How to present so your CEO listens

Forget storytelling, make room for conversation, and make sure the metrics matter to the business.

👋Hi, it’s Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on how to make high-stakes professional and personal decisions in your 30s.

If you want to reach the VP/exec level at your org, you need to get good at presenting to the CEO. 

CEOs are impatient. They’re strapped for time, they think they’re really smart, and they’re focused on finding leverage for the business. If you’re on their calendar, it’s to expose and move forward a big problem or opportunity – not give status updates or show off your presentation skills.

When a senior leader starts presenting, I’m looking for a few things in the first two minutes:

- Is the initiative addressing metrics I care about (ARR, gross margins, etc.)? 

- Do I understand the decision we’re trying to make today (and agree that it’s an important one to make)? 

- Do I have enough blunt, to-the-point context to start jumping in and giving insight?

When senior leaders do this well, I love meeting with them. When they don’t, I start flipping ahead in the deck, or asking too many questions. Startup executives get a few shots at impressing their CEO – here’s our guide to doing it well.

Greg

10 tips to present well to a CEO

1. Don’t use storytelling. You’ve probably heard that storytelling is essential to good presentations (hell, we even teach it at Section). And there are lots of places for it – pitches, All Hands meetings, etc. But your CEO doesn’t want you to tell a story. They want you to get to the point quickly, in plain words. 

2. It’s not a presentation, it’s a working session. This isn’t a TED talk. You’ll shine in your ability to have a conversation and work together live, not show off your presentation skills. Spend 10 minutes presenting (max), leave 20 for conversation. You probably get very little time with your CEO, so use them to get feedback, not as a rapt audience. 

3. Spend the first 2 minutes – no more, no less – giving context. If you give too much context, your CEO is constantly waiting for the insight or ask. They’re impatient, so get to the point. You don’t get credit for sharing every last thing you did before this.

But if you skip right to the point without context, they’ll be lost. They’ll say, “Whoa, wait, back up – what are we talking about?” They have different conversations all day at different levels, so you need to anchor them. 

4. In that 2 minutes, state the problem/opportunity AND what you’re asking for. Quickly establish: Why are you here today? What decision is being made – budget, headcount, green light to do something? What are you asking for? If your CEO is sitting there waiting for the “ask” to drop, they’ll get frustrated and look ahead in the deck. 

5. Get verbal agreement that the CEO understands the decision you’re trying to make, or the problem you’re trying to solve. And make sure they agree that the problem is worth solving. This can be scary, because you don’t want to be thrown off your whole talk track. But even if you don’t ask, they’ll be thinking it (“Is this even important?”) – so don’t waste their time and yours. If you decide not to pursue the opportunity, that’s still a productive conversation. 

6. Send a pre-read. It allows you to get to the conversation part faster. Ask if the CEO read it beforehand, and don’t be offended if they didn’t. It still sets you up well.

7. Don’t sugarcoat. CEOs respect people who give the truth and can cut sharply to how something is doing, especially if you’re presenting an update on something they asked for. You can use phrases like “the ambassador program failed” or “the ambassador program is on life support” – they’d rather hear that than “we have updated the KPIs and are assessing if the ambassador program is worth further investment.”

8. Make sure your metrics matter to the business. If our AI tutor is “performing great” – in what way? How does that matter to the business (is it driving up renewal, referrals, user growth, etc.)? 

9. Include moments designed for the CEO to react (so you’re not just talking at them). People often struggle with how to shift from a presentation to a conversation. They ask the CEO broad questions (a long presentation followed by “What do you think?”) or very tactical ones. Here are typical places you can ask questions to spur good conversation:

• At the beginning: Is this a problem worth working on? (See point 5)

• Risks and upsides: What risks or upsides am I missing? Are there any risks you aren’t as worried about?

• Business model / success metrics: Are these the right metrics for us to prioritize? Do you agree with my assumptions?

10. Don’t get thrown off by interruptions. Your CEO is going to interrupt you (like we said, they’re impatient). If they do, two pieces of advice: 

• Say “we’ll cover that in a moment” if you are going to cover it in a few slides

• Don’t overreact or get defensive. Let them say their piece and move on, and don’t lean too heavily on “I did think about that / we did consider that” 

Our advice 

Presenting well to your CEO can be the difference between “that person does good work” and “that person is ready to lead a team or part of the business.” 

It’s your opportunity to show that you understand the metrics that matter and are tackling big, juicy opportunities to move them in the right direction. It’s also an opportunity to position yourself as a thought partner to the CEO – someone they go to to solve tough challenges or brainstorm with, which exposes you to more of the business, and in turn makes your work better and more relevant.

Don’t stress too much about being the perfect “presenter.” We work with plenty of people who would struggle on stage, but can have a really interesting, thoughtful conversation about the business. Those are the conversations we look forward to and appreciate – not the ones where we feel “sold to.” 

To the next 10 years,

Greg & Taylor