Re-Gen is an entrepreneurial venture by students of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. We want to change the way you workout...from within. Mind. Body. Spirit.
This is one of two sets of guidelines for preparing your business plan presentation. If you like to work from a structured template, we suggest that you use the structure below or in one of the busienss plans or summaries you can find in eReserves. On the other hand, if you would like take a more flexible approach that flows from the “story” of your specific business plan, use the following as a “Guideline” and be creative. It's your story to tell.
Audience
The first and most important thing to do is to think about your audience: Who are they? What do you want them to do as a result of the presentation? What do they know about you, your organization, the business you’re proposing, business in general? It is absolutely critical that you understand the needs of your audience, beginning with their WIFM (“What’s In It For Me?”) and making sure that you offer exactly what they need to know – no more and no less.
The presentation is only one aspect of your communication with the audience. The formal presentation precedes the formal Q&A session. If you’ve done your job well, the audience will be interested in learning more about the specifics of what you are proposing and will ask good questions. If you’ve told them too much, they will become either bored or confused; if you’ve told them too little, they won’t understand what you are talking about and will waste the Q&A time on “dumb” questions.
Title Slide
Use this time to establish some sort of personal rapport with the people to whom you are presenting. Introduce yourself and your team. Find out something about them and their interests (if appropriate). Give them a crisp, concise overview of your organization and/or your project – if those items are not covered by a later slide. In other words, use this slide in some way -- or move through it rapidly with no comment to get to the substantive material that follows.
Telling the Story
It really helps to think of your business plan as a story – or series of stories. It is a real life drama about people with problems – your customers. And it is about how you, your company, and your products and services help solve those problems. The story should be told in plain English (no jargon!) the way you would tell it to an intelligent aunt or uncle who asks you what you’re up to these days. Tell the story in the order in which it will make the most sense to someone who is coming to your story with no prior exposure to what you are talking about (unless, of course, your particular audience DOES have some exposure to your business, in which case, see the Audience section above.)
The Problem and/or the Opportunity
It can be argued that the essence of business is turning problems into opportunities. In this part of the presentation, you want to make the problem as clear and vivid as you possibly can. What is the problem? Who are the people who have it – and how many of them are there? When does it occur? What does it cost them – or how does it otherwise impact them? How do they solve the problem today? What are the limitations of the current solutions? Why and how is your solution better?
The problem belongs to the customer. The opportunity belongs to you and your investors, who are positioning yourselves to address the problem – and reap the rewards of doing so. Ideally, your presentation should look at both: the problem of the customer and the opportunity for the business.
Business Concept
What is the essence of what you are planning to do? This is some version of your “elevator pitch” or your “value proposition.” It’s the short version of how your business will address the customer’s problem.
Products and Services
This is the longer version: what products and services are you going to build and sell…in what order…over what time frames? And where are you along that path today?
Marketing
If you didn’t address the size and segmentation of your target market as part of your discussion of the Opportunity, you should do so now. Your audience will want to know the size of your target market, how it is segmented, how fast the market is growing, how fast you expect to penetrate it. They will want to know the source(s) of your data and how you came to the conclusions you did; they’ll want to understand the logic behind your assumptions and projections so that they can form their own opinions about whether you are being realistic with your numbers. Convince them that you are!
Once you’ve identified your market(s), spend a slide or two explaining how you will reach that market with a high-level view of your 4-Ps Marketing Plan. Focus on Partnerships if those are significant. Make sure the audience understands how and where the product will be sold (Place). Talk about Pricing (even if you don’t yet know your final price) – at least give people an idea of whether you’re talking about a $9.95 product that’s sold in the drugstore or a $200,000 product that’s sold through a sales call. And in terms of Promotion, remember that conventional advertising and direct marketing are very expensive: are there cheaper alternatives? If not, have you set aside enough money in your budget to buy them?
Competition
All businesses have competition. If you believe that yours does not, either you haven’t done your homework – or you haven’t been thinking broadly enough about what constitutes competition. If you don’t have a direct competitor (which is unlikely, but may be true), think about whether you face indirect competition from substitutes or other ways of accomplishing the same task.
