Week 7 - Bridge2
The art of the pitch — my response to a presentation on presenting.
At some point in your career, you will have to present something to someone requiring a presentation deck —- physical, digital, or both. If you are a middle manager and Director level employee, presentations will be a large part of your job, and deck creation a significant portion of your day-to-day.
I’ve been building presentation decks since MBA school at The University of Oklahoma, and the only presentation I ever went through front-to-back was in my final capstone project. Since then, I can count the times I’ve gone front-to-back on a presentation. If you present in a roundtable setting (not in a teaching scenario), you must be adept at jumping around your presentation, as executives are distractible. Many are not used to sitting quietly for large amounts of time. An Executive’s time is valuable; they measure their impact by the decisions they make or the value they add. They are good at pushing people to get to the point and impatient if you meander down some trail they deem irrelevant. Don’t take it personally.
Here is the scenario I most consistently face when presenting to leadership:
[Slide 1]
Sam: Today, we will walk through the latest feature on our platform; we’ll go through the problem we are solving, the customer research, feature highlights, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and revenue expectation, and then demo the complete solution in context.
Executives: What KPIs do you expect to achieve before next month’s board meeting? Can you show me a pro forma of the costs and expected revenue for the next two years?
Sam: if you skip ahead in the paper presentation to page 14, you’ll see our expected KPIs. Our pro forma can be found in the Appendix on page 23.
[Slide 14]
The conversation continues for the next 30 minutes.
So, why prepare the presentation if the Executive wants to see the numbers?
Because the numbers are only one part of the solution, the numbers frame the rest of the presentation, and even if you don’t get to present all 25 slides, you’ll be able to navigate any question asked because of the time it took to prepare all 25 slides.
What I’ve learned in presenting to Executives in the last 15+ years of work seems to apply to Capital Raising… the numbers also get the Investor interested in the story you are trying to tell (in the business you are trying to fund).
But every Investor prefers a different story-telling format and
You won't please everyone in the room, so don’t allow all the noise and opinions to get under your skin. In a large audience pitch, you are trying to find one or two investors who speak the language of the opportunity.
In smaller-scale presentations, your pitch deck should be tailored to the room and those in it.
Currently, the Barista Bot pitch deck is up to 74 slides. It is frenetic, is too detailed, and has too many sections. On top of that, the appendix is bloated, and the transitions between ideas need to flow better. With our demo day in January and a dry run scheduled for next week, I’m not too worried, as the deck is precisely in the shape I need it to be — ready for a healthy edit.
In editing, I can cut the bloat, refine my points, and write a script for the 5-minute time limit for our Demo Day presentations on January 24th. I’m not going to please everyone, but hopefully, it will be enough to garner interest for a 15-minute pitch or future meeting with some of the VCs in the audience. No pressure.
The pitch deck is only one part of the story of your business, not a lead, but not a bit part. The pitch is an integral part of the supporting cast. Some will try to make it your lead, generally by those who have been sales-oriented rather than product-oriented in their career—different strokes for different folks. A sales-oriented Executive cares about closing the deal, while a product-oriented Executive cares more about customer use and adding iterative value.
As you probably know, I have always been a product-oriented leader. Watching real-time data of the product being used brings me joy. I’m happy with the sale; I'm just not motivated by it. This is not a judgment on the sales-oriented leader; I’ve known many dynamic salespeople who have made a ton of money with their unique processes and approaches.
So, how do I overcome my shortcomings in sales? I lean into my authentic self and write more transparently about the why! I tell stories about how our users can win with our products. It’s why I write on Substack — to ensure our story is being told in multiple formats. If the 5-minute pitch introduces the problem and why I’m the one to tackle it, the 15-minute presentation makes a case for what we need to continue building it (what needs funding). Then, this blog is a running journal entry unpacking when and how we are making the Barista Bot solution. All the elements are available to those interested: Who, What, When, and How.
So, this weekend, as I travel, I will also be locked into presentation edits and script writing because the story needs to be told; I’m the one to tell it.