Last week we spoke about engaging stakeholders, and achieving buy-in from decision makers.
While the advice around pressing for a decision remains true, it’s easy to overlook what may be the toughest part of the process – the actual presentation.
Everyone has their go-to prep for that big presentation… for me it was often this tune.
Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime
Sadly for me, too often it really was a case of waiting outside, my palms are sweaty, my knees are weak, arms are heavy…
So what do you do when you’re in that state already, and then it REALLY goes Pete Tong? Let’s say – they’re running late, very, very late, they’re utterly distracted by some piece of firefighting that’s destroyed their morning, and, oh.. that 45 minutes you’ve got to present your three months’ worth of work? Good news is they’re here. Bad news is, you have five minutes.
So what do you do?
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
Just like last week there are two options:
- Charge into your prepared presentation, cleverly fitting it into your revised timeslot by speaking 5X as fast
- OR – take a deep breath, trust you know your material and you can nail this thing, and pare the whole piece down by using this simple outline solution.
- Clearly state the customer problem your presentation is solving
- Clearly state what your solution asks of your customers, and using Customer Equation, show why you are confident they will do it to achieve the latent value
- Outline your commercials and drive back to Customer Equation to show customers will move money from existing spend to get a better result
- Explain why the competition cannot replicate your solution, and why you believe they will not react, or if they will react what the impact is
- What is the route to market (channel) and GTM (go to market)
- Finally, cover off your capability and capacity to deliver the solution, or your ability to acquire this
* You should aim to list three points on each bullet and statement, and if you should rehearse this as your worse case presentation, elevator pitches. Having confidence in your plan B will keep you calm and collected while others fall away around you.
If you want hear this delivered by a pro, check out the StartUp Podcast from Chris Sacca, a Silicon Valley legend, and early investor in Twitter, Uber, Instagram and Kickstarter.
If you don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast (it is 27mins), a bad pitch starts at 13.20mins, with the polished version at 19.15mins (it lasts for 2mins). It truly is genius.
As the man says…
You can do anything you set your mind to, man – Eminem
