Lead with the Problem, Not Your Company Bio

Nobody cares that you were founded in 2018 with offices in three states. They care about the problem you solve. Most presentations lose the room in the first two minutes by leading with features instead of pain points. Here's how to hook them from word one.

Transcript

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Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new Lead with Confidence. Me, your host, JP Warren. And this, you know, if you catch up the last episode, this episode, we last episode, this episode, let me finish. All right. Let me slow down. How about that? So last episode, we actually talked about how to actually not utilize the slides and actually deliver your message so you can better connect with the audience. Now we're actually talking about what does an actual good presentation look like that actually lands, right? I've seen this. If you're opening up your presentation in front of a room full of audience, uh, and you're and you're starting off with, my name is this, we do this, we're in these locations, you've already lost 95% of the audience. All right. Think about that. Think about the last industry conference you went to and you're sitting there in the audience, and someone opens up their slide and they're spending 10 to 15 minutes explaining their history, their story, their features, what they do, what they can do. And they're saying kind of like, and then at the end of the, at the end of it, you don't realize what problems there to address. I mean, they're just kind of listing kind of a history about themselves and the feature dumps. All right. So let's kind of let's kind of talk about this real quick. So in reality, the problem is 95% of presentations start off with this is who I am, this is what we do, this is the features we have, and that you do that, you're gonna disconnect your audience. You're gonna lose your audience and be checking their phones or answering emails uh in their head, all right, waiting for this, the presentation to end. All right, we don't want that. All right. And a lot of times we think that we have to do that. We have to list our credentials and we have to list our features, we have to list our experience to establish some sort of credibility, but you really don't. You know, you don't have to list who you are, you don't have to list your resume to establish credibility. You are credible for who you are. If someone wants to dive in your history and all that stuff, save that conversation for later, right? For that one-on-one meeting. Don't bore the audience and kind of be a brain drain like 95% of the people up there. Differentiate yourself. Differentiate yourself by approaching it in a different manner, all right? That puts the audience first, not you first, okay? So when you start kind of delivering this with just your history, just your background, just your features, you're sounding like everyone else, and chances are you're gonna lose your target audience, and that's the customers you want to talk to. All right. So let's talk about this. Think about this. If you don't deliver something that grabs your audience's attention in the first, you know, two minutes, right? 60 to 90 seconds, then you're gonna lose them. Think about this. Your presentation is kind of like an Instagram or TikTok reel. If you might have some great information you you want in there, but that might be towards the the end of the reel, right? And you're not, and you're just gonna keep scrolling. Rather than do something like that, grab the audience with a hook, right? Grab your audience by stating the problem that keeps them up at night, right? Um, whatever that is, right? On average, uh, you know, on average, uh your competitors lose $2 million annually on failed equipment maintenance. And that's when you kind of open it up. So that kind of perks people's attentions. People understand a pain point that keeps them up at night, and then they're gonna be more engaged into your presentation, okay? The next thing you is, you is, the next thing to do is after you relay that problem, right? After you put that problem right in their face, one sentence, boom, this is keeping the the people up at night. Now bring that back. Start telling the story, okay? Tell a story about maybe a customer that was dealing with a certain certain situation, um, maybe the stuff that they tried before, and how you came in to help, and you kind of like guided them to reach their end goal, to help the target audience reach the result that they wanted. Okay. It's not about you being the hero, it's about you helping them be the hero. I always think of the customers being the hero of the story, right? The knight in the Disney story. And I think of the problem, being that dragon, and all you are, you are just a sword to slay the dragon. You are just a tool to squash that problem that keeps them up at night. So tell a story, tell a personal story. People connect with stories a lot more than they connect with data points, percentages, and anything like that, all right? And then at the end of it, position yourself as uh as a guide, as a solution for this dragon, for this problem that keeps them up at night. That is a much better flow. And not only that, that will welcome conversations, which is the whole point of this. That will welcome conversations after your presentation is done. People are gonna remember you because the presentation stood out. It was different, and it was actually a story and not a data dump or a history of your company. All right. So the next time you present, I want you to do this. Write down your opening and just practice it a couple of times. And if you're not feeling it, just keep like maybe ask a couple of people, hey, what opening works better between these three? Just start practicing your opening. Start practicing your opening so you're delivering it again with that 38% of how we communicate, your pitch, your tone, your cadence, your pause, and use your body language. That's 55% how we communicate. Don't bet on your opening on just the script. Because what is it? Words are only 7% how we communicate. So don't spend too much time on that. Do it with, do it with your body language and deliver it in a way. Just try it out. Okay. So start off with the problem first and start delivering that. And I would say this: those slides that have found it in this location here, these are our features. Move those towards the end or to the appendix. All right. No one really cares. I hate being that way, but no one cares. Okay. Chances are you're thinking, oh, that's not true. I care about that. Well, then next time you're at an industry conference, sit through an afternoon of presentations and tell me what you think if that's still the case. All right. The third thing is, I would say is whenever you are building uh your presentation, think about that one message you want your target audience to stick with, right? What's that one message you're trying to get across? And honestly, you don't want to overcomplicate it. Oftentimes, as business owners, as founders, as uh salespeople, you stay in the weeds and then your little echo chamber chamber of what your company does, right? What it does daily. A lot of people don't know that, right? So don't get lost in the technical terms and tell and and so and dive down that road. Rather than that, tell a story, right? Bring it up where people want to engage. Don't have people use too much brain capacity to digest your message, okay? Um, and so I guess the chat it's not even a challenge. I guess it's guided your company's uh history belongs on your website. It does not belong in a presentation you're about to deliver in front of a room full of your peers, okay? So tell a story, get out there, and honestly, have fun with it. Even if you don't nail it perfectly first time, excuse me, I can guarantee you it's gonna be a lot more effective, even if you didn't nail it. Better than the one where you're listening to your history, your feature, and you're just kind of talking about data in a very monotone voice, and that's it. Tell a story. Stories sell. All right. So get out there. Thanks for tuning in for Lead with Confidence. You know someone about to give a presentation. Share this with them. And if you are enjoying this, please like, share, review, all that fun stuff. I mean, it's it's just something that keeps me motivated to keep on uh keep on doing this and help everyone out there. So thank y'all, and we'll see y'all soon on Lead with Confidence. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.