We had an offsite in Macau. We shared business updates, hung out, and ate a lot.
I saw the founder presented for the first time. He mimicked Jobs’ iPhone introduction speech. It was fun, energetic, and frankly, a tad emotional!
I also presented. We shared retail strategy. It wasn’t my favourite kind of topic to present. It’s about strategy. It’s a bit dry, but we did it.
My favourite presentation was one I did for Nike South. It was a market overview and 3 year strategy presented to the GCLT. Lucia, John, Shephine, and Simon worked together to put it together. As Lucia would later say, it was one of her best experiences and the presentation was 滴水不漏. It was the most thorough presentation I have done, and it was a 2 day long event that included the presentation, market visits, and a finale at the 天河籃球場, where we built tents to wine and dine the team.
Another one was one of the product presentations when I was in Nike Basketball. It was in front of a pretty large group, maybe 200 people. I always loved product line presentations. They were fantastic stories to be told. They contained back stories, researches and numbers, products, and action plans. These were simple and robust story arches to share. I loved preparing for them and sharing them. Eric Wei told me I never had to look at the slides and was completely engulfing.
There was one more. It was during one of the sell in sessions in Hong Kong. We had all the retailers in Hong Kong come to one of Shaw’s movie studios. We built a 365 degree stage. It was another product line introduction. We had dancers performing, and I had to sell the line in the middle of a shoe. It was perhaps the closest I would ever get to perform in a solo concert like environment.
But the first time that I realized maybe I was a better than average presenter was back in college. We the Hong Kong students was putting on a week long event to introduce Hong Kong and the 1997 handover to our fellow students. I had to host was a talk. I didn’t even prepare for it and just kind of winged it. Afterwards, someone came up to me and said, “how come you appeared so comfortable on stage?”
Even with all these evidence of my ability to present, I was feeling doubtful. I was still concerned how I would show up. Of course, I did well, and probably surprised everyone in the room of my abilities. They gave me specific positive feedback – how I used the clicker, how I blended in my self-deprecating jokes, the pace, the story telling …
But I was still unsure of how I showed up. I still am. I guess I don’t want to claim that I am a good presenter. Perhaps I worry that I won’t be able to live up to a title like this.
At the same time, I also know I enjoy preparing presentations and sharing them. I should embrace this part of me more. I should also pay attention to the kind of presentation I prefer – product or initiative related, something NOT about me, and presentations that introduce something new to the audience.
I enjoy presenting, and I am pretty good at it. Perhaps it’s time for me to embrace this. Afterall, I have been doing this for 20 plus years. I should feel safe to claim this.
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