Making Technical Presentations More Relatable

You might as well be speaking “Klingon” Just dropped from a meeting where the IT Director provided his update to the leadership team. The c-level folks and non-technical leaders had no clue what he was talking about… From my experience this is the #1 mistake technical professionals make when meeting with business stakeholders I'll be blunt… business stakeholders don’t care about your technical architecture diagrams, your configuration details, or how cutting-edge your solution is. They care about outcomes. They care about results. They care about impact. BUT most technical professionals go into meetings armed with technical jargon & acronyms and leave the room wondering why no one bought in. If you’re presenting to business leaders, here’s the reality check… you are selling and you’re not selling technology - you’re selling business value. I don’t like to present a problem without a solution – so let’s try this… Step 1 Start every conversation by answering this “How does this solve a business problem?” If you have a technical solution that reduces costs, increases revenue, mitigates risk, or makes life easier for users, lead with that. Everything else is just details that nobody cares about. Step 2 Translate technical features into business benefits. Instead of saying, “We’re implementing zero trust,” say, “We’re reducing critical risks to our top revenue producing critical business functions.” Step 3 Stakeholders want to hear about how your solution will reduce downtime, increase productivity, save $$$, or improve client satisfaction. Make your impact measurable and relatable. Step 4 Can you reframe your message using an analogy or better yet a story. Numbers are great, but stories are sticky and resonate. Frame your solution in the context of a real-world scenario, like something stakeholders can visualize and connect with. Step 5 No one likes a squeaky wishy washy technical expert. Take a position, back it with evidence, and be clear about the path forward. Confidence inspires trust. Stop talking about the “how.” Start owning the “why.” And STOP speaking “Klingon” When you shift your focus to business value, you’ll see interest, buy-in, alignment, and support. #ciso #dpo #msp #leadership

Early in my career, I thought a great presentation was all about delivering the most information. More data, more slides, more details- surely that would make my message stronger, right? Wrong! I once spent hours crafting a data-heavy presentation, thinking I had covered everything. But when I finished, I saw blank faces. No engagement. No real connection. That’s when I learned a hard truth: People don’t remember information. They remember stories. The most impactful presentations aren’t just packed with facts- they create an experience. They stick. So I started shifting my approach: Starting with the why - Start with a bold stat: "80% of your marketing budget could be wasted due to unclear messaging." - Use a “Before & After” scenario: "Here’s your current workflow… Now imagine cutting it in half." - Show a big metric slide: "Current conversion rate: 1.2% – Here’s how we’ll improve it." Using a clear structure - PSA framework: • Problem: "Churn rate increased by 15% last quarter." • Solution: "Implement a feedback loop system." • Action: "Reduce churn by 25% in 6 months." -AIDA: • Attention: "Only 5% of customers complete onboarding." • Interest, Desire, Action: Show benefits, and close with clear next steps. Adding emotional hooks - Add a personal touch: "When I joined, manual processes were taking hours..." - Turn data into a story: "This spike? That’s when we went viral." - Use visuals/metaphors: "Our customer journey is like a relay race—every step matters." Ending with a call to action - List clear steps: "1. Automate feedback, 2. Train sales, 3. Monitor churn weekly." - Use a visual checklist: "Phase 1: Done, Phase 2: In progress, Phase 3: Launch." - Ask a motivating question: "Are you ready to turn this vision into reality?" And the difference? Night and day. People engaged more. They remembered the key takeaways. They acted on what I shared. Because at the end of the day, facts tell, but stories sell. So next time you build a presentation, don’t just create slides, craft a story that moves your audience. That’s how ideas make an impact.

