#507 Presenting and Pitching: Why Most Leaders Fail to Influence and How to Change It - Interview with Frankie Kemp
Presenting and Pitching: Why Most Leaders Fail to Influence and How to Change It
In leadership, the ability to present and pitch is not a specialist skill. It is a universal requirement. Every leader, regardless of function, must continuously influence decisions, secure resources, and drive change.
Yet most pitches fail.
In this high-level discussion, Niels Brabandt and Frankie Kemp examine why traditional approaches to presenting and pitching are ineffective and what decision-makers must do instead.
The Reality of Pitching in Leadership
Pitching is not confined to sales. Every proposal, initiative, or request for resources constitutes a pitch.
However, most pitches begin from a fundamentally flawed premise. Leaders assume that their audience is waiting to be convinced. In reality, audiences are often distracted, fatigued, and resistant.
This creates an immediate challenge. Influence must be earned under conditions of limited attention and high cognitive load.
The Failure of Traditional Presentations
A common pattern emerges across organisations. Leaders rely heavily on extensive slide decks, often containing excessive detail and complex data.
This approach fails for two reasons.
First, it increases cognitive load. Decision-makers are required to process large volumes of information in a short period of time, reducing their ability to act.
Second, it shifts focus away from the core objective. Instead of driving a decision, presentations become informational exercises.
As Frankie Kemp highlights, the result is predictable. Attention declines, engagement disappears, and the opportunity to influence is lost.
A Structured Approach to Influence
Effective pitching requires structure. One of the most powerful frameworks discussed is a concise, outcome-driven approach:
- Clearly state the proposal
- Align the rationale with the audience’s priorities
- Address potential objections proactively
- Provide relevant evidence
- Reiterate the desired outcome
This structure reduces cognitive load and increases the likelihood of action. It ensures that decision-makers understand not only what is being proposed, but why it matters to them.
Audience-Centric Communication
A critical error in pitching is the failure to adapt to the audience.
Leaders often present information based on their own expertise rather than the needs of decision-makers. This leads to overly technical, detailed, or irrelevant communication.
True expertise is demonstrated through adaptability. The ability to translate complex information into clear, relevant insights is a defining characteristic of effective leadership.
The Role of Emotion in Decision-Making
While data is essential, it is not sufficient.
Decisions are influenced by emotional drivers as much as by rational analysis. Effective pitches therefore combine evidence with narrative.
Stories, analogies, and real-world implications create engagement and facilitate understanding. They enable decision-makers to connect with the proposal on a practical and emotional level.
Overcoming Organisational Habits
Many organisations are entrenched in presentation cultures that prioritise slides over substance.
Changing this requires both courage and strategy. Leaders must challenge existing norms, seek alignment with senior stakeholders, and demonstrate more effective approaches.
Importantly, preparation must include rehearsal and feedback. Presenting ideas for the first time in a high-stakes setting significantly increases the risk of failure.
Conclusion: Influence as a Leadership Capability
Presenting and pitching are not about delivering information. They are about driving decisions.
Frankie Kemp demonstrates that effective leadership requires clarity, structure, and audience focus. It requires the ability to reduce complexity, address concerns, and create alignment.
In an environment where attention is limited and expectations are high, the ability to influence is a decisive competitive advantage.
Leaders who master this capability will not only communicate more effectively. They will lead more effectively.
Niels Brabandt
---
More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
Is excellent leadership important to you?
Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, Moderator.
Podcast and Leadership Transcript
Niels Brabandt
Back by popular demand, part number 3. Frankie, you're becoming a regular guest right here. So now we're not only into presenting but also—remember this moment when you said, "I just had a really good pitch today at work," and most people say, "No, I don't remember that." And to be fair, me neither, or let's say rarely did I listen to a great pitch, because most people show up and basically what they say is, "Wanna buy my stuff?" And my answer usually is, "No," because I didn't ask you to pitch to me.
Niels Brabandt
The question is, how do we do it better? And we have an expert on the matter with us today. Ellen, welcome, Frankie Camp, on presenting and pitching.
Frankie Kemp
Hi Neils, it's so lovely to be back with you.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, you—you are becoming a really regular guest, and I really appreciate you taking the time yet again. So we already ticked the box for "interviewing at the top"—that was the first episode out of three. Then we had a second one on "presenting without being loud." So it's the—for anyone listening to this episode today, be sure that you check out the other two.
Niels Brabandt
But now we come to the most complex one: presenting and pitching. Let's face it, no one asks that anyone pitches. No one likes to get pitched at. So how can I be good at pitching when I—when I actually know, when I enter the room, I am in the situation, I demand your attention, I demand your resources, and I also demand, most likely, your money, and you're not waiting for this? This is not the best starting point, is it? So, so, so how can I be good at pitching when I know that no one's waiting for me?
Frankie Kemp
Hmm. Well, firstly, I just want to clarify that we're not talking necessarily about sales per se.
