Preparing for Your Management Presentations to Investors & Acquirers

🗣️ Guest: Carola Kamuff – Presentation Coach | Author of Quick Guide Management Presentation
🎧 Host: Alex Rawlings, Founder of Raw Selection

⏱️ Key Topics & Timestamps:

00:00 – Meet Carola Kamuff
Former M&A exec turned expert in coaching management teams for exit presentations.

01:54 – Why Communication Matters
Carola explains her shift from numbers to narratives and why people—not just slides—drive deal success.

02:49 – The Biggest Mistake
Teams often prepare too little, too late—focusing on slides, not delivery or messaging.

04:15 – Rehearsal ≠ Training
Rehearsals test flow. Training transforms behavior, delivery, team dynamics, and confidence.

06:41 – Crafting a Powerful Story
From stats to storytelling—how real examples bring presentations to life and increase credibility.

09:35 – Even Experienced Execs Benefit
Exit presentations are high-stakes. Even confident leaders gain clarity, alignment, and polish from coaching.

12:51 – Does it Really Move the Needle?
Yes—Carola shares a real example where coaching turned around investor perception and revived interest.

14:47 – High Impact, Low Time Commitment
Just a few focused sessions over weeks can significantly improve presentation outcomes.

16:14 – Three Keys to Success

1. Storyline that resonates
2. Cohesive team delivery
3. Objective, external feedback

18:38 – Carola’s Recommended Reads & Listens
📚 Resonate, Slide:ology, Talk Like TED
🎧 Think Fast, Talk Smart, The Moth
📘 German: Quick Guide Management Presentation by Carola Kamuff

20:05 – Connect with Carola
Find her on LinkedIn: Carola Kamuff

Key Takeaway:
Your management presentation can boost—or break—your valuation. Great slides aren’t enough. Confidence, storytelling, and preparation make the difference.

Raw Selection partners with Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies to secure exceptional executive talent. We focus on de-risking executive recruitment through meticulous search and selection processes, ensuring top-tier performance and long-term success.

🔗 Connect with Alex Rawlings on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexrawlings/
🌐 Visit Raw Selection: www.raw-selection.com

Looking to grow your team? Check out our Hiring Guides

for proven strategies, templates, and best practices to make smarter hires. 

Transcript

00:00
Welcome back to the Royal Selection Private Equity Podcast. Joining us today is Karola Komov,  presentation and communication coach  and expert for supporting management teams  on exit presentations. Here's your Playbook guide, get a pen ready.  Karola, if you can share with us a brief insight into you, please. Yeah, thank you, Alex, for having me. It's great to be here. I started my career in M &A. uh

00:28
I spent about 11 years with a company then called Drücker & Co. in Frankfurt, which is now Hooli & Loki. And I also worked for a while in London. I've been on many deals clearly and seen first-hand how much depends on the people in the room. And at some point I decided to focus on that part, the people side. I went through a trend of trainer qualification  and for almost 20 years now, I've been working as a presentation and communications trainer.

00:57
And one of my main areas is management presentation training, helping management teams prepare for those critical investor meetings when it really counts in the exit process. And this year I published a very hands-on book on this topic, well, in German, with  Springer Gabler that is a very renowned business publisher in Germany. It's called Quick Guide Management Presentation. And it's actually the only German language book

01:26
that focuses specifically on this crucial milestone in an M &A process. And as far as AI tells me,  there's also no book like this in English. Perfect. So  what made you go down the route of coaching, training the trainer, managing presentation? Tywer, what was it that took you down that route? Basically I come from the numbers side. I studied mathematics before.

01:54
So whether there was just right or wrong. And then  during  my career, I learned that there's much more in between. as I said, so the people thing really mattered. And we had a presentation trainer actually for us, but also for preparation of management. So she always said she doesn't know about the content really. And one of us needs to be present. And when I was present, well, I felt that I really liked it and I knew how to do it.

