Is Coaching For You?
Do you need a presentation consultant?
If you or your team is experiencing any of these problems, I can help you:
- You can’t decide what to include, what to leave out, how much detail to put into your investor presentation.
- You have too much material to cover in fifteen minutes (the maximum attention span of busy investors).
- You have complex or obscure technology that is difficult to explain to lay people.
- You’ve been told you have too many slides, and they’re too complicated. But you don’t know what to cut—it all looks important to you.
- In private meetings you rarely get past the fourth slide before investors interrupt with questions.
- You don’t have the time to write the presentation or slides yourself
- Judging by initial reactions, investors struggle to see your strengths. They seem to focus on the wrong issues.
- Your advisors tell you to spend more time talking about the business (which is hard because you’re so accustomed to talking about the technology or product).
- You are not a natural speaker and feel uncomfortable in front of an audience, and they sense it
If your company is inherently fundable, your story can be communicated to investors clearly and succinctly, with confidence and style, no matter what the obstacles.
Who and What
I help emerging-growth and technology companies communicate the essence of their business venture to:
- venture capitalists
- angel investors
- potential clients
- investment bankers
- strategic partners
The companies can be at any stage: seed, early, post-revenue, expansion, or pre-IPO.
I also help venture capital firms prepare their pitch to limited partner and institutional investors.
The communication can be in any form:
- A formal presentation to a room full of investors
- A private meeting around a laptop computer
- PowerPoint slides used as a send-ahead or leave-behind
- An elevator speech
- An executive summary, or venture fair one-pager
- A full business plan
- A website or e-brochure used to promote the business
Menu of Services
My services include presentation coaching, writing, teaching, and workshops. I specialize in venture investment presentations, but I have experience with corporate presentations and marketing communication as well.
I will put together any package of services that suits your needs and budget.
Venture Investment Presentations, and Client Pitches
- Analyzing the audience and devising presentation strategy
- Focusing the central message
- Selecting the most important ideas and putting them into sequence
- Cutting through the clutter of supporting detail and deciding what to leave in, what to leave out
- Storyboarding the PowerPoint slides
- Writing the slides
- Writing the narrative
- Coaching the presenter to improve the delivery
- Preparing for questions
- Preparing slides for questions
- Adapting the basic presentation to different audiences and purposes
Speeches, Speech Delivery
Audience analysis and presentation strategy
Writing a speech on any business subject
Coaching to improve the delivery of any speech for any audience
Helping with delivery issues such as stage fright, excessive pacing, monotone voice
Writing
Writing executive summaries and venture fair one-pagers
Editing completed business plans
Writing website copy (for company sites)
Translating any technical subject into language a layman can understand
Training, Meetings and Workshops—“Meeting Engineering”
Designing workshops and interactive sessions
Designing and programming meetings, seminars, networking events of any kind
Moderating panels and meetings
Delivering workshops on presentation skills
Delivering workshops on creating and delivering technical presentations to non-technical audiences
The Process
For the first session, it’s best to meet in person for the first session, if possible. I prefer you and your team in my office in Media, PA.
If I will also be working on slides or writing for you, I can do that from my office and email drafts back and forth.
I’m flexible, eager to suit the method to your needs and style. Before we get started, we’ll talk to determine a process that works best for you.
If you are too far to travel to meet me in Media, we can do it over the phone. I often work with clients I never meet, or meet only once. Don’t hesitate to call me even if you’re located in another state.
Here is what a typical engagement looks like:
Baseline Presentation
The first step is for me to hear your existing presentation, no matter what state it’s in. I prefer to hear it “cold” to gauge how much I can understand in the first pass. This is your baseline presentation. You don’t have to prepare or practice for this first meeting.
On rare occasions the baseline presentation is very good and only needs a little tweaking and polishing. But with most companies, it requires so many fixes that it makes more sense to build a new presentation from the ground up.
Essencing
After the baseline, we get to work on what I call “essencing.” I ask lots of questions and probe to understand your technology, market, customers, value proposition, revenue model, marketing strategy, competitive advantages, financial dynamics, capitalization strategy, and anything else important to your story.
