The accountant as the storyteller: Creating impactful presentations
Heather Smith
Accountant and Storyteller, ANISE Consulting
As a modern accountant, I believe developing presentations and practicing storytelling are valuable skills for effective communication and driving impact.
I enjoy sharing insights and stories with the accounting community, and an effective way to do this is through compelling presentations. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have spoken at some of the major accounting conferences, and on four continents across the world.
Here’s an overview of how I approach creating a presentation.
Start with a clear topic
Be crystal clear on the presentation topic. It’s your north star.
When it comes to a session topic, I talk to four core strengths:
Small business technology
Modern practice & accounting technology
Content creation
Community building
If I’m asked to do something different, I need to consider how much extra time it’ll take, and if it’s worth it.
For example, in 2023 I was asked to present on ChatGPT with Brian Clare at Accounting Salon in Florida. At the time it was an emerging concept and resulted in us developing a presentation from scratch. However, I got to work with Brian (winning!) and have since gone on to regularly deliver that topic, so the extra effort was definitely worth it.
Planning and preparation
I triple-check the presentation guidelines to identify any specific requirements, such as branding, slide templates, delivery format and timing.
Here’s an example of an event template, for recording the details of the planned session:
Event name:
Theme:
Session name:
Stream:
Time & date:
Length of presentation:
Synopsis/overview
Learning outcome/What will be covered:
Pre-session questions/poll question (to get to know the audience):
It's important that I know the key points around the session. I once had a situation where it appeared I had 50 minutes on the agenda, but midway through, the audio technician said it was his lunch break and shut the session down completely. I’ve learnt the hard way to triple-check everything now.
I also review where my session fits on the full-day agenda, and consider the audience's energy and attention levels.
Will I be waiting for them to settle back after a morning tea break? Will I be standing between them and lunch? Am I on later in the day, when energy is fading?
I need to incorporate how that might affect my start or finish time, and where I place engaging, high energy moments into the flow of my presentation.
The same slide deck can be delivered in different ways, so I need to understand who’ll be in the audience, what level I’m talking to, and what the promised learning outcomes are. I will check the makeup of the audience with the conference organizer, and I’ll check how the session is promoted.
I once pitched to deliver an advanced multi-currency and inventory session, and when it appeared on the program, frustratingly, it was reassigned to be a beginner-level session. I frequently find proposed sessions will be simplified to appeal to a broader audience.
As a qualified trainer, I take pride in developing training sessions that have defined learning outcomes. They double-up as a structured description of the session, and can be used by the audience when recording their CPD/CPE. It’s frustrating sitting through sessions that don’t align to what was promised. I fight hard to deliver quality and promised outcomes.
Drafting the content
The presentation will swirl around in my mind for days before I start shaping it into something structured.
I’ll post questions or a poll on social media to gather current insights on the topic from the community. Sometimes it reveals technologies gaining traction, or gives me a quick vibe check. It gets the creative juices flowing, and helps me bring current content into the presentation.
And I have a library of past presentations, carefully named and tagged. I pull out any relevant slides, and review any podcasts or articles I’ve produced to see if there’s anything interesting that can be incorporated. Then I pull together all the content that might make its way into the new presentation.
The process from design to delivery is much quicker if I reuse and recycle the content I already have. In 2024, I visited England for a family gathering and serendipitously realised the Festival of Accountants and Bookkeepers was happening close by. Using these techniques and my resources, I was able to quickly whip up a presentation and deliver it at the Festival. It was a magical opportunity that led to my first English speaking gig.
While I am developing the content, I keep circling back to the presentation topic and the learning requirements during the development process.
Designing for clarity
Currently, my favourite solution for developing presentations is Canva. I’m an accountant, not a graphic designer. I find Canva is visually stunning and easy to work with.
However, I’m always testing tech, and I recently heard of Gamma AI, which promises to generate presentations in seconds. I can paste in text, or enter an idea, or upload a document and Gamma AI will create 10 pages for free. I enter a short overview of the presentation, and it gives me an option to choose colors and themes.
