Public Speaking Report 3: 10 Steps to a Great Team Presentation

Multiethnic Group of People Planning Ideas

Picture the scene: There’s 24 hours to go. You and your team have been on a caffeine-induced rocket ride for the past two weeks.

Your destination: Tomorrow’s pitch presentation to a national restaurant brand.

Back story: Your firm is one of only three advertising agencies up for the job.

The clock is ticking, so the creative team assembles in the conference room to rehearse their pitch. Sleep has been scarce these past 14 days – but each team member has stellar work to show for it. As the run-through gets under way, reality sets in. Each person certainly delivered, but no one thought about the larger package. There’s no unifying theme. The pitch decks are a mishmash of styles. The whole presentation could use some red pen edits. The presenters panic and scramble to make last-minute changes fueled by even more caffeine and less sleep.

It’s the next day. The team heads into the presentation exhausted, defeated, and pessimistic. Do they get the account?

You may have already guessed it. The answer is no.

We saw this scenario play out with a client when our firm was brought in to help the day before they were scheduled to present. It was heartbreaking, because these were brilliant people with great ideas. They almost certainly would have delivered wonderful work.

Great team presentations, whether you are pitching an ad campaign, seeking to land a sale, or hoping to raise startup funds, come across as a play with several acts, connected by a central narrative. This is not a series of short, one-person shows. Each act may focus on a different plot line or character, but each one drives toward the same conclusion.

As with a great play, you must start with a great story that the creative team and cast can bring to life. From day one, everyone needs to know their roles and how they relate to others. It takes a series of steps to find success. Here are the 10 you need to follow to create a team presentation that just may lead to a standing ovation.

10 Steps to a Great Team Presentation

Spotlight on a stage

1. Find your key point

What is the brightest take-home message you’d like your audience to remember after your team finishes its presentation?

We call this your audience-focused bright shiny object, or ABSO. It aligns your key point with your audience’s greatest concerns and needs. In the case of the opening scenario, the ad agency’s bright shiny object, or BSO, was this: “You should hire us because we have the unique skills and creativity you need to achieve your goals.” The ad agency learned their potential client’s greatest need was this: “We want an ad agency that can create a national campaign to help rebrand our identity from fast casual to premium fast casual.”

Voila! The ad agency’s presentation needed to focus on this key point: “We have the resources, expertise, and experience to lead a successful rebranding effort that attracts new customers while retaining your current ones.” So hire us! Well, the ad agency wouldn’t be so blunt as to use those three words exactly, but a successful presentation would hopefully lead to that conclusion.

Or, maybe you want your audience to remember:

  • That you’re a scrappy team seasoned in helping clients leap over the hurdles that inevitably arise
  • That your research-based approach means the brand will spend its advertising budget more efficiently
  • That your unconventional approach to creative will help the brand stand apart in the marketplace

Once you’ve determined your ABSO, every presenter should think about how they can place their subject matter into that larger framework.

2. Assign roles

Each presenter should have a clear understanding of their role in the presentation and how it fits into the unified whole. You can achieve this by:

  • Determining what each speaker should achieve during their portion of the talk
  • Discussing, as a group, what points and supporting evidence they should offer to achieve it

This reduces the risk of repetition, and early on reveals gaps in the research.

Further, nail down the logistics. It will help each presenter to hone their approach and stick to the most important points. You’ll need to:

  • Determine how many speakers
  • Assign the timing for each speaker

Doing this early on will reveal if you have too many presenters. Resist the urge to try and pack as many speakers into the window of time that you have. There’s no magic number. But a dozen speakers in a one-hour window would make it difficult for any of them to build rapport with the audience.

Also, you can avoid too many last-minute time trims, which could, ironically, be time-consuming, as you might need to take a scalpel to each individual segment, rather than cleaving off a chunk of time.

Business woman looking at adhesive notes on wall

3. Create the scenes

Each speaker should draft a complete “mini” presentation that conforms to the usual speech formula — open, main points with supporting detail, and close. Within this mini presentation, the ABSO has to shine. This is the opportunity to lay another brick on your case that you are that scrappy team or those unconventional creatives.

