Randi-Sue Deckard 🔬

GTM Leader -Sales/Marketing/CS/Revops🔹Strategy 🔹$1-$100M B2B🔹SaaS & Services🔹Influenced $100M+ in Revenue🔹GirlzWhoSell Mentor & Advisor🔹Pavilion-Co-Chair DFW Chapter🔹Speaker 🔹Advisor🔹Future Author 📚☕️🐾

Why does a Scientist make an awesome Customer Obsessed Revenue Growth Leader? #TheLabMindset

I was literally trained to experiment. Be extremely curious. Test, Refine and iterate! 

Research like a boss and use system level thinking!

It builds resilience (failure = reiterative process to get the desired outcome).

Document like a boss - I was trained if it wasn't written in black ink it didn't happen. 

Data driven decision making. Look for patterns to determine the best "lever" to change.

Embrace Change - always looking for ways to improve productivity/efficiency which help me look at the end-to-end CX (hello, bowtie) and find ways to reduce cost to serve for sustained profitability. 

Process/Frameworks are critical - how else do you design an experiment? (for business =GTM- Revenue Architecture model)

Communication -lots of papers written and one of my ninja skills is simplifying the complex so anyone could understand!

Present my findings and get grilled - Objection & Rejection proofed because I proactively prepared and expected this to occur.

Here's a little bit more about the Professional Me:

Leadership Style 
-Servant Leader
-People first

Strategic & Data Driven Decision Leader
--work with executives & board
--cross functional collaborator
--manage and execute projects

Embrace Change and Being a Change Agent

Trusted Advisor both internally and externally. Love creating raving fans throughout the whole ecosystem.

Great communicator and ninja rapport builder from board - peers- team - customers

Builder
--Teams
--Startups
--New Business Units
--GTM 

Revenue Growth
 --new logo
-- customer expansion
--strategic partnerships
--M&A

Financial Acumen 
--Profitability through retention and sustainable repeatable processes (understand the business unit economics)
--P&L Ownership

Experience with professional services & software solutions

Optimizer and Fine Tuner with Iterative Process improvement mindset 
--applied to GTM, Revenue Architecture and Customer Relationship Management

Growth Mindset
--lifelong learner who's obsessively curious
--personal and professional books & courses
--active in professional communities like Pavilion

High EQ - great mentor/coach

Thought Leader
-podcasts, panels and speaker
-writer & future author

Strategic Advisor for GTM - obsessed about sustainable growth!
-$1-$60M in ARR

Ssh don't tell but I might have an espresso & chocolate addiction according to my hounds who are currently giving me sideye. ;-)

2025 Sprouts "25 Women in GTM" to watch 2024 & SalesIntel "Top 100 & 300 Women" Making an Impact in B2B SaaS

Executive Member and Co-Chair of DFW Chapter

Pavilion, formally Revenue Collective, is a private membership organization for commercial growth operators. Our community is designed to support the professional development of revenue leaders at high growth companies, facilitate the sharing of best practices, and serve as a trusted private community.

Neil W.

CEOs call me when ok is not good enough - Fractional CRO @revenue•x | Founder @PORCH

Revenue is everything and nothing else matters.
Revenue solves all problems.  

But to get it in today’s market - it's all about execution. 
GTM execution is the only moat anymore. 

And if you don't know how or don't have a team that gets sh!t done, you are in a heap of trouble. 

Most consultants and advisors are full of ideas, but suck at getting things done. You don’t need more ideas. You need people who can lead and execute and get sh!t done.

Neil / weitzmanGTM provides hands-on and specific guidance to build your GTM function and revenue. 
Get sh!t done.

To learn more, check out www.weitzmanGTM.com or DM me.

--

I am also the Founder of PORCH - an exclusive club for international and immigrant entrepreneurs for the personal side of the journey (the stuff that accelerators don’t do). To learn more about the PORCH, check out www.porchcommunity.com.