The results blow me away. Gamma produces an aesthetically pleasing presentation, generates amazing images, and adds additional context to the presentation. I can export the final result into Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. I don’t end up using the Gamma AI presentation itself, but I do use the design for inspiration, and some of the AI-generated images it creates.
There are a few essential elements of a presentation:
Title Page
Agenda
Presenter bio
Introduction
Main content
Recap
Conclusion
Q&A
Thank you
CTA (Call to Action)
Contact details
To enrich the presentation, I may include the conference logo, promotional social media tags for the conference, and QR codes or links to resources like relevant podcasts or articles. When relevant I offer the slide deck as a download.
To engage the audience, I may include a live poll using Mentimeter or Slido, paired discussions where attendees share thoughts with their neighbour midway through the session, or a final reflection prompting the audience to highlight one valuable or thought-provoking concept. These are useful activities to have up your sleeve, as they can magically extend the presentation time.
Controversially, I use lots of slides in my presentation. Typically a single concept on a simple clutter free slide per minute. I don’t read the slides, I know my subject matter inside out and upside down. I know I have about 60 seconds per slide, so I use them as prompts to help me stay on track.
Some slides are dense in text. They are unreadable, but I encourage the audience to take a photo, or take up my offer to download the slides at the end. They can access the content if they choose to.
There are other presentation design techniques that I use:
Don’t use yellow text
Don’t use too much text
Don’t use large unreadable text
Use colors that are accessible for those with color blindness
If you want more design tips, I suggest you read Nancy Duarte’s book Slide:ology, which focuses on the visuals of slide design.
Leveraging AI for brainstorming, content reviews, and structure analysis
Once I’ve created a draft version of the presentation, I upload it as a PDF to ChatGPT so we can refine the content together and brainstorm ideas and improvements.
I ask the Large Language Model if there are any typos or grammatical issues, duplicated points, missing topics, style issues, flow issues, slides that could be merged, or slides with too much text. ChatGPT reviews the entire document, and suggests changes to keep the document consistent.
I ask ChatGPT to suggest the agenda. In my head I have an idea what the agenda is, but this lets me see it through another perspective, and highlights if I have placed emphasis in unexpected areas.
Some conferences have a theme and I always like to be able to thread the theme through my presentation. At the Tropical Innovation Festival, the four themes are: creativity, curiosity, community, and cutting edge. When I presented in 2024, I reordered my slides and adjusted the agenda so the presentation flowed smoothly, gently weaving in the themes.
Subtle adjustments like this makes the conference organizer happy, gives an added dose of structure to the day, and leaves a good impression that leads to future speaking invitations.
Practice out loud
I read through a presentation at least twice to ensure it’s complete and the flow is logical. I’ll do this standing, as if I am delivering the presentation. I’ll have a pad on the desk beside me, and I will record the presentation using Otter.ai.
I try to run through without stopping, and might take some notes or make verbal suggestions that I can review and incorporate afterwards. I will check Otter to see if there are any action items. And I can also use the recording to generate social media content to encourage people to attend.
Once I can run through the presentation cleanly, I send it to the conference organizers. I’m a bit of a ‘girly swot’ and like to have everything submitted early, so I can relax and have some space from the presentation before the delivery.
Presentation day protocol
On conference day, I double check the organizers have the presentation lined up and ready to go. I walk all corners of the room to see how the audience views the presentation. I stand on the stage to see what is in my eyeline: a display monitor, a clock, a timer?
Once, I stood on stage to give a one-hour presentation and the whole building had a blackout, so for every presentation I have all my paperwork and am prepared to deliver with or without a slide deck. I sit through all the earlier presentations, and during my session may reflect on what they have said, helping to weave the day together.
The accountant as the storyteller
I’m interested in the concept of the accountant as a storyteller. Whether it’s sketched on a Post-it Note or beamed across a conference hall, practicing presentation and storytelling skills will help you influence, inspire, make an impact, educate audiences, and keep conference organizers happy.