Are you aware of the biggest professional secret? The HUGE one that they don’t tell you?

Not at home, not at school, not at most employers. You have to figure it out for yourself. And it may take years. Some will never get it.

And it may be the reason why you are struggling with your clients.

The biggest professional secret

Let me tell you a story:

Early in my career, my then-firm, a U.S. chemical group, flew all European financial analysts to Paris. I was one of them.

First job after B-school; Paris, red wine, rubbing shoulders with the division execs–what was not to like about it?

They wanted to run us through a week-long training on what was labelled “Effective Report Writing.” Snooze!

I know, it sounds so LAME! That’s what all of us thought when we got the invitation.

But little did we know we were being shown the biggest professional secret: to write clearly and succinctly.

The one sentence I took away from that training?

Stop confusing your audience.

And I remember it to this day.

Cut it down

Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve seen many client audiences struggle to understand long and boring presentations. Those with no clear position, ill-defined issues, irrelevant details, little or no data to support, no conclusion.

And who has prepared these presentations?

That’s right! Their advisors. Us!

It makes a big task for the client: Lots of words, cluttering pages. All one big mystery story.

You are basically saying “figure it out yourself, Buster!!”

And you wonder why you don’t get the answer you hope for…

I know, a lot of work goes into presentations. It is often a nightmare pulling it all together.

So have your team hone its writing. It will pay back big-time.

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