--

I try my best to...
- Punch up and go high when others go low 
- Admit mistakes
- Follow logic and reason
- Stick to the POP principles (Passionate, Optimistic, Perseverance).
- Keep my 100% Say/Do ratio

Co-Founder and Executive Coach

Your blueprint for starting and growing your fractional or consulting business.

Type the first word you see.

Did you find the same word as me?


P.S all words related to GTM/Sales or Human Kindness

🤙Neil Weitzman

Getting sh!t done | GTM Operator - Fractional CRO | Founder of PORCH

I am Canadian. Born here, raised here. Best place to grow up. Scared as hell for our future.

Canada has shifted and the shift is emotional and measurable.

I do not recognize my home.

Here is what I see now:  

1) If Canada was a business the CEO would be fired 50x. We rehired the same management team again and again.  

1980 GDP per capita 
Canada: $11,280, US: $12,550 

2025 GDP per capita 
Canada: $54,900, US: $89,600  

Canadian households since 2010 (adjusted for inflation): 
15.2% increase in income with a 41.4% increase in income tax expenses  

Canada ranks 1st in uranium reserves , 1st in potash , 2nd in nickel , 3rd largest oil reserves , 5th in gold , 1st in fresh water, best farmland on earth - We should be the richest country on the planet but our government puts effort into not realizing our economic potential    


2) Waste and corruption everywhere  - ArriveCAN, Green Slush Fund, Widespread Procurement Fraud, McKinsey Contracts, $15B to Stellantis to stay but took the money and ran    

3) Culture shift  - Canada has so much pride. We put the flag on knapsacks when travelling. Even Americans did as they got treated better. 

- The only time we come together is at the direction of political strategies (anger over tariffs, COVID mandates, etc.). If the only thing bringing us together is a crisis, we are in trouble.  

- Identity-based politics was not Canada. Now, we see "“F**K ______" signs. Now, we vent, we argue. You can not avoid it.    

4) We need immigration. We need talented people to come and stay in Canada. We do not need everyone. Current policy is broken.  

- Record numbers of people have been brought in to keep people in power.  

- We should take in vetted refugees from war-torn countries but not just anyone. The current system is full of holes. 

- Canada brings in world class talent but they leave. Highly skilled immigrants are leaving at 2x the rate of lower skilled workers. Q2'25 saw 24k emigrated = +26% more than 2019 and a record high   

---

-We tell our youth to get a job, but its harder than ever due to corrupt LMIA policy
-We brag about free Healthcare while paying thousands in taxes to pay for itj
-We send our kids to schools to learn about feeling guilty for other peoples sins 
-We debate our closest allies and neighbours while cozying up to dictators 
-We overpay for everything because we gave up nearly all manufacturing and decided to crap on the farming and mining industries. 
-We brag about environmental conservation but make deals with the worst perpetrators of pollution.


Canadians are no longer aligned.

Hate is everywhere. I still can see the love but it’s way harder to spot than ever before.

Canada pride is still there, but deeply fractured. 

Everyone has an opinion on this, but this is mine.

On the bright side....and even with all this... not sure there us a better place on earth to live and raise a family. Is there?

Getting sh!t done | GTM Operator, fCRO, Advisor, Investor | Founder of PORCH

We should settle all political crap with a game of hockey - USA vs Canada.
Two nations represented. 
Backdropped by all the crap going on between the two countries. 
All of it put aside for sport.
Best on best.
Hard fought and incredibly fast.
You knew one little mistake would be the difference. 
Canada dominated most of the game. 
Hellebuyck a complete stud.
Team USA wins and remembers one of the best - Gaudreau 🇨🇦 
Team Canada - these guys wanted it more than anything if their life but showing great sportsmanship and making Canada proud.

What a game!

Congrats #USA x2 (Women and Men)
Congrats #Canada - We cheated and still got Curling Gold 🤣 

P.S If only we had Crosby
P.P.S Or some of these guys
P.P.P. S Why do I hate the Tkachuks so much?

I’m building something new and it's going to be the biggest thing I have ever done. Ambitious as hell. Day 1 AI-native. Early. Stealth mode.