The key to thinking and talking about your competition is to think about differentiation and positioning – that is, how your product is different from the competition and why your target customers will prefer yours to theirs. The key is to understand and respect your competition – and have a clear and plausible plan for beating them.
Financials
Your financials are simply another way of telling the story of your business. And your audience will want to understand enough about the assumptions behind your numbers to evaluate their plausibility. Sometimes it is helpful to present your business assumptions in terms of an individual transaction – and then show how many of these transactions you expect to do in a given period. Other times, you may want to talk about how much money you need to invest to get started – and then show how many transactions it will take to recover those start-up costs. Every business story is a little different – what does your audience need to know to understand your business story?
Once you’ve helped them to understand the numbers piece of how your business works, you will want to present your pro forma income statement in the conventional fashion investors are used to looking at. This will make it easy for them to compare your investment opportunity to others. The Financial Summary page of your Financial Model Template can be used for this purpose.
Summary
Use your final slide to end on a high note. Recap your key selling points, close on a powerful picture, restate the importance of what you are doing. But be sure to end forcefully: most audiences remember the beginning and end of presentations – and forget everything that comes in between. Presentation Worksheet (download as a word document) Who is the audience? What is the purpose of the presentation?
What does the audience know/not know at the outset? (About you, your organization, your business concept, your industry segment)
What will you NOT cover in detail in the presentation (but be prepared to address through handouts and Q&A)?
What action do you want your audience to take as a result of the presentation?
Presentation Ground Rules
Preparation
Think succinctly: What are the critical points to make?
* What is the essence of your offering – what are you selling? * What is the essence of your case that this venture is likely to find customers and operate at a profit?
Presentation
* 15 minutes – you will be cut off precisely at 15 minutes! Time your rehearsal. * Team – how will you show team spirit and shared responsibility? o Multiple presenters? o Q&A * Fun – use a skit or video to illustrate the benefit to customers
Appoint one or two note takers to capture verbal feedback. In addition, you will receive written feedback from both the instructors and your fellow participants.
Business Concept Presentation Guidelines
ReplyDeleteThis is one of two sets of guidelines for preparing your business plan presentation. If you like to work from a structured template, we suggest that you use the structure below or in one of the busienss plans or summaries you can find in eReserves. On the other hand, if you would like take a more flexible approach that flows from the “story” of your specific business plan, use the following as a “Guideline” and be creative. It's your story to tell.
Audience
The first and most important thing to do is to think about your audience: Who are they? What do you want them to do as a result of the presentation? What do they know about you, your organization, the business you’re proposing, business in general? It is absolutely critical that you understand the needs of your audience, beginning with their WIFM (“What’s In It For Me?”) and making sure that you offer exactly what they need to know – no more and no less.
The presentation is only one aspect of your communication with the audience. The formal presentation precedes the formal Q&A session. If you’ve done your job well, the audience will be interested in learning more about the specifics of what you are proposing and will ask good questions. If you’ve told them too much, they will become either bored or confused; if you’ve told them too little, they won’t understand what you are talking about and will waste the Q&A time on “dumb” questions.
Title Slide
Use this time to establish some sort of personal rapport with the people to whom you are presenting. Introduce yourself and your team. Find out something about them and their interests (if appropriate). Give them a crisp, concise overview of your organization and/or your project – if those items are not covered by a later slide. In other words, use this slide in some way -- or move through it rapidly with no comment to get to the substantive material that follows.
Telling the Story
It really helps to think of your business plan as a story – or series of stories. It is a real life drama about people with problems – your customers. And it is about how you, your company, and your products and services help solve those problems. The story should be told in plain English (no jargon!) the way you would tell it to an intelligent aunt or uncle who asks you what you’re up to these days. Tell the story in the order in which it will make the most sense to someone who is coming to your story with no prior exposure to what you are talking about (unless, of course, your particular audience DOES have some exposure to your business, in which case, see the Audience section above.)
The Problem and/or the Opportunity
It can be argued that the essence of business is turning problems into opportunities. In this part of the presentation, you want to make the problem as clear and vivid as you possibly can. What is the problem? Who are the people who have it – and how many of them are there? When does it occur? What does it cost them – or how does it otherwise impact them? How do they solve the problem today? What are the limitations of the current solutions? Why and how is your solution better?
