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If you have experienced the following scenario, you are not alone. You have a fifteen minute time slot to present a proposal on behalf of your team to senior management. You spend hours on your research and delivery, only to find little or no positive reaction when you are through. What caused the unenthusiastic response?

I have found some excellent techniques to help gain senior level support through my work with change leaders over the past ten years. I have also seen more than one attempt flop. I decided to talk directly with several senior level leaders both in corporate and public organizations in order to discover best practices in presentations to senior management.

One thing nearly every executive noted was that team leaders eager to pitch a proposal for support, be it money or otherwise have a consistent tendency to offer far too much information in their presentations. Many proposals never make it past the proposal stage because the executives were too busy and consumed with their current projects to learn every detail of a new proposal. Most senior managers dont care to be involved in every detail that makes up the project your team is working on. They trust you to a number of decisions related to that proposal and dont want to have to be part of that process.

Here are three proven strategies to have a presentation to senior management that will limit the presentation to the most important details.

1. Use PowerPoint to summarize your main points.

A PowerPoint deck is a great briefing tool because it requires you to summarize your points into brief bullets. Keep your points at a high level and mentally prepare stories, anecdotes, and illustrations to bring depth to the words on the page. Plan to spend no more than 3 minutes per page during your pitch. Bring backup information with you, but pull it out only in response to questions about the details.

2. Organize your main objectives and goals into relevant groups.

Recently, I saw one mid-level manager include all the details of every task his team had planned over the next year in his presentation to senior management. While it was his hope that the details would strengthen his proposal, it resulted in irritating senior management instead. One executive even told the team leader that the committee had no interest in hearing what the team had planned for the year. They just wanted the significant points.

I find it helpful to group goals or activities into categories. For example, you might say that in 2009, your team will focus on cutting costs, streamlining processes, and developing bench strength. You could then list examples of goals in each of the three categories. This helps the executive team quickly focus on the strategic impact of your team’s work and enables them to weigh in on whether they believe these are the right areas of emphasis.

3. Concisely summarize what you need from the executive team in order to move forward.

A great number of presentations to senior management take on an informational tone. The team leader will update the executives on status of the project and then ask for questions. Their expectation is that senior management will take the initiative and suggest a plan for funding and support of the project, which unfortunately is rarely the case.

Instead, conclude your pitch with a slide that summarizes specifically what you need. This might be money, a decision, or dedicated resources. Yes, there is a risk that your request will be turned down, but it’s better to know that now, than to keep spinning your wheels.

About 10 years ago, General Electric hired an external consulting team to help create a change acceleration process. That team devised a four step process for giving impressive and time effective presentations:

* Our initiative is about . . . * It is essential to the organization because . . .* What this means for senior management is . . . . * Here is what we need from you. . .

This approach will work both in informal individual conversations with senior management staff as well as in your formal group presentations. And, as you become more proficient at answering those four key questions, your ability to get your proposals approve will increase.

Streamlining your sales presentations so that they are short and to the point, you will be much more successful at communicating your goals and not your tasks. Being very specific and clear about what you need will help senior management to know right away what you are proposing, what you would like from them to help you succeed, and, most important, how it will positively impact the entire organization.

Wendy Mack is a experienced mentor, trainer, and author with a emphasis in spearheading and communicating change. You can reach Wendy at, or obtain her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.