As a Data guy, I had certain beliefs about presenting. I feel icky admitting this, but I used to think... "Can I impress them with my charts and graphs?" If you've ever seen a data analyst present, you've seen this. Data Analysts love their charts and graphs. But the truth is... Pretty graphics don't win people over, especially Senior Leaders. My problem was... my ego. And it actually made me a ball of nerves. So why does this matter to you? Because when presenting is about YOU, it's all wrong. Being impressive isn't about great slides... being extra funny or sarcastic... or having a one line zinger... Business leaders aren't impressed by this. Here's the key that changed everything… Your Leaders want Team Members who know this: Great business presentations are about being RELEVANT for your audience. Here are 5 ways to be more RELEVANT when speaking... so you can engage your audience and win them over. (See if you see the common thread.) 1️⃣ Start with their priorities Don’t open with your outline. Start with what they care about. 2️⃣ Use their language and examples Skip buzzwords. Speak in terms they already use day-to-day. 3️⃣ Answer: what does this mean for them? After every key point, tie it to... what and why it matters to them. 4️⃣ Prioritize what impacts their world Cut anything that’s irrelevant... Oh, and don't think emotions don't matter Every leader makes decisions with some emotion. 5️⃣ Tailor your visuals and data to your audience Your examples and slides should reflect... their world, not yours. Did you see the common thread? Notice how being engaging & impressive is about THEM! Yes, great communicators know it's about the audience! Focus on SERVING them and you'll engage (and impress) them. Why? Because... Serving others reduces nerves (and your ego). Relevance to your audience earns attention. Speaking in their language builds credibility. Was there one of the 5 that stood out to you? - - - - - If we haven't met, I'm Cooper, and I help business professionals grow their confidence & credibility when speaking and presenting. +Follow me for more actionable tips.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve attended a lot of events: panels, keynotes, pitch competitions, all mostly in the tech world. And here is the one thing most speakers were missing: The emotional connection. Almost every speaker missed the moment to make me care. They either: ✔️ Led with themselves and their résumé ✔️Launched straight into features and facts ✔️Or skipped right past me, the audience. No pain points, no relatable stories, no sense of, “I see you.” If you’re a founder leading a team and speaking to investors or potential partners, your audience doesn’t want a data dump. They want a reason to lean in. They want to feel something. No matter where you are in the development process, whether you're the founder mapping the vision or the builder shaping the product, remember this: At the end of every solution is a real person. A user. They’ll choose your product not just because it works, but because it removes a barrier in their life. That’s not just functional. It’s emotional. You're giving them time back, reducing stress, or helping them do something they couldn’t do before. That’s the real win. Here’s how you do that: ✔️Start with a moment, not a monologue. ✔️Open with something human. A story, a vivid image, or a question that hits a nerve. ✔️Get out of your head and into their world. What are they feeling right now? Confused? Excited? Skeptical? Speak to that. ✔️Make your solution the result, not the lead. ✔️Set the stage first. Show the problem. Stir the tension. Then bring in the resolution: your idea. If your audience doesn't care first, they won’t remember later. ☎️ If you would like to start connecting more with your audience. Let's have a 1:1! I will put a link to my calendar in the comments, or you can find it above under my Featured section. #founder #tech #publicspeaking #pitch #presentation #VC

I meet B2B companies in the streaming media space every day....all up and down the supply chain. And more often than I'd like, I get lost when I'm getting pitched. I find it that a lot of companies (for whatever reason, probably several, and I can think of a few) overcomplicate their product marketing. Overly technical info, buzzwords, high-level speak that sometimes makes me feel like an idiot for not fully grasping what a company does within the first 5 minutes. My approach at 43Twenty for the past 6 years is to align a brand narrative around 3 things - these are non-negotiable. 1. Why does this matter? If you drop a buzzword, be sure to immediately follow it up with why it matters. Btw, why it matters to a CEO and CFO could be completely different. A CEO does not care about about "no code". But they might care that your product can empower non-technical people across various departments to quickly and effectively build applications. And the CFO might care that this could "significantly reduce expenses by 80%" Tie "why it matters" to a business outcome or a persona's pain point. Make "the why" relatable. Evoke emotion. 2. Explain it to a 5th grader Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't whether you win or lose a contract is going to be based on how overly technical you sound. Obviously, most of you are tech companies and you need to talk to the CTO...but if the rest of the C-Suite has no flipping clue what you're talking about, that's a problem. And more often than not, it's someone technical that's holding the wallet. Your content's gotta resonate with everyone. What I do is make sure that a 5th grader can understand what a company does. Btw, two people that are amazing a simplifying complicated things in easy to grasp terms are Alan Wolk Jason Thibeault. 3. Use Cases I will admit that I learn via use cases. Don't tell me in adjectives and shiny buzzwords what your company does. Tell me, with a use case, how you help someone solve a problem. If you can't talk about your customers, that's fine. Anonymize the use cases. Somepeople learn better this way. At least I do and I'm sure there's more weirdos just like me. I apply these principals over at The Streaming Wars and BIG OL' KUDOS to the team for their coverage of Gracenote's launch of Data Hub and its 2024 State of Play Report. They didn't just say "Gracenote did this, announced that, here's the quote from the press release" I challenged them to explain what the heck Data Hub is in a way that a 5th grader could understand -- or maybe just so I could understand it 🤷♂️ After all, what's the point of PR and reaching the a masses if not everybody is grasping the message or what it actually means? Btw, there's a 4th thing.... 4. Explain how you're different. I continually get feedback from media companies (your buyers) that they can't tell the difference between one solution provider from another. (Welp, I just hit the character limit on this post) ❤️ you

