“Geez, I wasted so much time just trying to fix this VP’s presentation I should have done it myself!” Alas, this is a common lament that SageCircle strategists hear when we are chatting with clients about how the preparation is going for a briefing, SAS day, and so on. The lament concerns that having someone on an executive’s staff prepare a presentation is not the time saver for analyst relations (AR) they had hoped. The time spent back and forth trying to get a presentation fixed often turns into a huge time sink for AR.
The answer is not for AR to give up and do all the presentations themselves. Rather, AR should invest a modest amount of time in developing templates for different types of presentations, examples, and also training for content developers. A little upfront training will save time on the immediate and future analyst interactions as content developers who “get” the analysts’ information needs will generate PowerPoint files that will require much less effort on AR’s part.
Content developer training should be part of an overall training plan (see this post), which should be part of your AR Strategic & Tactical Plan.
SageCircle Technique for Analyst Relations Teams:
- Develop a short training plan for the extended team, which includes content developers
- Generate presentation templates that lay out what slides and associated content are appropriate for different types of analyst interactions
- Work with executive sponsors to obtain support for requiring content developers to participate in training
- Schedule training sessions prior to analyst interactions to help content developers create appropriate presentations
- Coach content developers on how to improve draft presentations rather having AR simply re-do the presentations
Bottom Line: Training content developers is an investment for AR that will be repaid in reduced future work and higher quality content.
Question: AR – Do you currently training members of your executives’ staffs on the best practices for presentations for an analyst audience? If no, why not? If yes, what were the reaction and the results?
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