If you had already completed your budget planning for 2009 around October 1st, you are probably bemoaning the fact that you’ve had to throw out your budget and start over.  When the  stock market started plummeting and economists began their doomsday predictions of a prolonged recession, the orders came down to cut back.  So you know you can’t go into the board of directors or the senior management team with the original presentation on your budget for next year. 

At the same time, you’ve put a lot of thought and careful planning into the budget for next year.  You know the rationale still exists for many of their projects.  In fact, some of these projects seem absolutely critical, given the challenges ahead.   

 The question is how should you adapt your presentation when the financial landscape shifts?  Should you throw it out and start over again?  The answer is yes, and no.  Of course you have to demonstrate that you’ve tightened your belt, eliminated excess, done without, and become more efficient.    However,  your budget should have been clearly linked to important strategic initiatives that lead to revenues and profits.  If it was, make your case.  Do your homework and have the courage to present your projects and advocate for them in the best interests of the company.  Cut back in some areas and then take a stand where it will make a difference.

If you’ve prepared a plan that focuses on the company’s most important objectives, it should be easy to present a clear and compelling case.  You need to tie the investment directly to growth, profitability, productivity, efficiency, competitive advantage, and new opportunity.  If you do this then it should be easy to demonstrate measurable ROI.

 When we help our executive clients prepare presentations, we always start by thinking about the end “user.”  That is, who is listening to your presentation?  What would persuade them?  What are their concerns?  Forget about the beautiful slides, graphs and charts.  Put it all aside and write down the top five questions on the minds of your audience.   Then be sure you have great answers. 

For example, when you walk in the door to make your presentation, they might be thinking:

·         What do you want to do and why?

·         Can we get by without it?

·         How does it help us right now?

·         What’s it going to cost?

·         How can we do it cheaper, better, faster?

If you don’t answer those questions right up front, you will lose them.  Get right to it.

So my advice is, before you blow up your presentation, see what you have that works.  Then, write down the top of mind questions.   Answer them with compelling facts.

FI you don’t do this,  you’re doomed to fail.  If you do, you may walk out with exactly the budget you hoped for, or something close.  As the song goes, you don’t always get what you want.  But if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

For more tips on how to prepare important presentations, click here

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In times like these, this country more than ever needs visionary, courageous CEOs who can keep people focused on the future and give them reason to have faith in their companies.  Yes, it’s been an enormously challenging few weeks, but folks, this is the United States of America.  We survived the Great Depression, fought and liberated countries through two World Wars, and built the greatest economy on the face of the earth.  We just need leaders and all Americans to recognize this for what it is, a crisis of confidence.

One of the reasons I am writing my new book, Motivate Like a CEO (McGraw Hill, January 2009) is because now more than ever, we need leaders to step up and be leaders.  They need to keep people focused on the vision and strategy and and motivate and inspire them to keep moving toward their gaols. 

During this time of economic uncertainty when many people are growing fearful, anxious and depressed, CEOs and leaders need to be a beacon of hope in their companies.  Now is not the time to hide in long meetings with each other.   Leaders need to get out, show their faces, talk to people and reassure investors, the public, even the media.  Leaders need to keep people focused on the future and what they can do right now to keep the economy moving. 

A few CEOs are giving the title a bad name right now, those who caused this crisis should give back their ill-gotten earnings and spend some timein jail if they’ve committed crimes.   

At the same time, we have many great CEOs and leaders in this company who can help lead us out of this mess.  Now is not the time to stop doing business, but to move forward together as one nation, believing in each other and keeping the engines of commerce moving.  This will take courage on the part of every leader.

I was reading an interview with Warren Buffet a few weeks ago on CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/27116449 just as the credit crisis began to unfold.  Buffet takes the long view on the market:

“You know, five years from now, ten years from now, we’ll look back on this period and we’ll see that you could have made some extraordinary (stock market) buys. That doesn’t mean it won’t get more extraordinary a week or a month from now. I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now. I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well.”

Now is the time when we all must believe in ourselves.  We are a great country, American business is innovative and resilient, and our economy, the strongest in the world.  

