You likely had an approach to preparing for presentations that worked…until about late February. Creating a new process or adjusting your current process is likely necessary in order to maximize results with your customers. What changed (as a result of everyone working from home)?
What worked until late February
Until recently if you needed to get together with 3,4 or more people to get input for an upcoming presentation, it may not have been too difficult. You had the potential for being efficient in your preparation. Input, guidance, coaching…. whatever you want to call it, was possible in one meeting. The actual presentation could function the same way…with hopefully all key players in the same room.
What changed?
What changed is how much work is involved in getting the feedback necessary to have a successful presentation. One meeting becomes four (or more) discussions. You are in the middle and need to orchestrate each conversation and assimilate the information.
Important note – take time to think thru how the conversations are sequenced. It may be important depending on what you are selling and the reporting structure at your customer.
When I assumed my old way would work
I played varsity tennis at the University of Rhode Island and was playing the best tennis of my life during sophomore year. I got the finals of the Yankee Conference tournament, so my confidence was high. During the summer before junior year, I did not work as hard as I did during school and was probably thinking I could get away with it. Before the season started, the coach had me play David Wright. Dave showed up wearing cutoff jeans (I am thinking I got this). I found out quickly how talented Dave was and can still remember thinking that my lack of preparation was surfacing. Needless to say, David won and my playing time decreased dramatically. Looking back, as I told David (who has had a great career in technology) recently, it was a lesson about preparation.
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