Making Stats And Facts Dynamic
Financial reports – to bore or not to bore, that is the question.
Oftentimes, the belief that audiences will find your content ‘boring’, impacts the overall delivery. How can charts, facts, figures, statistics, be exciting you might say?
Well they can. It all comes down to being a compelling speaker.
No problem here then for JULIA BRADLEY, Director of Finance at Al Tamimi & Company, the biggest law firm in the Middle East.
1-1 coaching sessions like this are a joy, where the bar starts high, and the task on hand is to look at additional strategies to make financial presentations land with impact.
As always, recording, playback and analysis provide the cornerstone for my clients to understand areas that might need tweaking.
If your presentation leans towards the complex, then here are some tips:
✅ Begin with the outline. Don’t launch into the meat of each point. You need to prepare people for what’s coming up.
✅ If the slide has 6-8 headings, don’t drill down into each one. Choose the most important points and focus on them.
✅ Avoid just reading the slides. You are not paid to read, your job is to offer insights and analysis.
✅ If people want clarification, they will always ask questions. So be prudent in your delivery. Less is more.
✅ Use contrastive stress liberally. This guides the listener to the outcomes you want to highlight.
✅ Vary the pace intentionally, as this creates dynamism.
✅ Use the rhetorical question technique. This sets you up as the knowledge expert.
There are many more techniques you can use, but these would be my top ones for engaging an audience when the content might be a bit ‘dry’.
Try these out and see what happens. We did, and it was great!