ALL CHAPTERS
Chapter Five
Presentations, Meetings, and Moments Not to Be Forgotten
“Any presentation is a final exam.”
- Robert Arnold
From cold calls to sales presentations, progress reports, and final recommendations, consultants are geared to the big show, the moment when they step on stage and show everyone what they can do. It is one of the highs of the business. Accordingly, this chapter explores the critical place presentations place in the consultant’s repertoire.
In this chapter, our contributors share some of what they’ve learned about the myriad, often unexpected challenges that can arise in the course of presentations and meetings. Of course, in consulting there is a lot of the unexpected.
We learn how consultants use presentations to motivate their clients, to simplify complicated issues or bring information together in new ways. We learn about the more “streetwise” people skills that often enter into play, as consultants negotiate their way through thickets of internal politics, personalities, and situations where survival means thinking on your feet. It’s all about the art of communication.
If you work as a consultant long enough, you’re also going to have your share of unforgettable moments, experiences with clients etched for better or for worse in memory. Everything from being told your work is the best the client has ever seen, to the more infamous miscalculations, mistakes, and mishaps perhaps inevitable even over the course of the most successful careers. We learn, for example, what it is like to be young and so full of ideas that you spend a half hour talking over the heads of a group of police executives; or to meet with a utility executive and former admiral schooled in the methods of deep intimidation. Our contributors share what they’ve learned from such encounters.
In this chapter, we also discuss the challenges involved when consultants are used as bearers of bad news, scapegoats for cost cutting agendas, for example, or other tough situations. We learn about how critical it is to have the right team in place during a major presentation, to answer the questions you can’t anticipate. As well, we learn about the allure of making the sale, what it was like the first time. And how the best sales personalities represent a dynamic combination of ego and empathy, bringing strong self-confidence to their work, but also sensitivity to who the client is as an individual or leader.
As one veteran contributor concludes, “I learned early on to get the facts right, get them documented, and feed them back to the client very quickly.” It’s called earning credibility. In this chapter, we learn a few things about that.
The Pressure and the Thrills
“Any… Presentation…Is a Final Exam”
I had an experience early in my career with a client that was just awful. At the time it was really devastating. We felt fortunate that they even paid the bills. In fact, during the final presentation they nearly threw us out because they didn’t agree with some of the numbers we showed them. They challenged the source.
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