As an investor, I’ve sat through many founders pitching sophisticated solutions, yet their complex ideas were often difficult to grasp. Recently, I helped a nanotech startup distill their complex ideas into simple terms. - First, we identified a relatable, local problem to connect emotionally with investors. Grabbing hearts first makes investors curious to then understand the technical details. - Next, we honed in on a target initial market that would benefit most from their technology. This helped investors easily envision the real-world impact. - Finally, we animated their complex process into a simple visualization. Showing how it works visually is far more compelling than explaining technical intricacies. It’s easy for founders to get stuck in complex problems, but relatable storytelling is key for investors. We deal with technical jargon all day - the most compelling pitches connect as human stories first. Relatability convinces us, then data seals the deal.

Communicating complex data insights to stakeholders who may not have a technical background is crucial for the success of any data science project. Here are some personal tips that I've learned over the years while working in consulting: 1. Know Your Audience: Understand who your audience is and what they care about. Tailor your presentation to address their specific concerns and interests. Use language and examples that are relevant and easily understandable to them. 2. Simplify the Message: Distill your findings into clear, concise messages. Avoid jargon and technical terms that may confuse your audience. Focus on the key insights and their implications rather than the intricate details of your analysis. 3. Use Visuals Wisely: Leverage charts, graphs, and infographics to convey your data visually. Visuals can help illustrate trends and patterns more effectively than numbers alone. Ensure your visuals are simple, clean, and directly support your key points. 4. Tell a Story: Frame your data within a narrative that guides your audience through the insights. Start with the problem, present your analysis, and conclude with actionable recommendations. Storytelling helps make the data more relatable and memorable. 5. Highlight the Impact: Explain the real-world impact of your findings. How do they affect the business or the problem at hand? Stakeholders are more likely to engage with your presentation if they understand the tangible benefits of your insights. 6. Practice Active Listening: Encourage questions and feedback from your audience. Listen actively and be prepared to explain or reframe your points as needed. This shows respect for their perspective and helps ensure they fully grasp your message. Share your tips or experiences in presenting data science projects in the comments below! Let’s learn from each other. 🌟 #DataScience #PresentationSkills #EffectiveCommunication #TechToNonTech #StakeholderEngagement #DataVisualization

