Presentation Preparation
Step4: Review
4th step of preparation for the business presentation is a review.
Would you usually ask someone to review your presentation?
I recommend reviewing your slides. There are 3 objectives to review.
Check the direction of the story
Check if the content is accurate
Get comment or feedback to brush up the content
1. Check the direction of the story
“Don’t surprise other attendees!”
If you go to the customer meeting without reviewing your slides with other attendees and you may surprise them. So the review process is necessary to have the same understanding of our message what we should say and what we should not say.
Let me share my experience. I had one request about a technical spec from a customer in a meeting and we had to answer it in the next meeting. As the representative of my division, I thought we should say “No” to the request because the request took some big cost and development time and said “No”. However, as price negotiations were ongoing, the sales team thought we shouldn’t say “No” at this point. And so the sales team thought if we could meet the price request, it might be ok that we couldn’t meet that request. So before the meeting, I should ask the sales team to review the slide and had to get a consensus on what we say about the request in the meeting. Maybe I should say, “We are investigating the impact of the request on our product’s cost & schedule so we will answer later”.
2. Check if the content is accurate
We need a review with experts who has other knowledge that I have. For example, when we talk about a contract we may need to ask our legal department to review the content. If we talked about the price, we need to contact our sales team. If we talked about product spec, we need to contact our development team. They know the latest status and have more knowledge and experience so they can find if the content is not accurate.
3. Get comment or feedback to brush up the content
Someone may give you some comments or feedback on how to brush up on your content.
Also, someone may find the typo or complicated statement needs to be modified.
So now we understand the 3 benefits of review.
Who do you need to ask for a review?
Other attendees
Colleague and boss who has more knowledge and experience
Experts such as legal, sales, and development who have different knowledge.
When I was a university or graduate student, I always asked my professors for a review before the academic conference. Usually, I got several reviews, not one time, to improve the presentation step by step. I learned the basic skills of presentation in graduate school through the experience to make a presentation to report the progress of my study. The reviews at that time are the basis of my presentation skills now.
Thanks to my knowledge and experience over years, I have more opportunities to review someone’s presentation than asking someone to review my presentation.
The next step is Step5: Rehearsal.
