Soufyan Hamid, founder and financial storytelling trainer at SouFBP joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show. They discuss storytelling in finance presentations.

Soufyan started his career in auditing at PwC, then moved to consulting at Deloitte. He realized the importance of storytelling when he became a finance business partner for a telecommunications company in Belgium, as he needed to convince internal stakeholders who did not automatically trust him like external consultants. Soufyan now trains others in storytelling and presentation skills, drawing from his experience of making mistakes and learning over time.

He shared five common issues with finance presentations

There is no clear message that the audience remembers after the presentation.

The presentations use the same structure and format for all audiences.

The narrative structure does not follow a compelling story and business reality.

The visuals/slides contain too much text, graphs, and tables.

The delivery is not practised and focuses more on the slides than engaging the audience.

Soufyan then introduced his "STORY" framework for creating effective presentations. The letters stand for Select your message, Target your audience, Organize your thoughts, Review your visuals, and question "Why". He discussed how to apply each step, such as determining the key message, adapting to different types of audiences, and using inductive or deductive structures. Soufyan emphasized the importance of rehearsing and preparing for questions from the audience.

https://youtu.be/LGlk9GCC7mY

Links

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Soufyan Hamid on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

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Timestamps

Introducing Soufyan Hamid. (0:12)

ve problems with financial presentations (4:15

Presenting financial results to executives. (7:54)

Understand the audience. (13:16)

Practical presentation skills in finance. (20:51)

Rehearsing presentations and overcoming nerves. (28:00)

Understanding storytelling techniques. (32:24)

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