One Question Required at the End of Your Project

Your vision is to get the best response possible when you share your work. It could be at your job or in a class. Either way, you want to provide value with what you are communicating. Do you ever notice people look spaced out, like they’re not paying attention, or don’t have any questions or feedback? If you haven’t, make sure you take note of the response next time. It could be your presentation style, another topic for a different day, but it’s likely because you aren’t taking the one necessary step before you finalize your presentation or report. You are likely not giving people an “aha” or “wow I never thought of that type of experience.”

The typical project example

Let’s say you’ve spent two weeks on a project. You put it together in a slideshow you spend a lot of time on the presentation. It looks great, you have visuals, and you’ve done everything you think you should do. You think your boss or the board will be impressed with all the detail and want to move the project forward. But, at the end of the presentation people look a little confused, they look unengaged, they look bored, and they aren’t asking you questions. All things that would make you think people weren’t paying attention. You have to dig in and find out why.

What are you offering the audience?

Let’s go back to the presentation example. At any point during your proofreading of each slide, did you stop and ask yourself “So what who cares?” Did you think to yourself, why should someone read this or hear this? What are they going to walk away thinking? Did you give clear recommendations based on your findings? Check out the example below to see how this works. It’s guaranteed to change any presentation around. This concept was drilled into my team during our MBA studies, and it has stuck with me ever since and applies to any project or presentation.

A project example using “So what who cares”

Let’s use real estate as an example. You are tasked with looking at three different buildings to purchase. You do all the research upfront to find the price, location, amenities, and other typical aspects. You put it together using nice visuals and charts, and you prepare to present it. So what could be the problem? You know you got the basics but do you have an answer to “So what, who cares?”

What if your answer is “I’m not sure?”

Not good enough. Try again.

The problem with not being sure why someone should care about hearing or reading your work is that these are the same facts that anyone could pull up on zillow.com or any other basic webpage search and find. The part that is lacking is the insights that someone could take to either pivot in a new direction or make new types of decisions.

Now, if you tried adding something about lesser-known details such as building 2 has an owner in a tight spot and has to sell urgently, and you found that the county just voted to rezone property next to site 3 and growth is expected to boom in 24 months, etc. These are the reasons your audience will care. You are providing details and insights, the key word being insights, that the common person wouldn’t know or find quickly. You are providing value and information that can drive decisions and change.

How to get the necessary types of insights

The example was a real estate project, however, this question should be asked for any project, and these are some of the insights you should consider.

Trends: You could add sales history, projected sales, or anything that gives context to the value of the buildings.
Interviews: This is a great way to get those insider details. This article can help in any type of interview. Consider using software that will record the video so you can refer back to it or share it with others.
Surveys: Similar to interviews, this has potential for insider information and information about the masses. You could target people in a certain demographic or area, or you ask general questions to a LinkedIn following.
Online research: See what you can find by digger deeper than quick searches. Depending on the topic, this may include competitor analysis, joining some forums related to the topic, or researching market trends.
Testing and experiments: You may want to try some A/B testing, or other experiments to gather the information that no one else would have.
Analysis: You may find a lot of information, but analyzing it and drawing conclusions is necessary to move to the next level.

The end result

In summary, I asked myself “So what, who cares” before publishing this. My answer is that I hope this changes your mindset around presentations and projects and you use this to make sure each one has as much value as possible. There are several aspects to completing a successful project, however, no matter how you put it together, your audience has to walk away thinking these types of things:

“Wow I never knew that”
“Now I can make a decision”
“I am now motivated to do something new”
“This was the information I needed to move forward”

Think of your last project or presentation, what did the audience walk away thinking?

Written by Nicole Hullihen, July 15th, 2022