262: How To Present As A Team When Selling

<p style="font-weight: 400;">In business, we are asked to present as a team.  We may be pitching for new business and the presentation requires different specialist areas of expertise.  This is quite different to doing something on your own, where you are the star and have full control over what is going on.  One of the big mistakes with amateur presenters is they don’t rehearse.  They just turn up and fluff it.  They blow up their personal and organisational brands.  When in a team environment, you absolutely cannot neglect the rehearsal component.  There will be many sessions needed before you are ready to face an audience, so you have to plan for this.  Do not leave this until the last moment after you have all been diligently assembling your slide decks.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The batting order is important.   Don’t put the brainy nerd up front. They may be the legitimate expert, but unless they are the best presenter keep them in reserve.  We want the best person to lead off, because this is how we create that all important first impression.  They may come back for the close out or have another equally skillful person secure the positive final impression.  The technical geeky people can be safely placed in the middle of proceedings.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As mentioned, don’t allow all the available team time to be sucked up by creating slides for the presentation.  This is the mechanical part and we need the soft skills part to be really firing. That takes time and repetition.  Set deadlines for deck completion, well in advance of the event, so that the chances to get everyone together are created.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Having worked out the order, do dry runs to see how the whole things flows.  Practice little things like each presenter shaking the hand of the next presenter as a type of baton pass between the team.  It shows you are a tight, united unit and connects the whole enterprise together. </p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Also, make sure each presentation can be given