All steps lead to the ABSO, which means your audience will have ample reminders of that brightest message you want them to take home with them.

To avoid establishing a predictable pattern, vary the types of opens and closes each speaker uses, the number of main points each speaker makes, and the manner in which they’re made.

Stick to the formula

You will use that speech formula – open, main points with supporting detail, and close – for the complete presentation and for each person’s presentation. How does this work?

If you have five speakers, you have six beginnings, middles, and ends – one set for each speaker and one for the overall talk. The mini opens and closes for each segment can be short – a line or two can sufficiently provide context and closure for each section. They also help to keep the transitions seamless.

Think about it this way: The overall presentation has an open, and each key point is backed by one of the smaller segments. The overall close is a summation of all the moving parts.

4. Plot out the acts (aka Arrange speaker sequence)

Many team presentations begin with a “big picture” introduction, often presented by the most senior member of the team, followed by talks given by specialists in each topic area. The person who opens the talk may also close it and take on an emcee role to facilitate the Q&A period.

As a general rule, the person who opens and closes the team presentation should be a strong presenter. The less effective presenters shouldn’t open, close, or speak consecutively (of course, with experience and practice, your entire team can become strong).

Mind the speaker’s manner

Think about speaker style as you are putting together this presentation “set list.” Intersperse similar styles with a speaker with an opposite approach. For instance, say you have three technical experts, one of whom has a warm and engaging personality and two others who come across as smart but serious. You might want to drop the engaging speaker into the middle.

5. Rehearse, then rehearse some more

As a group, schedule several practice runs throughout the presentation creation process. Consider conference or video calls if the team is not under one roof. Early rehearsals reduce the risk of the problem my client faced – the practice run came too late in the process to make the fundamental changes needed.

Here’s how best to use this time:

  • Time each person’s talk. Is it too long? Too short?
  • Listen for the unified theme. Is it apparent in every speaker’s presentation? Does it feel woven throughout the entire piece?
  • Zap redundancy. Are some speakers reiterating the same point? Where does it fit better and where should it be chopped?
  • Pay attention to pacing. Is any section a bit of a drag?

Once you have assessed the full presentation, you can go back and tinker. You may need to shave off time and add more compelling material. When done early on in the process, it creates a more seamless and effective flow of the entire presentation.

6. Keep your eye on the scenery

Visuals are powerful tools in your arsenal – that is if they are part of a cohesive plan. A mishmash of slides using different templates is going to detract and distract from the power your visuals could be having.

Here are some guidelines to visualize:

  • Each speaker should work off the same template
  • One person should be assigned to edit the final deck
  • Ensure there is continuity of colors, font sizes, and the overall look

Your words and visuals must reveal a cohesive, coordinated team. Your visuals can either reinforce or undercut that message.

7. Set the stage

The person opening the team presentation should begin with a compelling statement that immediately gets the audience in the tent, establishes the session’s relevance and purpose, and reflects the audience-focused bright shiny object (ABSO).

The opening speaker, who also is often the emcee, can either introduce the team as part of the post-open or open the floor for the presenters to briefly introduce themselves. In effect, each speaker will be introduced twice: at the beginning of the presentation, which will orient the audience to each person’s subject area, and during the transition from one speaker to the next.

Businesswoman At Whiteboard In Brainstorming Meeting

8. Plan for set changes

If a team presentation is a play with several acts, each transition serves as the moment when the curtain is lowered briefly to reset the stage before the next act begins. You want these set changes to be smooth, and seamless transitions can do just that. The most successful connect two things – what you just said and what the next speaker will talk about. They also incorporate an introduction (name and title).

Here’s an example:

“Now that we’ve discussed how our unconventional approach to creative can help you stand out in the marketplace, Alison Jones, our always-caffeinated accounts executive, will discuss how our unconventional approach also applies to forging deeply productive client relationships. Alison?”

Something to consider:

If you have more than say 3 or 4 speakers, you may want to limit your transitions. Using a play as our guide, if the curtain went up and down every couple of minutes, it would be disorienting. Typically, it’s just once or twice between the acts.

