8 quick tips to ensure a successful board presentation

Presenting to a board is high-risk – get it right & you may well be earmarked for greater things but get it wrong & the future could be less favourable!

I’ve sat on a few boards, so here’s my advice;

-       Remember everyone in the room is equal or at least should be. Each board member is independant & they will argue with each other and with you. This can be a shock at first as you see your CEO being answered back but it’s all part of reaching a majority through discussion.

-       Make sure your topic is relevant. There’s nothing worse than a board agenda point that doesn’t need to be there. Board meetings are all about getting actions agreed, so when something comes up that doesn’t need the board to be acted on, you will be tainted with the ‘time waster’ brush.

-       Do your research on how the board meetings are run – very strict & on agenda via the chair or more informal. Talk to the company secretary.

-       Never drop a question. If you want to come back to it to keep the flow going, then make sure it’s captured on a flip chart or on screen notes. It shows everyone that it’s not forgotten & they can focus on the next point.

-       Almost inevitably the board will start talking amongst themselves. When this happens try & involve them in your point or call a break & reset your point.

-       Don’t defend but instead try & persuade ie present all the facts & figures even if they highlight a potential weakness. Better to be in control of this than have someone pull your presentation apart.

-       My personal favourite – always write a good briefing paper & circulate it at least 3 days before the meeting. My experience is that many boards hate receiving anything new at the meeting. After all it’s very hard to create a convincing plan on the fly in the meeting!

Follow up! A thank you note, an offer to come back & look at anything that still needs work or to respond to specific questions & most importantly the minutes. ‘He who writes the minutes runs the company’ so make sure your actions & timings are correctly noted. Amend them if you feel they don’t fully capture what was agreed

Shorter product life cycles? 4 tips to help you stay ahead

Back at the beginning of the year I started a post with the words ‘only change is constant’ (read the post here). What I should have said is ‘only change is constant AND it’s getting faster!’ 

It was less than 40 years ago that the first mobile phone call was placed by a handset weighing 1kg & this month sees the launch of the new iPhone5. The relentless advance of technology has lowered barriers to entry & significantly shortened product lifecycles. In doing so, it has also reduced the ability for products to differentiate as competition increases from manufacturers able to copy products at similar quality levels in very short time frames. 

I’ve already written about the smart customer wanting great value, quality, service & the ability to customise or personalise your product. They approach these demands with ever greater levels of knowledge

These days a satisfied customer is only the start & successful businesses need to consider how they plan to stay ahead or perish. Here are some suggestions;

1.  Look outside – by that I mean take a wider look at other industries & don’t be confined only by what yours is doing. There are some great ideas out there to consider!
2. Have a go & prepare to fail – my youngest daughter learnt to ride her bike by failing off it. She took the risk of bruised shins & soon figured out how to avoid getting hurt but not before she has some impressive bruises! The preparation bit came from me as we went to the park where the grass was pretty soft & there wasn’t anything to run into!
3. Make a decision – indecision is worse than making a wrong decision. Take a look at my last post Is your indecision final?
4. Write down the real value of your product(s) – it’s not just price but effectiveness, efficiency & cost of ownership. Once you’ve done this start to have more conversations with your customers on these topics than price.

Sometimes all you need to do is take a look at the same things but with a fresh set of eyes.

Fresh set of eyes for rent here!

5 Taming Tips for your Inbox

I read somewhere that working on your inbox isn’t working, particularly if it’s flooded with emails each day & you aren’t keeping on top of them.

Here’s 5 simple to deploy tips to help you with the electronic inbox clutter;

1. RULES

Spend a little time looking through the Rules option under Tools & read through some of the available options in the guides provided by Microsoft 

Think of Rules as your own PA that will for example automatically;

• File a newsletter in a folder for you to read later
• Apply an importance rating to a message so you can look at the key ones first
• Delete or forward specific emails

2. UNSUBSCRIBE

Be brutal here. It’s sometimes nice to see a full Inbox each day – gives you a sense of being busy but if there are emails from that charity you gave £20 to  5 years ago or the company you met at an exhibition but have no intention of working with then CLICK UNSUBSCRIBE.

NB if that option isn’t available please let me know. The business needs help with their email structure. In the meantime a Rule (see above) can be set up to automatically delete it.

3. COLOURS

I like this option as I find visual content easier to manage than textual. In fact a high percentage of learning occurs visually so well worth considering visual content in your marketing content strategy.

Outlook allows you to highlight urgent emails by using their Categories option. That way you can view all those red flag emails under Arrange by Catergories in the View menu.

4. CONVERSATIONS

Conversations allows you to group all the responses to one particular email  under the same entry in the inbox. A quick, one click way to cut down on clutter and make it easier to follow one particular stream of emails.

In Outlook  go to View and select Show as Conversations.

5. ACTION

This is by far & away the best option to get your inbox under control – do something with that email don’t just leave it in your inbox;

• Don’t need it,  delete it (BTW don’t forget to regularly delete your deletes!)
• New contact information then set up a new Contact by right clicking the email address
• Read it & it’s useful then file it in a folder

There’s lots of help on the Microsoft site or just Google your particular issue to read answers to every possible email question.

Blackberry PlayBook & The Art of War

When Blackberry announced the £500+ price for its new PlayBook back in April I thought ‘let’s wait & see if they have to cut the price’. My reasoning was based on offering a device that needed a supporting Blackberry Smartphone to really make sense. Sure enough sales struggled to crack 1M units & the price was cut to a much more reasonable £250, so I bought one! 

Pre installed was Kobo’s eBook reader with a free copy of Master Sun’s The Art Of War, required reading when I started my career back in the 80’s. It was good therefore to re-read his principles with the benefit of some experience – they make much more sense now! 

Selection and maintenance of the aim

A single, unambiguous aim is the keystone of successful military operations.

Maintenance of morale

Morale is a positive state of mind derived from inspired political and military leadership, a shared sense of purpose and values, wellbeing, perceptions of worth and group cohesion.

Offensive action

Offensive action is the practical way in which a commander seeks to gain advantage, sustain momentum and seize the initiative.

Security

Security is the provision and maintenance of an operating environment that affords the necessary freedom of action, when and where required, to achieve objectives.

Surprise

Surprise is the consequence of shock and confusion induced by the deliberate or incidental introduction of the unexpected.

Concentration of force

Concentration of force involves the decisive, synchronized application of superior fighting power (conceptual, physical, and moral) to realise intended effects, when and where required.

Economy of effort

Economy of effort is the judicious exploitation of manpower, material and time in relation to the achievement of objectives.

Flexibility

Flexibility – the ability to change readily to meet new circumstances – comprises agility, responsiveness, resilience, acuity and adaptability.

Cooperation

Cooperation entails the incorporation of teamwork and a sharing of dangers, burdens, risks and opportunities in every aspect of warfare.

Sustainability

To sustain a force is to generate the means by which its fighting power and freedom of action are maintained. 

Replace the word military with commercial and you have some great guiding principles for any business. In particular Sun’s master principle – selection and maintenance of the aim. Get this right and everything else starts falling into place.

Not bad for a book written 2,500 years ago!