02:23
If she hadn't time, well, we just did it on our own. And then I said, well, this is really what I want to do. So I did this additional training to become a trainer and just, well, basically became self-employed. And that's what I've been doing for the last almost two years. So what is the single biggest mistake that executives make in management presentations when they're looking to sell a business? Well, I mean, as you clearly know, Alex...

02:49
The management presentation is one of the key value drivers in a sales process. And I often call it the reality check because up to that point, investors, they have only read the information package and ask Google or IAI for some background. And now they finally meet the real people behind the numbers. And here's the thing,  even a great company with a strong management team can be undervalued if these two hours don't go well.

03:17
the performance in the room, so how convincing the team comes across can move the valuation up or down. And having said this, the biggest mistake is that many teams prepare too little too late. What I often see is that the focus of the PE and the investment bank is set mainly on the preparation and finalization of the slides. And then like two days or so before the real presentation, they just do a rehearsal.

03:45
Okay. So why, why is that single rehearsal not enough? Well, you know, they haven't at the very end of the process, time is tight, everyone's busy and the slides are basically fixed. The management team goes through their parts and the bank and PE give comments.  Useful comments for sure. Yeah. But still it's not the same as really preparing. So in a dry run, for example, a manager is told to sound more energetic or another one to keep it shorter.

04:15
but no one actually practices how to do that. They understand the comment for sure, but don't know how to change it in real time. And what's missing here are two things. So for management, the opportunity to change behavior and the opportunity to reflect on what they really want to say on their slides and both just take time. Well, so to change behavior, one needs to step back from the slides and consciously work on

04:44
how messages are delivered, how body language supports credibility, and how to project calm and confidence even under pressure. So for example, a manager talks too fast and without breaks. It makes it hard for investors to remember what they hear. And if they keep looking at the screen all the time, it makes them seem unsecure. But just knowing about this issue doesn't mean they can change them immediately. They need practice, which they only get over days and weeks.

05:14
And this takes time and focus and not just one run through. And  secondly, you will want to give management the chance to reflect more deeply about what they actually want to say in their own words. Because that helps them to sound naturally and authentic what you want for them.  In my trainings, I often experienced that managers, they have looked at the slides and they have an idea what they want to say, but somehow they do not present them in an ideal way.

05:43
So, for example, these so what,  all the stories behind the facts are missing. Or they tend to give too much detail.  Or they just present step by step all the facts on the slide without focusing on the core messages. And once they realize this, which is usually in the first training session, then they are motivated to rethink how to present each slide. And that's when they really begin to own their story. But again,

06:14
This needs time. So if you do just the rehearsal at the end, managers don't have these opportunities. And  I like to compare this to football. Yeah. Doing a rehearsal is like playing a friendly match  for an important game. It's good to have that match, no question, but you wouldn't skip the weeks of training before and right. Because that's where you build coordination, timing and confidence.

06:41
So what is it that makes the training different and what is it that you're recommending to executives? Yeah, well, a training session goes deeper. So you test the flow in a rehearsal, you could say, but in a training, you build the flow. And we work on the storyline, on the interaction between the managers, on the delivery and on the Q &A. So we bring all this together in training and we take the storyline and go a level deeper, you could say. So make it...

07:09
clear and logical and compelling in the managers' words. And we identify key messages and we add real examples that make them tangible. So for example, instead of saying,  over the past two years, we improved customer retention from 80 % to 95%. The CEO could say, two years ago,  one out of five customers didn't renew their contract. When we duck into the reasons

07:37
Most of them were small and missing feature here, a delayed response there. We built a cross-functional safe team that called every customer before renewal and solved those issues in days instead of weeks. Now retention is at 95 % and we use that feedback loop to keep improving the product. That's what makes numbers memorable.

08:02
these examples and we need to find examples for this. That's the story behind the story.