We are looking for a technical co-founder who knows how to build in 2026.

- real full-stack experience building a vertical SaaS product 
- comfortable owning architecture, shipping MVPs quickly, and iterating in market. 
- you’ve worked with LLM APIs and understand prompt-driven systems
- you leverage modern AI coding tools to compress a year of work into weeks
- you can be direct, move quick, and get sh!t done.
- you are cool as heck 

If you want to join a new startup, move quickly, and want to build something from 0 to 1 - DM me.

(or tag someone that may be interested)

DMs open. JD/more info to come.

The thousand ways to say I love you

This is from my son Hunter (to say I am proud of him is a huge understatement)

-

They are only 3 words.
And yet, we rarely use them to say what we actually mean.

“I love you” is simple. 

But the real version is quieter than that. It’s woven into ordinary days and small habits and moments that don’t announce themselves as anything special until you look back and realize they were everything.

I’ve been thinking about all the ways love shows up without ever saying the 3 words.

“Text Me When You Get Home”
It’s the text that says 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦.
It’s not really about the text. It’s about someone needing to know you’re okay.

It’s the 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺? and the 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦 and the 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥. 

Nobody says “I love you” in those moments.
But that’s exactly what they’re saying.

My dad left for work at 5am every day… 3 hours of traffic each way and long days that earned him every right to come home and do nothing.

Instead, he’d show up at some random hockey rink at 8pm to watch my hockey game. He never made a big deal of it. He just showed up, every time.

Not only did my mom drive us to school every day, but she drove home and back again more times than I can count because we kept forgetting our lunches. No lecture or guilt trip. Just her pulling into the parking lot, handing it over, heading back.

They said “I love you” constantly. But they showed it even more.

When you’re younger, the repeated advice and the constant checking in can feel like a lot. When you’re older, you realize it was devotion the whole time.

They were building their entire lives around you before you were old enough to understand what that cost them.


One of the quietest ways to say “I love you” is to remember.

Their coffee order. 
The name of their childhood dog. 
The thing they mentioned once in passing that still stresses them out. 
What makes them light up. What song sends them somewhere else for a second.
Most people move through life without paying attention like that.

When someone does, they’re telling you something without using a single word: 
𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦.

That’s love doing its work without making any noise about it.

We tend to think love has to be dramatic.
Most of it’s just routine. 

There are a thousand ways to say “I love you.”
Most of them will never sound like it. 

For a long time I took that for granted, the way you only can when you’re young enough to think love is something that just exists, rather than something people choose.

The people who love you are already showing you. In the texts, in the small things they remember, in the way they show up when it would be easier not to.

So the question isn't just who has been loving you quietly. 

It's who in your life could use a little more of it?


P.S this is from his newsletter Almost Something - subscribe to it here: https://lnkd.in/exg7u2Yh

Most deals are actually lost 48 hours AFTER the contract is signed.

We spend months nurturing a lead. 
We navigate 7 stakeholders, survive 3 demos, and finally get the signature. 

We celebrate. 💚🍾🥂
We ring the bell. 

We move on to the next lead.

Meanwhile, the buyer is sitting at their desk feeling a cold pit in their stomach.

It’s called Buyer’s Remorse, and in B2B, it’s lethal. ☠️

The Buyer High lasts about 2 hours. Then reality sets in  "Did I just waste $100k? Is this going to break? Will my boss fire me if this implementation fails?"

If they hear nothing from you for 3 days, that anxiety turns into "silent churn."

Here is the tactic to use if you as a CRO / Founder:

The moment the ink is dry, bridge the gap between the Sales Rep they trust and the CS Manager they don't know yet.

1) Personal Acknowledgement: "Hey [Name], I just saw the signed contract. I am genuinely thrilled to have you with us."

2) The "Next 24 Hours" Map: "I am sure "Sales Rep" communicated this but just in case - Tomorrow at 9 AM, you’ll get an invite from [CS/Implementation Lead]. They already have your notes on [Specific Pain Point]."

