How to create a winning business pitch presentation

In 2008 I was involved in two business plan pitching competitions and I wanted to share with you the process my teams used to come up with our award-winning pitch presentations. 

pitch-club-560x354 How to create a winning business pitch presentation

Start of Presentation: 100% Risk, 0% Reward 

  • Demonstrate market demand: 80% Risk 
  • Demonstrate well-targeted solution: 60% Risk 
  • Demonstrate coherent business model: 40% Risk 
  • Demonstrate A-Team who can execute: 30% Risk 
  • Demonstrate sizable, addressable market: 30% Reward 
  • Demonstrate plan to reach 1st target segment: 40% Reward 
  • Demonstrate sustainable competitive advantage: 60% Reward 

End of Presentation: 30% Risk, 60% Reward = Valid reason to conduct followup meeting.

Entrepreneurship is about reducing risk and the key word in this process is demonstrate. You can demonstrate with numbers on a page but what matters is where those numbers came from. If you have gone into the world and actually tried the things you talk about you will be able to answer any question you get asked because you can relate it back to what you have actually done.  

The key is to think about the idea only until you have a simple vision, and then get out into the world to try doing them – that’s where you will get real feedback that you can learn from and iterate with. Work the important feedback into a presentation and then show it to as many people as possible before the official competition pitch. The questions you get asked in these practice sessions will be invaluable if you can answer them before the next practice run. With every iteration you will get noticeably better. 

When we brought The Hive to the John Heine Challenge in Brisbane we won the award for Best Overall Presentation because we had already run a number of successful events. With Yabble at the RMIT Business Plan Competition we came 2nd overall as well as winning the City of Melbourne award for Creative Industries, because we had a working mobile prototype that already had a few hundred reviews. This was all accomplished with the process listed above!

These words by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson are important to remember ”The perfect pitch being worked on at your desk can send you out of business. The imperfect pitch being presented to a customer can keep you in business.” The Strategy Is Fine, just get out there and apply it!

Note: I found this process online somewhere, I didn’t come up with it – but it’s damn good!

By Ross Hill - May 4th, 2009 at 11:45am with 1,936 views -

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  • Very good Ross. My comment would be that all of the 'Demonstrate points with %s' above are fine, as long as you hook the audience early (if you don't they can turn off/shut you down, and all the rest is superfluous). Your opening should successfully answer the following, underlying audience/investor question. "You have 20 seconds to increase my heart rate."
  • Yeah that's right - I've found you can increase an investor audiences' collective heartbeat pretty effectively by showing them market demand :) You have always got to layer the theatrics on top of this model too, that's half the game.
  • michael kelly
    Take your point Ross. But if they see you treating this as a game - you're lost. I think theatrics is a dangerous word in this environment. Rather the pitcher has to be perceived as having genuine passion, mainly transmitted through their eyes, gaze, face, gestures, body language and their voice.
    From work with my clients displaying genuine passion can be difficult. It's not something to take lightly or to just layer on. The voice often is the most difficult thing to get right.
  • Of course it all comes down to authenticity. I would suggest that if you have nailed the 7 dot points above though you have gone beyond theatrics and have a really well integrated pitch.
  • For the record, the guy in the photo is @antonymd - not me!
  • This is an awesome post Ross, really enjoyed it.

    Have bookmarked this one for further reading when required ;)

    Cheers mate!
  • Hi Ross,

    Brilliant as always. I'd like to take another tact and also comment on how this process works with internal innovation projects within organisations.

    I personally find that getting some quick iterations up on the board is the most important thing with any strategy implementation. Often, you can get stuck in the unproductive cycle of iterating the creation of the strategy document itself, rather than the strategy. No strategy survives contact with the market, and it's crucial to keep that in mind when thinking them up. My advice...

    1) Think about the opportunity you are facing
    2) Define some objectives (SMART!) that define what you will gain from pursing the opportunity
    3) Define your competitive advantage in pursuing it.
    4) Define your scope. What will you NOT do. (Yes, actually answer this question.
    5) Once you have this, do it!!! Challenge yourself to go through steps 1-4 in an hour, a morning or at most a day. If you can't do that - the opportunity probably isn't that big (or that simple).

    Ross, I know the scope for the Hive is a great example. You DON'T pay for drinks. DON'T go to 'conference venues.' DON'T get more than one speaker etc etc. Having a great scope is total freedom.

    One of my favourite sayings ws re-told to me by my good friend www.twitter.com/nigepresto

    "You don't have a strategy until you can say no"

    Figure out what you will say no to, then get started!
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