How to Give Financial Presentation Intro

We’re going to hop right into this course on how to give financial presentations and how to talk about finance In easier terms more understandable terms and more effective terms.

But I do want to change your orientation just a little bit.

Now this is going to sound odd for me to say this at the beginning of the course on how to give financial presentations but I fundamentally do not believe there is any such thing as a financial presentation or a technical presentation or a PowerPoint presentation.

Let me explain what I mean by that is in the audience’s mind.

That’s not what they’re thinking.

Sure they want to hear your topic but they’re not thinking of it in terms of it’s a financial presentation.

The only thing that ever goes on in the mind of an audience is in terms of classification not financial formal PowerPoint.

They’re thinking it’s either a good speech or a bad speech.

It’s either interesting useful I’ll pay attention.

Not interesting not useful.

I’ll look at the PowerPoint later and while this guy is droning on and on let me just check my email.

That’s the only thing ever going through the mind of an audience.

So the reason that’s so significant is a lot of smart savvy business people who are good communicators in every other aspect of their life every other aspect of their business have to give a financial presentation and all of a sudden they handcuff themselves.

They tell themselves well it’s a financial presentation.

So of course I have to stand here and go through PowerPoint slide with eighty nine bullets per slide and chart so wildly complex it has 89 different colors of squiggly lines.

No you don’t have to I realize that’s the way most people give financial presentations.

The reason you’re in this course is to be better than most people are in their financial presentations and to actually communicate.

I define communication as ideas that come out of your mouth and your audience can understand it and remember it so they can act on it.

Whether it’s to purchase stock in your company buy your product feel better about it so they don’t sell your stock.

You want them to do something with the information they have to understand it and remember it.

The number one problem with every financial presentation I’ve ever had.

Doesn’t matter the industry is.

Speakers don’t use enough judgment.

They throw out every single number and all the data and when you give people everything you really give them nothing.

So much of your job as a financial expert as a CEO as a CFO is to give people judgment on what’s truly important so that’s something we’re going to be talking about in this course and it’s something I want you to start thinking about now.

The other thing I would ask you to do to kind of reorient your thought process go to you.

You have to go to any other file serving sharing site and Google Warren Buffett watch how he speaks because he gives financial presentations and yet he always speaks in a way that’s interesting.

That’s simple that’s understandable and that’s memorable and you can’t write him off is just an Anthony Robbins type or a comedian or an entertainer.

This is a financial guy a very serious financial guy the preeminent investor of a generation of several generations.

He’s able to talk about finance whether he’s giving a speech whether he’s going on CNBC I do believe he should be one of your role models and he’s the perfect rebuttal to those who say well it’s a financial speech of course you have to go through all the bullet points PowerPoint is helpful it’s useful it’s often essential but even more essential is that the ideas that are most important to you or understood by your audience so they can be acted upon.