The problem belongs to the customer. The opportunity belongs to you and your investors, who are positioning yourselves to address the problem – and reap the rewards of doing so. Ideally, your presentation should look at both: the problem of the customer and the opportunity for the business.
Business Concept
What is the essence of what you are planning to do? This is some version of your “elevator pitch” or your “value proposition.” It’s the short version of how your business will address the customer’s problem.
Products and Services
This is the longer version: what products and services are you going to build and sell…in what order…over what time frames? And where are you along that path today?
Marketing
If you didn’t address the size and segmentation of your target market as part of your discussion of the Opportunity, you should do so now. Your audience will want to know the size of your target market, how it is segmented, how fast the market is growing, how fast you expect to penetrate it. They will want to know the source(s) of your data and how you came to the conclusions you did; they’ll want to understand the logic behind your assumptions and projections so that they can form their own opinions about whether you are being realistic with your numbers. Convince them that you are!
Once you’ve identified your market(s), spend a slide or two explaining how you will reach that market with a high-level view of your 4-Ps Marketing Plan. Focus on Partnerships if those are significant. Make sure the audience understands how and where the product will be sold (Place). Talk about Pricing (even if you don’t yet know your final price) – at least give people an idea of whether you’re talking about a $9.95 product that’s sold in the drugstore or a $200,000 product that’s sold through a sales call. And in terms of Promotion, remember that conventional advertising and direct marketing are very expensive: are there cheaper alternatives? If not, have you set aside enough money in your budget to buy them?
Competition
All businesses have competition. If you believe that yours does not, either you haven’t done your homework – or you haven’t been thinking broadly enough about what constitutes competition. If you don’t have a direct competitor (which is unlikely, but may be true), think about whether you face indirect competition from substitutes or other ways of accomplishing the same task.
The key to thinking and talking about your competition is to think about differentiation and positioning – that is, how your product is different from the competition and why your target customers will prefer yours to theirs. The key is to understand and respect your competition – and have a clear and plausible plan for beating them.
Financials
Your financials are simply another way of telling the story of your business. And your audience will want to understand enough about the assumptions behind your numbers to evaluate their plausibility. Sometimes it is helpful to present your business assumptions in terms of an individual transaction – and then show how many of these transactions you expect to do in a given period. Other times, you may want to talk about how much money you need to invest to get started – and then show how many transactions it will take to recover those start-up costs. Every business story is a little different – what does your audience need to know to understand your business story?
Once you’ve helped them to understand the numbers piece of how your business works, you will want to present your pro forma income statement in the conventional fashion investors are used to looking at. This will make it easy for them to compare your investment opportunity to others. The Financial Summary page of your Financial Model Template can be used for this purpose.
Summary
Use your final slide to end on a high note. Recap your key selling points, close on a powerful picture, restate the importance of what you are doing. But be sure to end forcefully: most audiences remember the beginning and end of presentations – and forget everything that comes in between. Presentation Worksheet (download as a word document) Who is the audience? What is the purpose of the presentation?
What does the audience know/not know at the outset? (About you, your organization, your business concept, your industry segment)
What will you NOT cover in detail in the presentation (but be prepared to address through handouts and Q&A)?
What action do you want your audience to take as a result of the presentation?
Presentation Ground Rules
Preparation
Think succinctly: What are the critical points to make?
* What is the essence of your offering – what are you selling?
* What is the essence of your case that this venture is likely to find customers and operate at a profit?
Presentation
* 15 minutes – you will be cut off precisely at 15 minutes! Time your rehearsal.
* Team – how will you show team spirit and shared responsibility?
o Multiple presenters?
o Q&A
* Fun – use a skit or video to illustrate the benefit to customers
Feedback
Presentation cycle
* Presentation: 15 minutes
* Feedback: 15 minutes
* Total Time: 30 minutes
Appoint one or two note takers to capture verbal feedback. In addition, you will receive written feedback from both the instructors and your fellow participants.
1 title slide
ReplyDelete2 problem
3 solution
4 business model
5 underlying magic
6 marketing and sales
7 competition
8 management team
9 financial projections and key metrics
10 current status, accomplishments to date, timeline, and use of funds