Presentation Techniques for Financial Presentations

Ian Wong, Director, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), Johnson Electric

Ian Wong, Director, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), Johnson Electric

Ian Wong specializes in financial strategy, budgeting and performance analysis, driving financial excellence and strategic decision-making within the organization.

Through this article, Wong shares his insights on effective techniques for presenting financials to executives, emphasizing the importance of delivering key messages and insights verbally rather than simply reading from slides.

When presenting financials to executives/leadership teams (e.g. Board presentation, Global Leadership Meeting), it’s crucial to deliver key messages and insights. Without these factors, the presentation will be bland and boring. Unsurprisingly, it also gives off the impression that you as the presenter only appear to have a rudimentary knowledge of the subject matter and are simply regurgitating what’s shown on the slide (E.g. sales increased by x%), almost like a weather report.

Reading off the slide should only be done sparingly and complemented with further insights (E.g. “sales increased by x% predominately bolstered by our strong product portfolio in our Logistics division.”)

These are some techniques that you as the presenter can use when presenting financials:

1. Commit key numbers and fluctuations to memory – this allows you as the presenter to make eye contact with audience members while speaking and helps you to avoid simply reading from the slide which is akin to a cardinal sin when public speaking. Furthermore, addressing the audience via eye contact in real-time allows you to detect instant feedback (E.g. is the audience engaged or are they playing on their phones? Are they looking confused?) and gives you an opportunity to make the necessary corrections to your delivery.

2. Rehearse – nothing beats the experience of standing in front of a live audience to practice delivering the presentation. There are multiple benefits of a rehearsal. First, it draws your (and your audience’s) attention as to whether the presentation’s content (E.g. text, charts, figures) shows up clearly or whether there are any typos. Secondly, it engages your brain to ponder potential questions that may arise on the content, giving you time to prepare an answer before the real presentation. Finally, it builds confidence.

“Delivering key messages verbally is vastly more important than the slide content; what the presenter delivers verbally has a greater impact than the words read by your audience on a slide.”

3. Provide commentary behind figures – You should strive (to the extent possible) to give commentary for every number or metric being stated. (E.g. “Our profit margin improved by x%, a healthy progression of x basis points. Most importantly we generated the improvement via our core operating business performance as opposed to other ancillary income.”) This allows the number to have context. A number stated in isolation without context is almost meaningless.

4. Use of charts/graphs/pictures – In most cases, a line chart is clearer than a table or bullet points because it visually allows the audience to understand whether the “trend is your friend”. If there are many multiple data points in a chart, force rank the important points to draw the audience’s attention to them (E.g. “Looking at the drivers of profits, out of the top 3 components, all are due to market fluctuations such as commodity price softening or currency benefits, with none of them related to volume driven earnings growth. We as the executive management must turn this around.”)

5. Using peer comparison – Again, this is related to context. Giving the audience an idea of how peer companies in the same industry are performing highlights how your company is leading/lagging in comparison. More importantly, it creates the opportunity for management/executives to make decisions and adapt accordingly.

6. Laying the backdrop when showing the figures – Showing key economic indicators such as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), inflation, commodity trends, currency trends and markets helps set the scene for the company’s projection/budget.

In conclusion, delivering key messages verbally is vastly more important than the slide content. What the presenter delivers verbally has a greater impact than the words read by your audience on a slide.

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