The slide no one wanted… except the buyer, Tim Hughes

I was reminded yesterday why I’ve always used a risk register in buyer presentations

Especially early in my sales career, when I was selling high-value, complex, expensive solutions, I knew I had one job above all else:
Build trust with the buyer and build it fast

The risk register became my shortcut

Back in the 90s, I worked for a company where the sales team was tasked with building what we’d now call a First Meeting Excellence (FME) deck

A standardised presentation for a first meeting, every salesperson would use

I insisted we include a risk register slide

No one else wanted it

They argued it was negative
That it would scare buyers
That it gave the competition ammunition

I found that resistance both strange… and fascinating

I won the argument, the slide went into the deck, and then something interesting happened

Most of the sales team simply left it out
Or they “ran out of time.”
Or somehow never quite made it to that slide

But in my presentations, it was always the slide buyers leaned into

You could see it physically

They’d move forward in their chairs

They’d stop listening politely and start taking notes

When I got to that slide, I’d always say something like:

“It doesn’t matter which system you choose, ours or someone else’s, these are the risks you will face
And if another supplier tells you otherwise, they’re either naïve… or lying.”

While other salespeople were busy arguing about red buttons versus blue buttons, I was shifting the conversation

From product selection
to implementation reality

And that’s when something subtle but powerful happened in the buyer’s mind

They weren’t just evaluating the software anymore
They were thinking: