How to make an All Hands presentation that doesn't suck
Writer's block when drafting speaking points for your product is real. Here are some ideas to wake up your audience.
Here is the step by step by step guide to what to put in your All Hands Deck.
1)Look honestly at what you have right now in your slides.
Are you bored? Would someone else be bored? Is nothing there yet?
If yes, admit it, and don’t worry it can be solved!
The moment you realize that your deck sucks / is boring (or maybe it’s terrific and you can contribute to this article). STOP.
Copy the deck you have so far for version control purposes and now feel free to blow up the slides.
2)Pick 2-3 people you want to speak to at this presentation
Giant meeting with 100 different types of people? Pick 2 who you care about the most to be the champion for your product.
Such as: Sales, Engineering, Support..
3)Think: What do they care about?
If you have no clue / those people you picked have competing priorities, there are some universal desires to kick off your initial slide. Chances are they care about one or more of the following:
Money
Customers
Growth
Churn
Making their lives easier
Their Money
You can pick 1 - 2 as it relates to your product / launch and start off with it as a focus to jolt them from their slumber.
4) Slide 1: Why it is important - Show the why using data and/or a story
Take the 1 - 2 points you selected above and tell a story / 1 - 2 datapoints that speak to that.
An example here - Simple, clean, 1 point to remember for your viewers:
Other data examples:
“213 Customers have left because we don’t have _____”
“$87,462,384 total volume per MONTH of prospects blocked by ________.”
Story Example:
“SimplyCandy, a gourmet candy shop, has 300 customers / month. 175 of them have wanted to pay with Apple Pay, but we don’t support that.
The average checkout price is $25.98.
That’s $4,546.50 per month.
$54,558 per year.
For SimplyCandy, this is 58% of their business. They want to guarantee they never risk losing this income.
Imagine being SimplyCandy.”
Example here (not perfect, but just for the framework):
5) Slide 2: Tie in your product to that “Why”
If you haven’t yet, or if it isn’t extremely obvious, do the tie in on the following slide.
6) Slide 3: What - Show them what your product is - Briefly!
Do not drone on and on about it if your audience is non-technical / they just need to sell this thing.
Instead, give context and a backdrop.
Rather than describing every feature you and your designers and engineers painstakingly decided was in-scope, show them the overall theme / vision / main points of the product.
If the product has to do with a larger industry-related topic - Such as a payment method type or industry trend, share that!
For instance, one of the presentations I did recently was on international payments via SWIFT. Prior to the Ukraine-Russia crisis, no one knew what SWIFT was. (Even our Head of Finance said he was not fully aware of it until the invasion when it was hitting him from all news / social media outlets.)
If your product has call-backs to recent news / trends, now is a great time to bring those up.
People love non-proprietary facts that they can tell their partner / friend. (Or maybe that’s just me.) Perhaps you can teach them something new.
7) Tell them when they can expect it
There is nothing more disappointing when I learn of something neat coming to market… Yet, I have no clue exactly WHEN. Or, how much.
Tell the people the key facts if you can.
8)Test the slides out on a team member who won’t judge you
Ideally, you’ve worked on these slides a few days before the All hands and have a 1:1 with a team member coming up. If not, send a quick 15 minute invite and tell them it’s to make sure you represent their work well.
Float the deck by them and just watch their face. If they seem bored / uninterested / you’re droning on and on, cut those slides. Keep only the good stuff.
9)Practice presenting it
Like in the movies, where the protagonist is practicing asking out a date.
Only, here you’re practicing not looking like a fool in a presentation.
Do it in front of Zoom. Now that we’ve all lived on Zoom / a similar service for ~2 years.
Record it. You’re a natural thanks to the COVID lockdown. (If you’re reading this far in the future, Zoom is a software system that enables video calls…
Maybe we’ll have on AR / VR headsets in the future. Maybe you’re already living in the future.)
10)Be excited! (If the occasion calls for it)
If you’re not excited, then there is a much lower chance your audience will be excited.
You don’t have to be Ballmer excited, but some form of enthusiasm is nice.
Maybe more like this, subtle and to the point, in layman’s terms (OVERLY USED1, but I have to put it in here):
11)Marie Kondo your slides
The best slides are the ones with 1 main theme.
If it isn’t going to strike anything of value (“gives you joy” to keep in Marie Kondo’s words), cut the sentence, or, perhaps better yet, cut the slide.
The fewer sentences the better.
Now, if you’re thinking you could freeze up and have no clue, then by all means, leave a few sentences in, but ideally no more than 3.
Assume everyone is somewhat blind too, make the font large.
Other ideas to spice up your presentation:
Write down in your notes: “Have fun. I love presenting.” - Corny, but if you aren’t having fun (and you’re supposed to be) then that’s a problem. Chances are your audience won’t either. And the best way to get people to not fall asleep is to ensure some sort of emotion.
Mix it up - If you do multiple presentations every month, use new formulas / orders.
Think about what people care about - Not just at work, in their lives…
Find some new, valuable data to back it up.
Less is more on slides - Think Apple. One image / 2 lines / 1 data point. People will actually remember 1 data point / one crazy graph.
Add thanks to those who helped you with the data / your team doing the actual work. People love credit, give them what they deserve!
Credits
Well, I can’t tell you to give people credit without giving credit myself. Header photo by Tim Gouw. Thanks Tim.
Ok, real talk, Steve Jobs and Apple have done some amazing stuff but he sounded like an awful person to actually work for. Seems like everyone praises him, and I get it, I’m using an iPhone and Mac right now, but I’ve heard horror stories. (Am I the only one?!) Great presenter, great innovator, but if Pirates of Silicon Valley from 1999 is remotely true, wew. Let me know if this theory is wrong.