Niels Brabandt
When I have an idea, when I have a concept, when I want to be promoted—anything I bring forward—when you are my boss and I have any kind of idea, we are in a pitch situation.
Frankie Kemp
Yes.
Niels Brabandt
Pitching is bringing anything for—I want something from you is a pitch situation.
Frankie Kemp
That's exactly it. So when people say, "I don't need to sell," I'm going, "You need to sell." Everybody needs to sell. Yeah,
Niels Brabandt
everybody.
Frankie Kemp
So I don't care what your role is, you'll never get—
Niels Brabandt
You're not just selling work in HR; you're pitching all the time.
Frankie Kemp
All the time, right? You are selling change and initiative. You've got an idea. You want people to do something differently. You need to sell that to people. Now, we have decision fatigue, and the research shows that by lunchtime, for example, after lunch, you are going to make more mistakes. You're going to make worse decisions.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Frankie Kemp
Because, you know, that first half of the day is when people should make decisions. So you've got this slot between 3:00 and 4:00—snooze time—and you don't want to take up too much time. Now, I'm going to walk you through a scenario which is very, very common. What some people do, which is—actually, this is extremely broad—a lot of people will fall into this trap: what to do instead. Are we ready?
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely.
Frankie Kemp
Fab. Now, you've got an idea. You go to your manager and you say, "I would like to present this idea to the decision makers." The manager says, "Great. On Monday, come into the SLT meeting and present it." Well, you're in a complete sweat over the whole weekend because you're putting together the data, you're cramming together stories, and you've got your 70 slides for your big presentation.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Frankie Kemp
You go into the meeting on Monday, and it's flying off in all different directions. They don't seem to have acknowledged you. In fact, they don't even seem to realize that you're there until at the end, when you see people collating their papers and eyeing the door or walking out the door, and then someone turns to you and says, "Um, I'm sorry. Is there something you wanted to share with us today?"
Frankie Kemp
Well, you scramble to put your laptop on and go through the slides, and your moment is lost. It's gone.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely.
Frankie Kemp
They're not interested anymore.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Frankie Kemp
What to do instead? Get your weekends back. Put your PowerPoint away. What you need to do is—I'm going to give you a special structure, which is the proeb. I call it the rapid influence technique, but then I'm going to—I'll tell you what the characteristics are that you can carry through to other techniques.
Frankie Kemp
So the first thing is you have your proposal. Tell people exactly what you want, and then tell people why. But this is where most people go wrong. You've got to do it within the framework of their motivators. For example, if you're in ops, a lot of people in ops will talk about how it makes things work better. They're not interested in the SLT. It's like, "What competitive advantage does it give?" You need to step into their world.
Frankie Kemp
The next after the P and the R is the O. Most people don't want to mention this because it's the elephant in the room. What is it? It's the objections. You need to surface their objections, or you have left the A4-mentioned elephant in the room. You need to show that you've reduced risk and you have a solution.
Frankie Kemp
Next, you give evidence. And lastly, the P—you've bookended it—with saying what you want. This works in email. It works face to face. It works virtually. And it works professionally and personally. It's a godsend because it reduces cognitive load.
Frankie Kemp
Whenever you present, for whatever reason—and there are different structures that I give my clients—the structure needs to reduce the cognitive load so that people act.
Niels Brabandt
So that means people need to get away from the oh-so-holy 74-slides-long PowerPoint presentation at their main focus?
Frankie Kemp
I'm sorry. I'm going to take that crutch away.
Niels Brabandt
That is a massive culture change for many. You know that many organizations rely on that kind of structure. So how do you give people confidence when they say, "Look, when I enter this room, when I enter this—"
Frankie Kemp
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
—now people expect me to have a slide, people expect me to have this and that slide, and we always do these kind of slides. So how do I suddenly start presenting without saying, "Here's my 74-pages-long PowerPoint presentation"? How do—how do you give them confidence there? Because that's a good question.
Frankie Kemp
That's such a good question, Neils. That's such a good question because it happened to me last week. So the leaders were bringing me in, and they went, "We noticed your tagline is—" and I've worked for them, you know, many times over the years. But I remember when they approached me, they said, "We noticed your tagline was 'be less vanilla and more thrilling.'"
Niels Brabandt
More thriller. That was one of the taglines why I got you on the podcast as well. So it works pretty well, I can tell you.
Frankie Kemp
It does, because we're like a rhyme. And anyway, they said we want our analysts—industry analysts—to be that. And it's just a slide attack. And I went, "Okay, fine."
Frankie Kemp
So I'm training with them, and they feel so much better, and they say, "My God, our presentations have changed." But then somebody announces at the end of the training—I mean, now I've mitigated against this by building it into my spiel at the end—but they said to me—this was in the early days—they went, "The problem is I know I'm going to go back to what I did with the slides."
Frankie Kemp
And I went, "And why?" I didn't say why because I tell people not to say why. "Tell me the reason for that." And they said, "Because we don't think it will go down well with the senior leaders." Well, I could say what I want, which is, "They bought me in because they know that I will release you from that."