3) The Safety Net: "I’m not disappearing. I will be here keeping an eye on everything. We have a Slack channel set up just for your business and I’m staying in it to make sure the handoff (and everything else) is flawless."

Not hard and doubles up the hand-off messaging in case of an issue. Also shows Sr level awareness and support for the client.

If your sales team "ghosts" the client the second they sign, you are flushing your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) down the toilet.

Confidence is transferred through clarity.

P.S more goodness here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Cancelled my 1-1 with one of my sales reps.

Why?

They crushed quota (127%) 
Had a strong pipeline
Was contributing to the team
Seemed optimistic and happy.
Was working super hard

I felt like they were in a groove and didn’t need me

So instead of filling 30 minutes of their schedule, I felt like they might appreciate less of me :) and to let them keep doing what they do best.

Because not every meeting is a good use of someone’s time, even if it makes you feel more “in control.”

Call it macro-managing. (It’s the quieter, more respectful cousin of micromanaging.)

Here’s what it looks like for me:

→Set the vision
→Ensure they are going in the right direction
→Give people the right tools and insight
→Clear the path when things get messy
→Let them figure out the how
→Stay available, but not in their way

You don’t need to sit on their shoulder to be a good leader.
Sometimes, leadership is knowing when not to jump in.

Great salespeople don’t need babysitting.
They need space.

What do you think, more 1:1s, or fewer?


P.S this was a 2:1 where 🏄🏼‍♂️ Scott Leese and I were coaching Marcus how how to increase his calves. Our advice was perfect - ask him for a pic.

There is no universal GTM motion. Stop looking for it.

Context eats playbooks every single time.

What works depends on:
-Your buyer maturity
-Your price point
-Your sales cycle
-Your competitive environment
-Your internal capabilities
-Your timing
-Your ______

Best practices ignore context.


----

If you are a full-time in-seat GTM operator stop remember that best practices are the best for someone else - not you.

If you are a Fractional CRO/CMO/GTM Operator your job is not to import answers. It is to diagnose reality.

The shit many of us go through but never talk about. Almost no one talks about this openly. Time to shine the light on real life. 

Your feed is full of wins today. Closed deals. New roles. Record quarters. 
Lots of bragging and lead magnets. 

Some of those people are wondering how they are going to make it through the week.   
Others are worried sick about next months rent or next weeks bills for their kids.

That is the part no one talks about on LinkedIn.  

PORCH 💚Foundation Utility Club is trying to help. 

Thanks to so many of you - We just sent money to 2 more people for February.

I want to tell you about them. Not their names, just what they are going through.  

Person 1  
Spent their last 7 euros on groceries yesterday. Seven. 
That was it. That was everything.  
They started a company in 2023. 
It was working at first and then budget cuts, AI, etc.
The usual reasons companies give when they stop paying you.  
Emergency fund.  Gone. 
Loans from friends. Gone. 
Now looking for a job.
They made it to final rounds at 2 companies in February. 
Extremely worried about being homeless in March. 

Person 2
Was crushing their number as an Alliance Manager. 
Top performer. Doing everything right. 
Then they got laid off on Halloween. October 31st. Happy holidays. 
Single parent and sole provider to 3 kids - 2 in college.  
Borrowing from friends and family just to keep going.
They described themselves as being at the end of their rope.  


These are not people who made bad decisions. 
These are people who did everything they were supposed to do and still ended up here.   

A little bad luck a simple wrong turn. 
Many of us have been there. 
Don't judge. 


Utility Club is simple.  
Donations are pooled each month. 
We pick one or two people from the applicants to give a little big of a helping hand too.
One person is randomly selected and receives some money - a hand up. 
No names. No judgment. Just help.  
If you are out of work and facing a financial crisis... If you need a hand up 
Apply: https://lnkd.in/epJc8D-G

If you are in a position to give, even a few dollars matters. 
Donation link: https://lnkd.in/eQM-Y_24
  

No one should have to face this alone.

B2B / LinkedIn network assemble!!!!

