The client is a billion-dollar global technology company. The work sits inside one of its high-performing and strategically important global functions.
Each year that function offers its sales professionals the chance to present a success story — real client work, drawn from the field — to an audience of senior executives. Finalists present in pairs, in a high-profile competitive environment, judged against a published rubric. For the people involved it is the largest audience of senior leaders they will stand in front of all year. The stakes are commercial and personal at the same time.
Business need
To prepare and support the finalists so that every pair could stand up in front of the company’s most senior executives and do the work justice.
- To tell a complex client story with clarity, a clear demonstration of value and an engaging structure, inside a short time limit.
- To coach content and delivery together, so that the story and the person telling it worked as one.
- To build two presenters into a single team, rather than two people taking turns.
- To prepare presenters for challenge and hard questions from an executive audience.
- To ready them for the physical reality of a large stage — audience size, lighting states, microphones.
- To do all of this across time zones and formats, at the standard expected of the company’s most senior salespeople.
What was delivered
A specialist preparation and coaching programme, designed with the client and delivered from first briefing through to post-event review.
Key elements included:
- Strategic guidance and collaboration with the event committee, shaping the format, the criteria and the coaching approach.
- A global briefing and expectation-setting presentation to all entrants, establishing what good looked like before any work began.
- Multiple virtual coaching sessions delivered across time zones to twelve pairs of competition finalists.
- Face-to-face coaching sessions for all finalists, delivered in situ at the North American venue.
- On-stage, in-person rehearsal for every finalist.
- Role-play sessions in which challenging questions were anticipated and rehearsed.
- Visual design support, replacing traditional technology sales slides with material built for a TED-style delivery.
- A post-event debrief with the committee, and recommendations for the next cycle.
Outcomes
The competition judged clarity of message, storytelling against a rubric of performance outcomes, and the quality of each presenter’s delivery. The coaching addressed all three.
- Stories were told with clarity, a clear demonstration of value and an engaging structure, inside a tight time limit.
- Visuals were prepared and created to support a TED-style delivery, moving away from traditional technological visual aids.
- Presenters worked through their own communication and delivery styles, focused on energising and engaging the audience, demonstrating confidence, and holding a pace that kept the message clear.
- Pairs were coached as teams, so that two presenters worked as one.
- Challenging questions were identified and rehearsed through role-play scenarios.
- On-stage rehearsals gave presenters confidence in a large-scale staged environment, with a working understanding of audience size, lighting states and microphone use.
- The programme has been commissioned again. This will be its third year.
- Practice areas: Communication · Coaching · Leadership
- Location: Global, with in-person delivery in North America
- Audiences: Senior sales professionals
- Format: Virtual coaching across time zones, face-to-face coaching, on-stage rehearsal