Frankie Kemp
But now what I've encouraged them to do is say, "Talk through your slides to the senior leaders," or, "Be pleased that you asked this question because it has been an issue with a client that I've done a lot of work with."
Frankie Kemp
At the end of the training session in which—I mean, they bought me in. The leaders bought me in because they said, "We want our industry analysts to be less vanilla and more thriller," which, as you know, Neils, is my tagline.
Niels Brabandt
And that's one of the reasons why I got you on the podcast. Yes, yes.
Frankie Kemp
Indeed, indeed. And they said that they rely—that these analysts that they want me to train are relying too much on the slides. Well, at the end of the training session, somebody said, you know, when they were vocalizing this concern that the leaders won't like the fact that they aren't depending on the slides so much, I encouraged them to go to the leaders, talk through what they were doing, and ask if it was okay if they only did two or three because they do need a couple of visuals to show to the client. And they were all accepting.
Frankie Kemp
They all affirmed that everything was okay, and it's given them the confidence. So if you're not sure, go and ask because no one's expecting you to be psychic. So go and ask.
Frankie Kemp
And this is the other thing: that many people, even when they're technical leaders, the first time they do that presentation or that pitch will be when they're doing the presentation or the pitch. And they haven't had any feedback. They're too technical or too jargony, and they're going to exclude their audience. So pick somebody who represents someone outside of your area of expertise, outside of your level, or outside of your role, if that's who you're speaking to as well, and make sure that what you do lands with them.
Frankie Kemp
Because it's also going to make you feel less nervous because people get so anxious before presenting. And often it's because the first time it comes out your mouth is when you're in front of the audience, and they've written it all down. And most of the technical specialists that I work with write an essay—a chronological essay of events. They're reading a script. They get extraordinarily nervous. They're not interacting with their listeners, with their audience. So all of this is just going to make them feel very nervous as the words go one way and the mouth goes the other.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. I have one more last question for the end of our three-interview series that we have here. When now people tell you, "Look, I have one issue. The content I have to present is extremely boring. It's probably numbers only, or it's tech details."
Niels Brabandt
And it gets worse from here because they say, "I have to present this to people who have no technical clue in the detail they need to have. However, they are sitting on the yes/no regarding my project, my budget, my resources, and my future career. How do I pitch anything to them when I know that I hold more expertise than they do? However, I have to present something extremely boring to them. They know they have to listen to me, but they don't have to do me any favors. How can I pitch to them successfully?"
Frankie Kemp
There's two points—words that I want to pick up on here—that I've heard you utter, which are what I hear clients utter. The first one is detail. Hang on. Do they need that much? Who says they need that detail to make the decision, firstly? And secondly was around your competence, your specialism, your expertise.
Frankie Kemp
Your expertise is your ability to adapt to who you're speaking, to whom you're speaking. That reveals your expertise. If you start going into the nitty-gritty data with people who are not interested in the nitty-gritty data, it doesn't make you look more experienced. It makes you look less experienced.
Frankie Kemp
There are ways of pulling out the data which you do need. I'm not denying that. It does need to be there. But we make decisions not on the data. Well, actually, we might make decisions on the data, but we act because of an emotional driver. You need to make sure that that emotional driver is there.
Frankie Kemp
The stats and facts don't speak for themselves. How is this going to affect your audience? Use stories. Make sure that you have a strong key message. Ask questions. Involve people. And coming back to stories—stories. When we hear a story, it uses the same neural pathways as lived experience, which is why it's so much more effective than your nine bullet points on that slide 71.
Niels Brabandt
Nine bullet points with two full phrases each being read out aloud. Yeah.
Frankie Kemp
Exactly. Full-time.
Niels Brabandt
Assisted reading, as we call it in the consultancy industry. Yes.
Frankie Kemp
And the argument for that, I find, when I work with people is, "Well, we need to give them out as handouts." I went, "Okay, so you're showing the handouts, and now I have a shortcut," which I show people, which means that they don't have to do a whole different set.
Frankie Kemp
It's a shortcut, which actually one of my engineering clients showed me. And everybody, from marketing to clinicians, they embrace it because it just saves them a lot of work. It means they're not reading off handouts.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. I think these are the perfect final words. When people now say, "Hey, we listened to you during the first interview, interviewing at the top. Then we followed you through present without being loud, and now we're presenting and pitching, and now they think, 'I think you might be really helpful for our organization, so we probably want to bring you in as a trainer, coach, keynote speaker.'" How can they get in touch?
Frankie Kemp
frankie@frankiekemp.com is my email, and frankiekemp.com is the website. Just click Contact, get in touch, and I look forward to hearing from whoever clicks the golden button.
Niels Brabandt
Perfect. I think these are the perfect final words. At the end of three interviews, check them all out. There's only one thing left for me to say: thank you. Hope to see you again soon, and thank you very much for your time.
Frankie Kemp
Thanks, Neils.