08:10
And at the same time, we look at how the team interacts, the handovers,  so that they work together, that they don't contradict each other. We improve the delivery, tone, pace, posture. So it all supports the confidence and we prepare of course for Q &A. So the beauty of training, I think, is that you can pause, you can analyze, you can try again. You can test the different ways of phrasing things.

08:36
or of nonverbal elements and see what comes across authentic and well and secure. And you can watch how it lands. And in the time between training and the real management presentations, managers can keep practicing in meetings and conversations in their daily business. And they can use spare moments to refine their story and wording for this particular presentation. You know, there's another big difference and that's the tone of feedback.

09:06
What I often see when present in a dry run is that the comments from PEs or bankers are clearly well meant, but they focus on what needs to be improved. So here you should point out X, here you sound defensive, et cetera, et cetera. And this can feel stressful, especially when it's so close to the real presentation. When in a training, the feedback is more balanced and also highlights what already works well.

09:35
and then builds on that. And this is a more positive approach, which makes it much easier for people to accept criticism and to really change their behavior. So to put it short, the main difference is rehearsal tests and training transforms.  What's your take from a manager,  a chief exec, CFO, COO, if they've got one, what's your take on them feeling that this is not an area of...

10:01
that already in there, they're really good at presenting, they might have exited a business prior. What advice would you give to those guys that think they've already got this right? Well, that's a good point, Alex. Yeah, of course, some managers really are strong presenters, no question. But I say, unless they've already been through like two or three exit processes, the sale can still benefit enormously from a training because an exit scenario is just a completely different setting. And I've seen this

10:30
quite a few times. So when I'm asked to run a training, the briefing off goes like, but this manager's really good, but the other one is too talkative, too direct, too shy, you name it. But the session is always with all of them together. And even the really good one ends up benefiting a lot from it. And why is that? That's mainly because of two reasons. First, well, the stakes are enormous financially and personally.

10:59
Most managers are under huge pressure during the process. This is something often forgotten. They are just expected to function,  but they have to run the business and at the same time handle due diligence requests, prepare material, et cetera.  So this is time-wise really stressful, but at the same time also they might be thinking or it's somewhere in their head, what's going to happen after the sale? Will they get along with the new owners?

11:27
Will I still be in this role? And these are all stressful things that are at the side. So having a training takes at least one source of uncertainty of their shoulders. And after a proper session, you know, then  now they know exactly how the management presentation will run. So what to expect, how to start, how to hand over, how to react. And that builds a lot of confidence. And it's not only.

11:55
about pressure on nerves. the second point is even experienced presenters are usually not  used to presenting themselves or the company in that way. Many are unsure what investors focus on, what they really want to hear or whether they need to speak the investor's language and learn this language maybe. And in training, we go through the presentations slide by slide and discuss what each statement actually means for investors, what's relevant.

12:25
What raises questions, what creates confidence. And we adjust wording, clarify messages. And so make sure that everyone in the team explains things in a consistent and credible way. So that means that even if someone's confident on stage in everyday business,  management presentation ensures while they are confident in this particular situation.

12:51
In your perspective, how much does a strong, well-presented management presentation make a difference? Now I know you've got your business on this, you're obviously going to be an advocate for it, is there anything kind of tangible of, this is likely that you're going to get more interested buyers? What's the kind of main goal here other than obviously just selling the business? Well, I mean, it's both things. I've seen it during my career in M &A.

13:19
that presentation, then suddenly you have less interested parties.  So, and maybe even no deal.  if it really goes,  I mean, investors come to a presentation usually, they expect kind of a confirmation. They have a good impression, otherwise they wouldn't be there. So they expect the confirmation of this good impression. And now if the impression is bad from management teams,  they might tend to rethink

13:48
and start having doubts about this and that. But of course, I mean, you can't put a number to it.  It means you needed two presentations the same and see how it goes, one or the others.  One I do have sometimes,  just recently, two weeks ago, I was asked to do a presentation training for the CEO, who generally was a very good presenter, but in two presentations that already took place,

14:18
And one  was speaking too freely and had apparently said things  that should have been phrased differently, put it that way. So the next time he had really written everything he wanted to say and he came across really insecure. So we did the training two hours, twice. And after that it had another presentation and the feedback was he did really, really well. So, I mean, it could have been the third one was good anyway.

