during your presentation. I once watched a senior sales manager make a presentation while his stomach was in the process of self-destructing. Needless to say, his mind was not on the material. As a result, neither was anyone else’s. And while we’re on the subject of food, don’t drink anything if you can during the presentation. At worst, drink water to cure a parched throat. Coffee is a diarrhetic. Soft drinks…well, let’s just say that the carbonation has a way of repeating itself.

3.    Slides should not be hard to follow or hard to read. Don’t use a dark background. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Don’t have too many ideas on one slide. Actually, one idea per slide is a pretty good guideline to follow. Don’t use massive spreadsheets forcing the audience to squint to read the numbers; almost assuredly, more than half your audience is of an age that finds small type visually challenging. As well, it will be hard to find and focus in on the two or three numbers that are actually meaningful. Show less and then highlight the numbers that are important. Make them bold, circle them, add arrows…whatever it takes. With one exception: the laser pointer. Use it at your peril. Nothing is more annoying than the laser dot zapping around the screen, shaking uncontrollably, circling herky-jerkey. The laser pointer is not high tech; it is the device of last resort for those who have not mastered technology.

4.    Presentations should not be too long. People get fidgety. You can get an awful lot in in an hour. You can probably distill an hour-long presentation down to three-quarters of an hour. Or a half-hour. Whatever you do, don’t surpass your allotted time. If there is an agenda, stick to it. Have someone friendly in the audience signal you when you are running out of time. It is unfair to cut into other people’s presentations because you are out of control; you are not that important. As for how many slides makes a decent presentation, plan on an average of three minutes per slide (with questions). That means 15-20 slides max. If you can’t cut your presentation down to 20 slides, you don’t really understand your material.

5.    Don’t worry so much. It’s only a presentation.

My thoughts on loyalty (as stated in my last post, Whose Bread I Eat, His Song I Sing) run counter to conventional wisdom which currently holds that loyalty between supplier and customer and between employer and employee are tentative at best, subject to change without notice and likely with little regard. Loyalty, it seems to most, is a quaint notion that has neither place nor purpose in a globalized, commoditized world. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson was right: The merchant has no country. Even I do admit that there are circumstances where my confidence in loyalty is put to the test.

Acquired Rights – and Wrongs

Being acquired or merged usually has its down-side or, more precisely, down-size for the acquired or merged company and the people therein. The rationale given invariably revolves around synergy. In the new math, one head is better than two. Redundancy is good only in IT and nuclear deterrence. For example, there is no need for two finance departments, especially since there can be only one treasury into which all cash flows and one set of books into which all the numbers flow. The problem with most rationalizing is that expediency and incumbency trump quality. You go with what and who you know; both are highly prejudiced by proximity, that is, you go with those close to home. The take-away of an acquisition is that something has to give.

It is the same at the commercial level. Looking for synergies will almost always mean the rationalization of suppliers, large and small. This reflects not on the greed of the purchaser but on that of his suppliers, for acquisitions often provide the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have it all.

A Changing of the Guard

A change in leadership will likely create a measure of vulnerability for direct reports. As in the case of the acquired company, loyalty can work in reverse, accruing to the original stakeholders or based on prior knowledge. The new CEO will assess the staff he inherits using both objective and subjective measures. At the end of the day – usually by the end of the first 100 days – he will go (or stay) with whom he is comfortable, from whom he knows he can command loyalty through thick and thin, and to whom he can confidently delegate difficult but necessary tasks. Not surprisingly, this may mean bringing along old staffers with whom a rapport has already been built and a necessary level of confidence already established. To the discomfort (though not the discredit) of incumbents, ‘may mean’ very often does mean.

Once again, a new buying team at a key customer could well entail the end of an enduring relationship, contractual obligations notwithstanding. A change may reflect not just pre-existing loyalties, personal and organizational, but also policy shifts. The new buyer may, for example, decide to move from split accounts to sole vendorships or vice-versa. Uncertainty is to be expected and you’d better have a good story to tell.

When the Going Gets Tough

When the numbers don’t add up to where they ought, odds are good that budgets will be cut. Management will, at one point, begin to talk about productivity, i.e., output divided by headcount. To enhance productivity, you can either increase the numerator (always desirable) or decrease the denominator (almost always the default) or, of course, do both. Any of these options becomes a driver for reengineering which, for most, does not mean refocusing the organization but shrinking it. There is a widespread belief that, in any restructuring, less is more. True or not, for those who are victimized, it is certainly less.

So, yes, there are circumstances that will shift loyalty into reverse (as in our first two situations) or move it to a back seat position (our third). Those circumstances invariably arise from a significant change – of leadership or of fortune. Even in explaining loyalty, more of the one would likely mean less impact from the other.

A recurring theme from the corner office will be an argument that the foundation for all successful enterprises over the long haul is integrity. Integrity is a concept impossible to understand if you don’t have it and unnecessary to understand if you do. The cornerstones of integrity are respect, commitment, consistency and loyalty. Each will be dealt with in time; this post is about loyalty.

It is too easily taken as a given that loyalty can no longer be found in business, that it goes as far as the nearest turn of corner and downturn of market. There is no real loyalty between companies and their employees, nor between suppliers and customers. When the slightest push comes to the merest shove, goes conventional - or, more precisely, convenient - wisdom, people will switch on a dime for a dime.

Three decades of experience tells me that this is simply not true. Of course, nothing is so simple, but I would most strenuously make the case that loyalty is alive and doing rather well under difficult circumstances. It takes a great deal of push to topple the walls that most employees build around themselves to maintain the security of their jobs. It takes a most egregious shove to overcome a buyer’s resistance to change.

The case could well be made that employees care more about their jobs than they do about the companies that provide them, that their loyalty travels only so far as their pay cheques will carry it. I would posit that people will almost always try to do their best for their employers and that given the opportunity and appropriate tools, most would succeed. They, equally, want their companies to do well, understanding full well who butters their bread. Despite all the griping around the water cooler and over Kokanee beer, most would be more than happy to wear the company colors and wave the corporate flag. Because now, as always, job security trumps job satisfaction.

Does this loyalty go both ways? Most companies – at least the good ones – know that you can never get enough good people. Most managers – at least the good ones – know that their success depends as much on the support of those below them as on that of those above. It is the sheep, after all, that make the shepherd.

Corporate buyers look for value as much as price. Even those charged with the purchase of commodities know that a secure and consistent supply chain is invaluable. Price will get an order, but relationships will get – and barring catastrophic screw-ups – keep the business. Incumbents will get the first call and the last look. They will be given the benefit of the doubt because buyers have no doubt about the short- and long-term benefits of doing so.

Suppliers will seldom chase business – even potentially more lucrative business – that would jeopardize their relationships with existing customers. Those that do will find out soon enough that what goes around comes around, that loyalty - or lack thereof - cuts both ways. They will come to realize that there is a lifetime value to customers that, while not easy to calculate, is impossible to ignore. Mostly, they will learn that shareholders are not interested so much in profit as in sustainable growth. Sustainable growth comes with protecting the base and growing with key customers.

Everyone will have a tale to the contrary - and nothing upsets the equilibrium of loyalty faster and with more finality than a changing of the guard - but it is precisely these exceptions that define the rule. And so, in general and on principle, I am in agreement with American writer, publisher and philosopher Elbert Hubbard who said, “An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness”. At a minimum.