Last week I had the opportunity to present at a Carquest owners meeting.
I built the presentation around March Madness.
Not because it was flashy.
But because it was familiar.
When you’re presenting — whether it’s to customers, teams, or leadership — your job isn’t just to deliver information.
It’s to make it land.
Too often we focus on:
What we want to say
The slides we built
The data we want to show
But the best presenters focus on something different:
What matters to the audience right now?
March Madness gave me a simple framework:
Brackets = decision making
Matchups = product comparisons
Advancing rounds = growth opportunities
It made the content easier to understand.
And more importantly — easier to remember.
Running has taught me something similar.
You don’t adjust the race to you.
You adjust to the course.
Hills.
Wind.
Weather.
The best runners don’t fight the conditions.
They adapt to them.
Leadership works the same way.
If you want your message to stick —
meet people where they are.
Make it relevant.
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