I’ve seen groups who like to change speakers every minute or two during their team presentations. While fast and frequent transitions can succeed, they’re exceptionally hard to pull off well.

We offer two ways to incorporate transitions when you have a group of, say, six speakers:

At the beginning: You have two options. The opening speaker introduces the team as part of the post-open or the presenters briefly introduce themselves.

Between each main point: The emcee could interject at each transition to introduce each “cast” as an ensemble.

So, sticking with our unconventional agency, we offer an example:

“Now that Alison and Alex have discussed how they incorporate an innovative holistic approach to client relationships, we are going to turn to head researcher Pete Smith and analyst Hannah Moore, who will share how we canvass the marketplace for best practices that we adapt to fit the needs of our clients. Pete will give the big picture, followed by Hannah, who will delve into the details.”

9. Synchronize the staging

Staging is a critical part of effective transitions. As a team, you’ll want to know how you are going to position yourselves, how you are going to handle transitions, and how you can stay engaged when it is not your turn to present. Here’s how you can plan for successful staging:

Set the scene. You will first want to determine the layout of the space in which you will be presenting, if it is possible. You could ask:

  • Is it a conference room?
  • A lecture room?
  • Where will the audience be seated?

You can then move on to some questions about how you will present yourselves as a group.

Here are a few:

  • Will your full team stand during the entire talk?
  • Does each presenter step forward when it’s their turn to speak?
  • Will each speaker be seated in chairs on the stage until they’re called to the front? Will they be seated in the audience or at a table until they’re introduced?

Of those three options, the first is the most awkward; if that’s your choice, make sure the full team practices how they’ll stand while others are speaking.

Rehearse the choreography. If you’re sharing a single microphone, practice the handoff. If you’re sharing a PowerPoint clicker, practice the exchange. Make eye contact with your co-presenter during the transition and exchange a warm look before turning toward the audience.

Stay in character. Keep in mind that you’re never really off stage. Even when others are speaking, audience members can observe what you’re doing — and they’ll form positive or negative judgments about you depending on whether you appear to be a supportive member of the team or a distracted one. Keep your eyes on the speaker, write notes when helpful, and take an occasional glance at the room to read the audience and determine whether some points are landing better than others.

10. Plot your Q&A

Bravo! You have made it to the end. With the floor now open to questions, you’ll want to keep that smooth and steady approach right until the curtain officially comes down. Prior to the presentation, you should work out the logistics, so that everyone is on the same page when those hands start to go up. Here’s how to do that. Decide whether:

  • An emcee, often the opening speaker, will assign questions to team members in real time. (“Robert, why don’t you take this one.”)
  • Certain group members will field questions on certain topics.
  • Group members should jump in – without the guidance of an emcee – on subjects in real time that align with their expertise. (This is a rather advanced option. There is a chance of co-presenters hesitating to take one if the question is more general or vague.)
  • Each speaker should take questions at the end of their portion of the talk, rather than at the end. Further, decide on whether there is a time limit. If it goes too long, it might put a time squeeze on other presenters.
  • Co-presenters should add on to another’s answer. If the response is sufficient, it’s perhaps best to move on to the next question, as long responses could slow down the Q&A period or bore the audience.

The real goal here is to avoid the awkwardness of deciding in front of the audience who should answer which questions. A team that works gracefully with one another sends a powerful message about their ability to work cohesively and efficiently on whatever task is before them.

When there’s no more questions to be had, the opener, or emcee, should offer a closing statement – a brief summary of the ABSO and potential next steps.

Public Speaking Paper 3

Final act

We would be remiss if we didn’t suggest that even with the best preparation, things can go wrong. As best you can, plan for the unexpected.

That means having the solutions to these situations before they happen. Here are some of those scenarios:

One of the presenters has hit a traffic jam and will miss the talk. How will we adjust?

The presentation must be shortened by five minutes. Where should we trim?

One presenter has hit a snag with a question. How do we field challenging questions?

The PowerPoint projector has gone dark. What’s our backup if we experience technical difficulties?

There you have it – a team presentation in 10 steps. It’s on to your next performance.