How I Prepare for my Presentation

 

"WALANG KUPAS!!" 

..is the best compliment I am getting now, this is very meaningful to me because as being someone who have been giving talks and presentations since the late 90s and coming from an audience who has heard me already for countless times.

This is very rewarding to me, it justifies all the hard work I am doing to come up with a relevant, informative and enjoyable talk.

Let me share how I conceptualize and prepare my presentation.

First Step: After getting confirmation as to the date/time/and time allotment of my talk, I would interview the "client" as to...

1. The nature of the event (it could be the launch of a marketing initiative, a financial advisory congress, a sales kick-off, a forum intended for agents/clients or an awarding ceremony)

2. The objective of my talk (was it to build up talking points to support the initiative? was it to teach a new approach in developing new markets? was it to guide the audience in a new way of serving their clients? was it to suggest ways on how to increase their personal productivity? etc.)

3. The average profile of the audience (new or seasoned, as I try my best to match the complexity or simpleness of my talk with my audience)

Second step: Do my research, the best lead time for me is around two weeks before the event.

1. As most of my talk involves the financial services industry, my first go would be to check out the latest market and economic update

2. Second would be to find "best practices" ideas to support the event objective

Third step: develop an outline highlighting three to four major points of my talk.

Fourth step: Building up my talk, i usually start with a clean sheet approach, simply writing down ALL ideas pertaining to a particular topic, then i would cut or expand on the idea by further research.

Fifth step: start preparing the presentation (I am using Canva for my presentation design, I can say that getting the Pro version is one of my best investment in support of my speaking career)

Sixth step: clean and align, cut and add slides, do additional research.

Seventh step: read up on supporting materials and start trial runs. 

While i am very sure that there would be other more efficient ways to do this, this system has so far worked very well for me.

hope this helps my friends!!

#acgadvice

Don't sell Life Insurance, Sell how it improves people's lives!

Upcoming talk!! 

"SELL CERTAINTY IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD"

 As Life Insurance Financial Advisors, the "investment component" of our products seems like the more saleable proposition, I have heard quite of number of us present very compelling cases as to why NOW would be the best time to get a life insurance policy, how coming out from the pandemic induced lockdowns would be good for market recovery and getting in at this point looks very promising. 

While I mostly agree with this outlook, we may not be offering our policyholders the maximum benefit that a Life Insurance Policy can deliver.

Let's say someone agreed today to get a policy on this basis, what would happen six months from now? a year from now?

2 things! we can be right, or we can be wrong!

If we are right and the market really delivered on what it promised, then we would enjoy increased credibility with our clients, but if we are wrong, this may place us in a very awkward position with our clients.

I say this because I experienced it!

I know quite a bit about investments and markets, and I can confidently say that I can make quite a compelling presentation, my clients who bought from me on the basis of market forecasts in the last three years does not want to talk to me about life insurance anymore, they always keep reminding me that the policy they have gotten from me is still losing, and they see no reason why they would entrust more of their hard earned money, I have totally lost my credibility with them..

The market is unpredictable and fickle, what seems like a sure thing today may turn around tomorrow, hedging our practice on market direction may be the most difficult way to grow our career, because it relies on us getting it right, 100% of the time!

I am now finishing my presentation for an hour talk where I would be sharing lessons I learned in the field on how focusing instead on the protection component of our products may be the more sustainable way to grow our practice, watch out for this.

All the best my friends!

#acgadvice