Preparing and Writing a Presentation-Corporate Example

You work as an analyst within your company’s sales department. Because your company wants to ensure that customers are satisfied, your boss has asked you to develop a customer satisfaction survey. But, in doing so, you’ve discovered that 40% of the customers you surveyed are dissatisfied. How would prepare for and write this presentation?

Let The Fast Track Way help you handle this situation:

Before preparing your presentation, do Step 1-Analyze Your Situation: Your boss respects both your analytical ability and your thoroughness. He knows that you wouldn’t draw conclusions based on insufficient data nor make recommendations that are ill-advised. Even so, your boss will be surprised by what you’ve found. In other words, that will be his perspective. Your purpose is to share your findings and recommendations with him before you do so in front of the entire sales support group and, in turn, the company’s sales management. That way, your boss won’t be surprised or embarrassed in front of the department or, worse, top management.

Wait a minute you say. Does the preceding face-saving approach mean you have to know how to deal with your corporate culture? In a word, you do. Even if you don’t enjoy “playing politics,” you need to understand how your company really works. As you go up the corporate ladder, knowing how to play the game is often as important—sometimes more so—than being smart and working hard.

Here’s how you might discuss the next step in your presentation with your boss:

To have a good presentation, do Step 2-State Your Main Point, Message, or Theme: “While a customer satisfaction survey is useful in helping us retain customers, it’s also invaluable in showing us where we need to improve our performance. I didn’t expect to discover that we need significant improvement. That being the case, this survey’s findings will have implications for what we recommend to our company’s sales management.”

You’d next use Steps 3 and 4 to develop your PowerPoint slides. But, before you begin, first read 8 presentation no-nos AND How to write and format a school, work, or client presentation.

Example of corporate presentation:

For 1^st PowerPoint slide (title page):

Customer Satisfaction Survey: Implications for Sales (middle of page/slide)

Sales Support Department (lower 1/3 of page/slide)

September 15, 200Y

For 2nd PowerPoint slide:

Agenda (or Topics for Discussion) (slide title)

• Survey approach

• Findings

• Implications for recommendations to sales management

For 3^rd PowerPoint slide:

Survey Approach (slide title)

• Statistically-valid sample:

• Global representation (15 countries in Americas, Europe, and Asia)

• Large accounts (>$XX MM)

• Small and midsize accounts

• Quantitative survey questions regarding Company’s:

  • Products

  • Services

• Qualitative survey questions regarding Company’s:

  • Products

  • Services

For 4^th PowerPoint slide:

Findings (slide title)

• 15% of customers said they were “very dissatisfied”:

  • Large customers displeased with delivery delays

  • Small and midsize customers displeased with repairs and replacement

• 25% of customers said they were “dissatisfied”:

  • Large customers experienced problems with careless delivery people

  • Some customers in Asia had trouble resolving service problems

  • Small and midsize customers felt that the company doesn’t care about them

For 5^th PowerPoint slide:

Implications for Recommendations to Sales Management (slide title)

• Improve delivery to large customers:

• Install tracking system to ensure on-time delivery

• Implement delivery personnel training program

• Establish a call center for product repair and replacement

• Institute a hot line in 3 languages (English, Chinese, and Japanese) between services department and its customers

• Assign account managers to small and midsize accounts.

For tips on how to deliver your presentation, see How to deliver a presentation.

Typically, you get questions during and after your presentation. To learn how to deal with these queries, see How to prepare for and handle questions during presentations.

But, sometimes things happen that you didn’t anticipate. To be ready for such events, see How to handle the unexpected during presentations.