Pitching Ideas to Your CEO: Presentation Strategies
When preparing to pitch a new idea, process, product, etc. to your CEO, it's always valuable to be as prepared as possible.
This isn't to say that you need to have an idea 100% fleshed out before you approach your CEO - that's not always possible. But it is good practice to think through as many aspects as you can first.
It's also good practice to implement a little psychology behind any presentation you pitch to them. And yes, I do mean an actual presentation (slides and all!).
Below is the exact model I follow when presenting a new idea. First I explain the BENEFIT of the idea (before saying the idea), then I share what the idea is aka SOLUTION, then I address their ANTICIPATED QUESTIONS with answers:
Benefits
Before articulating the exact idea ... outline the benefits.
Get your CEO in the right mindset to hear all the ways this "thing" is going to help the company, the team, production, clients, and so on. Provide the value first.
For instance, if your idea is to increase pricing by X%, what benefits will come from that? Increased ROI? More of your ideal clients? Reduced COGs? Get super detailed.
I create a slide for each benefit, then outline bullet point examples in more detail.
For instance, if "More ideal clients" is a benefit, that would have its own slide and bullet points under it might include:
Can lead to decreased churn since we're bringing on clientele that better fits our system
Production team will be happier as they're working with clients that are truly passionate about what we offer
etc.
Outlining the benefits first illustrates to your CEO that this idea has a positive ripple effect that ideally can't be ignored.
Solution
Once the benefits are clear, I then outline the solution. This is your idea. This is the pitch. AKA in the example above, it'd be a slide for "Increase Pricing By X%"
Use this opportunity to explain the idea organically in conversation with your CEO.
Anticipated Questions
Your CEO is the person you most likely work the closest with. That (hopefully) means you know them fairly well and can anticipate potential thoughts/ concerns/ questions they'll have.
Make a list of objections that you think they'd bring up ... and create solutions/ answers to each.
At this point, they've seen all the value this idea can bring and they officially know the details of what the idea is. There's probably a ton running through their mind about how this will affect x, y, and z. So combat those - and be as prepared as possible - with answers.
I show you this example in the video above, but this also tells your CEO not only how prepared and intentional you are with this idea, but that you're ready to be proactive and have thought about this from multiple angles.