Sizzle for cooking. Drizzle for finishing.  Instead of going artisanal or elegant, he used a ketchup bottle and clear product segmentation and built a $50M brand narrative rooted in rebellious marketing.  

Most startups chase a “premium” look, but Andrew Bennett flipped the script with Graza olive oil.    

This is how brand positioning and packaging become your strongest growth levers.   

Here is the lessons Andrew taught us:  

➡️ Positioning Over Packaging Don't just design a package; design a behavior. Make your product fit the customer's actual life, not an idealized version of it.   

➕Segmentation Creates Clarity Specificity and simplicity sells. Most olive oil brands claim to be good for everything, which confuses the average cook. Graza split the product into two distinct use cases: "Sizzle" (cooking) and "Drizzle" (finishing).   

👍 Build a Narrative, Not Just a Product Graza didn't just sell oil; they sold a "rebellious" identity. The bottle became a status symbol for people who wanted to identify as practical, modern cooks.   

💚 Calculated Rebellion Graza earned free attention by refusing to look like everyone else. In a sea of serious, artisanal glass bottles, a bright green squeeze bottle stood out immediately. Look at what your competitors are doing and consider doing the exact opposite to capture attention.   

Most brands try to be like the category leader. 
Thats easy and has limited upside.  

Be courageous. 
Be different.   

P.S saw this first from Chadlscott on Instagram - great stuff - follow him  

P.P.S Branding is a big part of GTM - read more here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Every damn LinkedIn post knows exactly what YOU should do for untold riches. 
Every deck has "best practices". Every so-called expert references them and every CEO expects you to know them.

They sound safe but they kill progress faster than almost anything else in GTM.

I used to chase them and I often still catch myself doing it.

Where do “best practices” actually come from?

Most so called best practices are reverse engineered from companies that already won or sometimes from people trying to sell you something. 

We look at the winners and say:
• This is how they structured their sales team
• This is how they sent emails
• This is the pricing model 
• This is the motion they scaled
  
Then we assume those caused the outcome. 
Sometimes they did but often they did not.

We forget about the hundreds of companies that followed the same playbook and failed. We forget about them for two reasons:

1. The people who failed are not writing blog posts, are not generally keynoting conferences and are not in your LinkedIn feed.
   
2. We want to believe it is easy. 
   
That is survivor bias in its purest form. 
There is comfort but danger in copying. 

Best practices feel good because they remove responsibility. If it does not work, you can say: “We followed the playbook.”

As a fractional CRO, I have seen this pattern everywhere.
• Founders copying outbound motions from companies with totally different ICPs
• Sales teams adopting frameworks built for enterprise while selling SMB
• Marketing teams mimicking content that worked because the brand already had demand

Here is what people forget: What worked for them often worked because of timing, distribution, brand, capital, or talent. Not because of the tactic itself.

I learned the hard way. 
Earlier in my career, I wanted certainty. So I leaned on best practices instead of judgment and over time, I noticed that the more senior and effective operators I worked with rarely talked in absolutes. They asked better questions instead.

• Why would this work here? 
• What assumptions are baked into this tactic?
• What breaks if we are wrong?
• What is the smallest version we can test?
  
They were not anti best practice. They were just skeptical and made sure to ask great questions to verify decisions.

There is no universal GTM motion that works for everyone. 
What works depends on: your buyer maturity, your price point, your sales cycle, your competitive environment, your internal capabilities, your timing, etc.

So if best practices are bullsh!t, what do we do instead? 

We should study what great companies do. But just treat it differently. 
Here is how;

1. Borrow principles, not tactics 
2. Test before you scale 
3. Assume you are different because you are
4. Be honest about constraints  (capital, time, talent, and brand all matter)
5. Trust pattern recognition over popularity (loudest ideas are generally not the best) 
   
Context beats playbooks every time. 
More here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

CEOs and Founders this is for you: The most powerful words you can say to your sales team: "I was wrong about that strategy."


Most leaders are terrified of those six words. 

They’ve been told that Leadership = Unshakable Confidence. 