Tyler Mathisen of CNBC’s “The Call”  says they are receiving on their late morning program lots of questions about where all the leaders have gone: http://www.cnbc.com/id/27120332/site/14081545

Mathisen says, “When they have tried to speak up and lead, why haven’t they been heard? Maybe it’s because we’re all too rattled to listen. Maybe it’s because no single soul, in business or government, has the clarity of understanding to express fully what we face. Maybe it’s because none of our leaders, in public or private sectors, has the stature, the standing, the voice, the rhetorical power to break through the din.  Maybe it’s because the lawyers or the PR guys have gotten to them and said, “Go on CNBC? Now? Are you nuts?” Or maybe it’s because we’re four weeks from a Presidential election, with a lame duck president and two candidates who, like all candidates, would really rather score political points than speak clearly and sometimes uncomfortably to the people they say they want to lead.

“Whatever the reason, Mathisen says it’s time for America’s leading CEOs — the Fortune 500 guys — to blow past their lawyers and handlers and get their messages to shareholders, customers, employees and the broader public.

“I know they’re worried about Sarbanes Oxley. I know they’re afraid of saying something that could come back to haunt them. And I know that quite a few of them have spoken out, many on our air, and we are grateful to them. Warren Buffett, Wilbur Ross and Mike Jackson of AutoNation come to mind. But more of them need to. Many more.”

CNBC and other networks are trying to get CEOs to step up to the microphone and provide public leadership - but many are indeed avoiding the spotlight.   Companies like Fidelity, Vanguard, T Rowe Price and others  could also help calm fears in the market if they were more visible.

I can understand why CEOs don’t want to be in the hot seat publicly now, but the country needs leaders in every sector, not just financial services, to speak up and reassure the nation.  I hope they are at least meeting with their own employees letting them know we can survive and thrive if we work together.  That is real leadership — and that is what will keep this country from suffering a long, deep, painful recession.  We simply have to reject fear, and start believing in ourselves.

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This weekend at the National Speakers Association convention in New York, www.nsaspeaker.org Steve Forbes took the stage.  He had 1,800 professional speakers on the edge of their seats as he shared his insights about the future of the US economy.  Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes, and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com as well as a former Republican candidate for President, can actually be a little awkward on stage, yet people who get paid a lot of money to speak to corporate audiences were mezmerized; in a room full of people who love to talk, you could hear a pin drop.  Why?  Forbes was funny and smart –he made economics accessible to all.  And, even more important he told us things we really really didn’t know. 

What’s the real state of the US economy?  Not bad at all!  But don’t ask the media, says Forbes.  They would rather stand in front of a gas pump talking about $4 a gallon gas than actually do research on the the dry stuff that matters, like US monetary policy. And he’s right. (Full disclosure, as many of you know, I was a reporter for 20 years.  I know how it really works.)

Forbes spoke eloquently about the real drivers of our economy, and I was convinced after he spoke–we still have the largest most resilient economy in the world.  He pointed out that as voters we’d better start asking better questions of the people running for office. For example, how will they approach monetary policy?  Because according to Forbes, it wasn’t oil companies or mortgage lenders that brought this on, but by the Fed, which four years ago, and again last year, started printing money like there was no tomorrow.  In an overreaction to the credit crisis, both times, it did more harm than good.

But back to executive presence.  What makes Forbes so powerful on stage?  Wit, intelligence, and the ability to explain something that dry and dull and make it fascinating.  What else did we like about him?  Smart as he is, he didn’t swagger onto the stage or lord his fortune or his smarts over us.  He was hilarious really, as well as respectful.  He treated his audience as the intelligent citizens they want to be. 

Something else– he obviously wasn’t reading someone else’s talking points.  He walked away from the podium five minutes in, and stood center stage for the better part of an hour, speaking eloquently.  If you’ve seen him speak, you know that sometimes his gestures seem slightly out of sync with his message.  Yet he transitioned beautifully from gas prices to the mortage crisis, tax policy to monetary policy, government to politics, all without notes.  He even threw in several funny lines about the speaker who had immediately preceded him on stage.  That’s confidence.  

You also can’t argue with Forbes success, even if he did inherit the company started by his grandfather.  Forbes is still on the cutting edge.  In 1977 they entered the new media arena with the launch of Forbes.com. The site now attracts over seven million unique visitors a month and has become the leading destination site for business decision-makers and investors.

For a copy of his speech, contact the National Speakers Association at www.nsaspeaker.org - I highly recommend you watch it, and take notes.

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