How to properly introduce your team?

We would like to talk about the best ways of introducing your company’s key employees to your audience.

First of all, let’s understand why this is important. Indeed, the modern presentation trend is brevity. So why waste time on information unrelated to the features and functions of the product/good/service being presented? Because the pros of including this section of the presentation outweigh its cons. Here are the primary advantages:

Respect. You demonstrate that your team values the contributions of every employee. Those who respect their coworkers are sure to be respectful of their clients as well.

Professionalism. When you talk about your colleagues, you seem to say: “Look what great professionals we have working on our product. You do realize they’ve created a cool product, right?”

Uniqueness. Talking about the team is a good marker that the audience is going to be exposed to an original offering that different professionals have worked hard on. In fact, you’re making it clear that you’re offering a unique product. After all, you don’t need a team of specialists to repackage someone else’s development. 

Of course, it is absolutely impossible to do without a team presentation if you are holding a group presentation where several employees from your company participate as speakers.

So, we have sorted out why it is necessary. Now it’s time to talk about how to do it. Let’s start with the basic principles that are common to any format.

Formal/informal photo. Picking the right photo to represent an employee is not as easy as it seems at first glance. As a rule, documents that can be used for documents are not particularly successful, or suitable, in this case. When looking at those types of pictures, viewers may well associate them with some sort of criminal lineup. You should avoid square and rectangular photos for the same reason. The best option is to use a circular photo. 

On the other hand, photos that are too informal are not suitable, either. You want to present professionals, not a group of tourists vacationing at a resort, right? Perhaps the best option is to purposefully take photos in a working environment. Something along the lines of, “Look away and smile.” The person who is being photographed should imagine that they are greeting a coworker, or even better, a work buddy. This sort of relaxed smile is the goal, and we don’t have to explain why smiling is important. We will just remind you of an old piece of folk wisdom: “He who cannot smile, should not trade”. Note that it is a good idea to make the photo zoom in when hovered over or clicked.

The Three Fact Rule. How much information should be provided about each employee so as not to overload the presentation? To save you from puzzling over this question, let us present you with the rule of three facts. Fact 1 – name and contacts. Fact 2 – position in the company and/or area of responsibility in the team. Fact 3 – brief professional personal information. For example: how long they have been doing this kind of work. Or, that they are one of the authors of such and such important article or paper. In short – information that emphasizes the professional level of the employee. An interesting variant is to use a quote from the employee about themself and their role in the team as the second and the third fact. A good solution, in case the viewers want to know more about the team members, is to make the block with facts active. Let additional information about the employee appear when they hover or click on it.

When is the best time to introduce the team? At the beginning or at the end? At some point during the presentation? This is a very complex question with no clear answer. By talking about the employees at the start of the presentation you can give additional weight to your further narrative. However, in doing so, you lose the golden seconds and slides that are perfect for grabbing the clients’ attention. We recommend using a very simple rule of thumb. If the presentation is a team presentation and your employees are the speakers – introduce them at once. If there is only one presenter, or the other speakers are not connected to the team in any way – it is better to introduce and thank the team at the end of the presentation.

Together or separately? How to present the team? Is it better to use a group photo, or should you dedicate a separate slide to each person? Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

• Picture Gallery.

Separate portrait slides with information, “hanging” separately, like paintings in a museum, have, by and large, one advantage. With their help, you emphasize special respect for the personality of each employee. Obviously, however, this approach is only suitable for small teams with a very simple structure. If you create separate portrait-slides for each employee in teams where the number of people approaches even a dozen, you will have a separate presentation within the original presentation. Not only is it quite labor-intensive, but it’s also too long for a simple employee introduction. 

• Team slide.

Putting all the employees being presented on one slide is a classic solution for small to medium-sized teams. It will work especially well if you follow our advice and make the photo and captions active, so that when you hover or click on them, additional information appears and the photo itself enlarges. The main disadvantage of this solution is that most slides like this give a poor idea of the team’s hierarchy. Usually, the manager or founder is somehow highlighted in them, and the rest of the employees are placed arbitrarily. For viewers, in terms of organizing future collaboration, this may not be very effective.  

• Team structure.

From our point of view, this is the best option for medium and larger than average teams. Let it be immediately clear from the slide presentation who occupies what place in the hierarchy, who is in charge of what department and who is a member of what department. This will make it very easy for your clients to decide with whom to communicate on specific issues.

Let’s finish by noting that the online presentation block: “Introducing the team” should not be treated as an afterthought. It should be prepared as thoroughly and carefully as all the other sections. If you’re short on time, use Pitch Avatar’s AI presenter. It will not only simplify the work of preparing online content, but also, if necessary, will conduct the presentation for you – as part of an ideal team of speakers. 

Good luck, successful presentations and high income!