They think that if they show a crack in the armor, the sales team will lose heart and the ship will sink.

The reality?
That armor is exactly what’s killing your culture.

Founder / CEO infallibility has a very high cost. When you project "fake certainty," you aren't inspiring people, you’re unintentionally training them to lie to you.

If the CEO is always perfect, reps will hide a dying pipeline to avoid looking imperfect.

They will sugarcoat bad news until it’s an unfixable disaster. 
They will ignore the "gut feeling" that a product pivot isn't working because The Boss said it was the right move.

Fake confidence creates a "hiding culture". 
In a high-growth environment, hiding is the one thing that will kill you faster than the competition.

You need to create a vulnerability loop.

True leadership isn't about having all the answers. 
Real leadership t is about creating a system where the best answers will surface. 

You do this by intentionally closing the "Vulnerability Loop."

How to do this?
It's not hard - but it does take courage and honesty. 

Stand up and perform a public autopsy on a mistake you made. 
Not a humble brag - not "I worked too hard and burned out" type of thing, a real mistake or failure.

Do a post-mortem breakdown on your mistake/failure:

1. Logic: I made the call to pivot our outbound focus to go more up-market last month. I thought the higher ACV would solve our burn rate.
   
2. Result: We spent $50k on data and dedicated three SDRs to it. We got zero meetings. Our messaging was a total mismatch for the persona.
   
3. Vulnerability: I misread the market. I relied on old data instead of listening to what our current customers were telling us. I was wrong.
   
4. Pivot: Here is exactly what I learned from this mistake, and here is how we are going to use the learning to win this quarter.
   

When a leader admits they were wrong, they give the team Permission to be Honest.

Suddenly, the sales team feels safe saying things like 
- This script isn't working. 
- I’m going to lose this deal to a competitor. 
- I am not sure how to multi-thread this account effectively.

You don't want a team that hides mistakes to protect your ego. 
You NEED a team that identifies mistakes, admits them, and fixes them at lightning speed.

Your unshakable confidence is a liability. 
Your vulnerability is a huge advantage.

If you want the truth, you have to give them the truth.

Ben Horowitz talks about this a lot in The Hard Things About Hard Things (which is one of the best business books I have read) and I go deep on GTM and Revenue leadership here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

Does the "sick cat" excuse everything?

In the world of AI are people forgetting basic professionalism 

Timeline
1. Message person to meet on topic X
2. I try to hard (my first red flag and I should have stopped there)
3. Book meeting eventually
4. Guy cancels meeting 30 min before
5. Reschedule meeting
6. Me and my partner get on the call and the Guy never shows up
7. No communication, no apology nothing and a week later I get this email
8. I respond with some passive aggressive crap 
   

I should have just said - we don't appreciate being stood up with no communication and have no interest in working together if you treat people like this.

Tell me I am wrong...

The millions you spend on SKO (flights, hotels, swags, entertainment and keynotes) is a waste - unless it's Jen Allen-Knuth who is worth 50x and 🥇 

You spend millions, do the SKO and for 2–3 days, it feels like the entire org is unstoppable. 

But here is the truth and you know I am right.

Most of the content doesn’t stick. 
If it did everyone all your problems would be solved? 

Are they? were they?
Is your team still motivated and crushing it?

There’s a reason cognitive psychologists have studied this for over a century. 

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve shows that without reinforcement, humans forget a huge percentage of new information within days. 

In other words, reps will forget about the new training before you can say Pinocchio.

Don't blame the reps.
It's our job as leaders to fix this. This is a system problem. 

Training only becomes behavior change when it’s reinforced through repetition, practice, and coaching over time. 

In other words, a single training event might create some excitement but it sure as hell doesn’t create skill. 

So, when you get back from SKO, and pipeline reviews start, but...
Deals are slipping, and managers fall back into “forecast mode”... 
The new discovery questions get skipped…
The new objection handling gets replaced with whatever each rep “feels comfortable with.” 

You’ll realize (too late) that your SKO was nearly wasted. 