14:47
But I think training just makes a difference. So they lost to investors already or interest  and now it works well. That's what I can say to this question. Well, training, there's a reason that we do it in sport or the athletes do it as they train, train, train. We should also do that and replicate that in business.  how... It's not, mean, sports, you need to practice years and years and years. And we're not, we're not talking about a huge amount of time here. Maybe that's something interesting as well.

15:15
So I'd say if we do stunts thing, maybe a few weeks before presentation. Like if you have like one or two people, it's four hours, probably five hours. If the team's bigger, I have sometimes teams up to six or seven people. Yeah. Then you might invest a day with parts jointly and parts individually. And then you have another one a week or two before the, say two weeks before the training, before the presentation.

15:45
Yeah. So the investment is not, it's not a huge amount of time anyway, but it really changes how they behave and how they present it. So how best do management teams prepare effectively for their presentations? But apart from  individual presentation skills, I would say the most effective preparation is three things. So it's on the storyline.

16:14
So of course the equity story is in the information package, but management  team has to bring it to life. So that means how do we focus on key messages?  Which examples do we bring? Which stories from inside the companies  can we tell? I mean, when you hear the news,  next day you probably don't remember anything because it's just facts. What we tend to remember is stories.  Stories bring things to life.

16:43
And also of course, no investor likes assisted reading, right? Hearing management simply repeat the content of the slides. They've read this anyway. So they want insights and conviction in the story behind the story. And that's what we do. And second, what they can do is train as a team.  it's coordination and timing, but also training together helps align the story. So when  each one  hears how the other one present the

17:13
the story, the overall message becomes clearer and more consistent. And then the story feels like one voice rather than different perspectives. And one thing I would always recommend is an external perspective. know, the PE  and the investment bank, which like had intensively worked on the deal for months, they know the company inside out. An external with the same information level as the potential investor can ask things like,

17:41
Is this clear to someone hearing it for the first time? What impression does the slide and the story make? That's one example. I was once asked to a training for the sale of a company that had overcome a critical phase, but still needed some optimization. And the summary slide for this part of the presentation  showed all areas of the company like production and sales and administration and others. And for each area, it showed the planned

18:11
improvement measures. And for me, I mean, it was structured excellently in a pyramid principle way, but for me, it gave the impression, oh dear, the whole company is still a mess. They need to redo the whole company. Yeah. So we could change this in time for the presentation. What would you read, watch, listen to that you recommend that others should check out, please?

18:38
um Yeah, I like to stay close  to both perspectives. So the business and the communication side. So when reading English media,  I turn to the economist  and I'd say have a business review as well. Just stay in touch with their how investors and decision makers think.  And in terms of presentation and storytelling, I can recommend two books.

19:07
That's Nancy Duarte in general and the book especially Resonite and Slidology. And from Carmen Gallo, The Talk Like Ted. Because they offer clear practical frameworks for turning complex information into something  memorable. For German listeners, of course, my own book,  Quick Guide Management Presentation, which brings all those bits and pieces together in an easy to read practical way.

19:35
And to watch or listen, I'd say for tips and tricks on presenting and communicating, think fast, talk smart from Stanford or The Moth. That's just fantastic for authentic storytelling and TED Talks in general. Yeah. Not to copy, but to observe how good speakers connect ideas with emotion. Okay. If anybody wishes to reach out to you post this podcast, how best do they get in touch, please?

20:05
I think the easiest way is via LinkedIn. Just search for Corolla Camo and you'll find me. Perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming onto the PrivateXU podcast. Yeah, you're welcome. It was a pleasure. Thank you. And thank you again to all our listeners. Till the next time, keep smashing it. And thank you very much for listening.