I once asked my youngest daughter what she thought I did for work, and she said, "You sit on Zoom and give people your opinion all day." While there's more to my day than that, she's not entirely wrong! As you climb the career ladder, your schedule fills with presentations—some inspiring, others not so much. Here’s how to make sure yours stands out when presenting to senior leaders: 1. Be Specific, Not Overly Detailed: You've probably heard, "Keep it high-level for executives; avoid the weeds." True, but don't swing too far into the abstract. Ground your points with concrete facts and data. For instance, instead of saying, "Some code deployments aren't automated and there are opportunities for improvement," try, "Our analysis shows 25% of code deployments require manual effort, particularly in post-change validations and service restarts." 2. Harness the Power of Storytelling: Transform your presentation into a captivating narrative. Stories make data relatable and memorable. Start with a real-world example, like a customer struggling with your current system, highlight the problem and then move on to your solution. 3. Start with the 'Why': Dive into the heart of your proposal by explaining its significance. Why should your audience care? How does it align with their goals? For example, "By automating these processes, we not only boost efficiency but also advance our strategic goal of enhancing customer satisfaction." 4. Foster a Dialogue, Not a Monologue: Remember, communication is a two-way street. Anticipate your audience's reactions and be ready to engage. Hit your key points swiftly, avoid over-explaining, and focus on insights that empower decision-making. After presenting, ask questions to invite discussion. These strategies can help you tie together facts, emotions, and strategic insights, making your message not just heard, but remembered and acted upon. #presentationtips #careertips #careeradvice

About effective presentations: Story Telling So a mentee approached me the other day, about being asked by their manager to present to the SVP and Directs about a recent migration in the core of their system.   I was familiar with the work and it was generally "yet another system migration", so the first question I asked? "What's the story". The first answer was an engineering overview, basically same as every single other system migration: analyze, design, review, feedback, implementation, migration, etc. This is not really an interesting story as it is like all the rest: Big work, Executed cleanly, Had cake. My challenge back was to consider the context of presenting to the SVP and their VP directs. What message should they remember? That's an expensive room. All their teams deliver big important features so what is special about this one? Is there a moral to the story? What might they take back to their own teams? If they only remembered one thing, what is that one thing? This story, the over-arching message, is the most important part. It is the reason for being. It is the thread that winds through the whole thing. It is the point that you are trying to make. It is the "agenda" that you are driving. And this is not just for "presentations" but everywhere you influence. It always goes easier when you have an agenda, a purpose, when you have that intent, that over-arching theme. The presentation will stick better if you are reinforcing a single, simple message. The story might include tales of adversity and woe, heroic adventures, death-defying feats of mystery and intrigue, cinematic explosions, poignant moments, but in the telling, these are all in the service of the over-arching theme. Here's a real-life example, over-simplified, from a presentation I was contributing on, to that same group. We were looking at Developer Experience and the very first iteration was: "Dev experience is important. You should care. We did an experiment, captured a bunch of data, and decided to focus on these few things." The final iteration had an actual message: "Our experiment showed that issues impacting Developer Experience vary from team to team, so instead of creating a single set of top-down targets, we should go bottoms up, having teams identify their most impactful items to go fix." Every example of data highlighted how different the metrics were from team to team. We reinforced on multiple slides how the hot points varied across team. We paved the way to the punch line. So, Flint's tip of the week: Don't just relate lists of facts. Step back and think about the 1 or 2 things that you want people to remember. This is your agenda, your theme, your story arc. Double-check that every section supports that agenda. Be intentional about words and phrases to support that theme. If a section distracts from the theme, reconsider if you need it or if it could be half as long. #Teams #Leadership #StoryTelling #Presenting

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞. I am frequently asked, “Patricia, how do you help your clients improve technical presentations? Surely, you don’t really understand what they are talking about?” During a coaching session with one of my technology clients—a highly educated engineer preparing for his company’s annual User Convention—he began with, “There are two things people love about our software project.” 𝐈 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝, “𝐈𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐚 ‘𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠,’ 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞?” 𝐇𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝, “𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬.” My next question: “There are billions of people in the world. Which people love your innovative upgrades?” 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫: “𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬.” On stage, his message became: “There are two innovative upgrades that systems administrators love.” This shift in language transformed his presentation. By being specific, he spoke directly to his audience and dramatically increased his impact. With attendees from 71 countries, precision was critical. My clients are brilliant. Yes, I gain a high-level understanding of what their software does and how it improves their clients’ business. My real job is to help them simplify complexity so their audience understands. I remind them, “Never use the words basic or simple. What you do is neither. If it were, you wouldn’t be paid what you are.” 𝐌𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞. #presentationskillsexpert #keynotespeaker #publicspeaking #frippvt