The best teams build a post-SKO rhythm that includes: 
– structured repetition of key messaging 
– spaced reinforcement over weeks (not days) 
– active practice, not passive consumption 
– testing for retention, not just attendance 
– role-play reps can’t “opt out” of 
– coaching managers can actually scale 

Because the only thing worse than spending millions on SKO is spending millions and then letting the investment decay in real time. 

All of this is why I'm pumped for my relationship with Avarra 

AI coaching sims and role-playing to help reps practice the new messaging, rehearse real objections, and reinforce learning after SKO so training becomes durable behavior, not a temporary motivational high. 

For most companies, SKO is it’s the most expensive and the biggest enablement moment of the year. 

The question is simple: Are you building a reinforcement engine after SKO or just hoping your reps remember everything?  

Remember that saying.... hope is not a strategy.
Don't let your SKO become one big nothing burger. 

P.S DM me if you want to see one of the Avarra sims I built.

I yawn through most presentations. And if you are being honest, so do you. 

Here is how to build an effective presentation with tactical tips you can actually use.

Presentations are painful because most people were never taught how to build them properly.
 
Once I learned how to structure and deliver a story, everything changed. 

> influence 
> outcomes 

Here's how: 
  
1. Start with the story, not the slides.  
Before you open Google slides or a new AI slide builder tool, open a blank page. Write out your core message. Then build your narrative like a screenplay:
 
Act 1: The problem
Act 2: The struggle 
Act 3: The resolution (your solution, insights, proposal)
 
Tactical Tip:  Use this prompt: “By the end of this presentation, I want them to believe / understand / decide __________.”  That’s your anchor.
 
 
2. Make slide titles work hard.  
Most slide titles are lazy: “Overview,” “Features.”  They tell you what the slide is not why it matters.
 
Instead, write titles like headlines in a pitch deck.
 
Bad: “Roadmap”  
Better: “Shipping 3 major features in 90 days.”
 
Tip:  Ask yourself “If someone only remembered this title, would they get the point?”
 
 
3. Use the Rule of 3, and no more.  
Three short lines per slide, max.  People can’t process more.
 
Even better? One strong idea per slide.  
Let the whitespace do the talking.
 
Tip:  Use progressive reveals and show one point at a time. Don’t dump all at once or they will be reading ahead instead of listening. 
 
 
4. Use images like design, not decoration.  
Avoid clipart and pointless stock photos. An image should earn its spot by clarifying or emphasizing your point.
 
• Show the customer’s actual quote.
• Use product screenshots.
• Diagram the system, don’t describe it.
 
Tip:  Ask: “If I remove this image, does the meaning change?” If not, delete it.
 
 
5. Numbers are the climax, not the data dump.  Instead of cramming charts with tiny legends, give your audience a number they’ll remember.
 
“We hit $3M in ARR in 4 months”
 
Tip:  Use full-bleed numbers. Make it the slide’s centerpiece. Then tell the story behind the stat with your voice.
 
 
6. Practice. Time yourself.  
This is the big leagues. The 1-minute-per-slide rule isn’t optional.  Got 30 minutes for the meeting? Thats 15 min of presentation + discussion and Q&A time = 15 slides MAX.
 
Tip:  Rehearse with a timer and record it. You’ll catch pacing issues and filler words. Awkward but works.
 
 
7. Your presence > than your deck.  People don’t just want info they want conviction. Believing what you’re saying matters.

Tip:  Stand up, breathe deep, and smile. On Zoom too. Energy sells.
 

Great presentations are structured storytelling, Once you treat presentations like narratives everything will shift for you.
 

What’s one presentation mistake you see all the time?
 

P.S this image is a whole story itself - drinking a margarita in a bag with Chris B. 

P.S.S More from me here: https://lnkd.in/eN7BWyJb

taplio

The Battle

Randi-Sue Deckard 🔬

Neil W.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreNeil W.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Randi-Sue Deckard 🔬

Neil W.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Neil W.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreNeil W.'s LinkedIn Performance