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How To Do Business Presentation
How To Do Business Presentation
How To Do Business Presentation
PUBLISHED ON HBR.ORG
JULY 21, 2014
ARTICLE
INFLUENCE
The Right Way to
Present Your Business
Case
by Carolyn O’Hara
This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
INFLUENCE
You’ve already put a great deal of work into preparing a solid business case for your project or idea.
But when it comes to the critical presentation phase, how do you earn the support of decision makers
in the room? How do you present your case so that it’s clear and straightforward while also
persuasive?
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This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
of the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations and CEO of Duarte, Inc., a company specializing in
presentations and corporate messaging workshops. A memorable presentation transforms “numbers
on a page” into something more tangible, says Raymond Sheen, author of the HBR Guide to Building
Your Business Case. “It becomes a business opportunity that we’re grasping, a problem we’re
resolving, a step forward for the company.” Here’s how to create a persuasive pitch.
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This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
needless detail or trotting out tired visuals will also quickly lose you favor. Think carefully about the
message you want to convey. Does a bar graph, table, or pie chart more effectively present your
position? Are you able to circulate documents ahead of time, which might affect the data you want to
emphasize in the actual presentation? Or will a unique, more entertaining route be more persuasive?
“You have to know the best medium for the information,” says Duarte.
Principles to Remember
Do:
• Tell a story — it will make your case more persuasive and memorable
• Spell out the business need — it gives the audience a reason to listen
• Have both a short and long version ready — you never know how much time you will have
Don’t:
• Overlook stakeholders’ pet concerns — address them directly to win allies in the room
• Overwhelm your audience with needless detail
• Read directly from your slides — no one wants to attend a boring read-along
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This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
Northeast, felt the firm needed a new image. “Other companies with slicker marketing were gaining
market share even though they had inferior technology,” Mason says.
Mason decided to pitch a total rebranding — a new logo, new tagline, and new copy and photography
for ads and communications — to the new executive team brought in to prep the company for an IPO.
The price tag? An 8-fold increase in the marketing budget. “Marketing was a bit of a nebulous concept
for the executive team,” he says. “They knew they needed to do it,” but they weren’t sure why or
what tangible effect a new marketing strategy might have.
To build support for his case, Mason approached executive team members individually to ask them
what they thought competitors were doing right, and how that compared with their own company’s
strategy. Those conversations “gave me a roadmap of sorts for how I needed to present the
recommendations to them,” Mason says, “so it felt tailored to them based on their input.”
He crafted the presentation as a story of each of the company’s primary competitors, showcasing
their branding and visuals side-by-side with their marketing spending and earnings. That analysis not
only showed those with the most compelling brands and integrated marketing support had
impressive revenues, but also the most positive performances on Wall Street, a helpful fact given the
company’s IPO aspirations. “The cases showed how a marketing investment pays ahead, especially
when it comes to shareholder value,” says Mason, now the head of his own marketing firm.
Not long after, the executive team approved a full funding of Mason’s initiative. And in short order,
the company achieved consistent double-digit sales growth — and a successful IPO.
Randhawa didn’t yet have data to illustrate how the program might work, only anecdotal evidence
from companies in other industries. He knew that if he wanted to persuade management, he would
have to make an emotional appeal.
When it came time to present, Randhawa began by asking his audience to do a selective attention
exercise, also known as the “invisible gorilla” exercise. The task involves watching a video and
counting how many basketball passes are made between players wearing white jerseys. Most viewers
are so focused on counting the passes that they completely overlook the man dressed as a gorilla who
walks through the frame. Randhawa’s audience was no different.
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This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
Not only did the video lighten the mood, “it was also very relevant to my core message,” says
Randhawa. “It demonstrated the need to have extra sets of eyes on a problem and the importance of
diverse perspectives that employees can offer.” As the management team asked questions about how
the program might work, it was clear that Randhawa’s hook had worked. There was already a “clear
sense of collective ownership,” he says. In the end, he received an overwhelming “yes” to implement
the program.
For more on how to build a business case from scratch, see the HBR Guide to Building a Business Case
Ebook + Tools.
Carolyn O’Hara is a writer and editor based in New York City. She’s worked at The Week, PBS NewsHour, and Foreign
Policy. Follow her on Twitter at @carolynohara1.
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This article is licensed to you, Regupathy Ragavan of International Business Machines (IBM), for your personal use through 2022-01-01. Further posting, copying or distribution is not
permitted. Copyright 2014-07-21 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.