Meredith
6
min read
Jan 5, 2025
It’s the advice you’ve heard ever since you presented your third-grade book report. And, while it may calm your nerves to imagine your most important clients or your organizations’ C-suite in their birthday suits, it won’t actually make your presentation any more effective.
Presenting to higher ups is something you’ll undoubtedly need to do as a marketer, whether it’s to lay out your strategy or get final approval on creative assets – and it can be scary! After all, you’re addressing a roomful of people who have the power to either make your ideas come alive or to break them and send you back to square one – and who often have a say in your path to getting promoted. But the best way to ensure an effective presentation has nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with preparation!
Here, we’ve rounded up nine ways to prepare for the presentation of a lifetime so you can get senior stakeholders and clients on your side by communicating effectively.
Send out a calendar invitation with all of the necessary details, and don’t leave anything to chance: The more detail you can provide regarding what to expect the better. That means not only providing a date, time, and location but also plenty of context around what you will be presenting. A client or stakeholder who knows what’s coming is much more likely to sit through the entirety of your presentation without their interest lagging. Additionally, evaluating and utilizing effective communication skills from the start is crucial to engage stakeholders successfully.
There’s no one better at convincing a senior stakeholder of something than another senior stakeholder. That’s why it’s simply smart to get someone from the client side or from your C-suite on board early. Work those personal relationships before your presentation, and line up a sponsor who can vouch for you, making your case all the more persuasive. Engaging stakeholders in a collaborative manner fosters long-term commitment and ownership of initiatives.
Just as you need to prepare, so does your audience. Share any necessary documents well beforehand, and make sure attendees have access to all of the information they need. You’re not going into this presentation blind, and neither should your client or other stakeholders. At the same time, though, you’ll need to make sure your permissions are set correctly. If you’re using StreamWork to share assets, you can manage all your permissions in a single place. Be sure to consider who really needs edit access and who is better off with view-only permissions. Sometimes when sharing creative work, you may want to share context in advance but unveil the assets live.
Additionally, backing up your proposals with relevant data, such as pertinent statistics or case studies, can validate your claims and increase the credibility of your message.
Even the most old-school of executives have become accustomed to async work and Zoom calls over the last few years. It’s true that not every presentation necessitates an in-person meeting, but it’s important to consider which ones do. Is there something about meeting in person that will allow you to make a bigger impact, or will a video call suffice this time around? Can you forgo a meeting all together and route an asset for approval through a creative collaboration platform like StreamWork? Be sure to consider the pros and cons of each format and make a choice based on the best use of everyone’s time. Additionally, including a well-structured meeting agenda can ensure that discussions remain focused and productive.
Speaking of time, senior stakeholders have little of it, and they’re often asked to make numerous decisions in a single day. It’s imperative that you keep any in-person or virtual presentations short, succinct, and to the point. Try starting out with a summary, using the first few minutes of your presentation to lay out everything your audience needs to know – including the final call to action. That way, even the shortest of attention spans will have tuned into the important parts. Varying elements such as pace and tone can create interest by evoking emotions like excitement and suspense, thereby capturing the audience's attention.
One effective way to help keep your presentation short and sweet is to leave out any information that your audience knows already. On the flip side, knowing your audience’s technical or subject matter knowledge can help make sure you tailor the presentation to the right level so nobody leaves feeling confused or dumb. It requires a bit of legwork, but by understanding your audience and their knowledge gaps, you’ll keep content relevant and avoid repeating what’s table stakes. It’s a major part of managing up, which involves adapting your communication style to your clients or executives and learning to anticipate their needs. An important aspect of this is using visuals to capture the audience's attention and enhance the effectiveness of the presentation.
Even the smallest mistakes can be glaringly obvious, so be sure to proofread all of your slides and handouts to avoid leaving a bad impression. A second set of eyes never hurts and can be hugely beneficial in catching any slipups you may have missed. Then rehearse your presentation from start to finish, both in front of the mirror and in front of colleagues to ensure you’ve got it down. Additionally, employ inclusive communication strategies that encourage participation and ensure all individuals feel empowered to contribute their thoughts and feedback.
As you wrap up your presentation, make your expectations crystal clear so that everyone understands next steps. What is it that you need from your audience? Sign-off? Feedback? Additional information to complete a task? No matter what it is, don’t be afraid to spell it out and assign tasks, along with deadlines and any other parameters. Everyone shares the goal of moving your project forward, so there’s no reason to be shy about what it will take to get there.
Effective stakeholder communication is crucial in building trust, alignment, and collaborative efforts towards achieving shared goals.
You’ll need to continue sharing assets and information with higher ups even after your presentation is over, so it’s never too late to get everyone on the same platforml. A creative collaboration tool like StreamWork makes it easy to manage permissions, assign tasks, collect feedback, and route assets for approval – all in one place.
Ready to give StreamWork a try before your next presentation? Try it for free.
Author
Meredith
Meredith is the Founder and CEO of StreamWork, a creative workflow management platform built for teams who work on creative. Meredith has 12+ years experience working as a marketer at Apple, Google, YouTube and Warner Bros., and has worked on hundreds of creative assets with teams large and small. Her mission is to simplify the way teams work on creative.
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