I play the role of a well-informed investor who knows a lot about business and venture companies in general, but little about your technical specialty and market.
I probe to understand what differentiates your technology or strategy. I look for the most important arguments, the best selling points. I listen to find the thread or theme we can use to give coherence to the presentation and make the presentation easier to follow and remember.
Essencing is the most important step. It’s the basis for everything that follows, the “copy platform” for the slides, narrative, executive summary, and elevator speech. The first essencing iteration may take a couple hours.
Storyboarding
The next step is to storyboard the presentation. We’ll decide together what high-level facts and ideas describe your technology, marketing, competition, revenue model, financials, etc. We begin outlining the slides and searching for the best sequence. We may work with an actual storyboard or directly in PowerPoint.
We also look for a fresh device to open the presentation, something that will grab attention and launch your central theme. We’re alert for examples, anecdotes, and illustrations to make your story come alive.
Preparing the Slides
From the storyboard we proceed to preparing the actual PowerPoint slides. Some clients ask me to write and design the slides based on the outline we worked out together. Some do the writing themselves and I edit.
Slides make or break the presentation. If they are done wrong—and most are—they handicap the presenter and frustrate the audience. Done correctly they provide a track for the presenter, aid audience understanding and retention, and make the presenter look good. To create slides that do all these things is an art.
I work hard to keep the number of slides to a minimum, eliminate clutter, increase readability, simplify charts and diagrams, write succinct bullets, and add a touch of design and color. The goal is a set of slides that contribute to a memorable presentation, whether you’re presenting to 3 people or 300.
The Narrative
The narrative is what the presenter says to expand on the bullets and diagrams in the slides. A bad narrative does little more than restate the bullets on the slides. A good narrative gives the “so what” of each slide, editorializes the main ideas, and transitions from slide to slide.
Some presenters don’t need the narrative written out. With a rough outline and a little practice, they know what to say to expand on each slide. Others need a tight written outline or script to work from. The challenge with most entrepreneurs, from what I’ve seen, is to prevent them from saying too much, not too little.
Rehearsal
There is no substitute for lots of rehearsal. If winning the pitch is important enough to prepare a professional presentation, then it’s worth taking the time to practice.
If we have time, I’ll help with the first few run-throughs, tweaking the slides and narrative, and coaching delivery technique. I can videotape if necessary.
Then it’s up to you to perfect the delivery with a minimum of three more run-throughs in full voice.
Delivery Technique
Some of my clients have issues with speaking to a live audience. Stage fright, pacing, voice and speed problems, etc.—I’ve seen them all while teaching speaking skills to students and corporate clients.
Some of the problems can be fixed with a little coaching. Some run deep and require training, practice, and time to correct. I’ll diagnose the problem and suggest a cure.
I’ve found that many delivery issues stem from things that are in the presenter’s control—poor preparation, bad slides, unfocused message, too much material. Well-designed slides and narrative make a poor speaker look good, and a good speaker great.
Can I include my partners?
Yes, by all means. I find it helps me to be able to draw from a second viewpoint as I’m trying to understand the essence of your business. Also, it means that you have two people who understand and remember my coaching advice when you return to your office and start making changes. You’ll want to take notes too.
If we’re doing a phone call, I have no problem if you conference in a team member or two (so long as they don’t distract from our dialogue). If we’re meeting in person, I can comfortably accommodate an extra person or two.
But do keep in mind that the presentation itself is a solo act, preferably by the CEO. My presentation coaching will be focused on that person.
How Much Presentation Consulting is Enough?
When discussing the terms of our engagement, clients often ask me, “How much time will it take?”
Of course, the answer is, “It depends.”
It depends on what state your presentation is in now, and how close you are to giving a clear, concise, and compelling description of your venture.
It depends on how much time you want to spend creating slides and narrative, and how much of that work you want me to do for you.
It also depends on how far you want to take it. I can get you to the point of having an acceptable presentation, usually within ten hours. But there is no limit to how much we can sharpen and target the presentation, if you want to make it really good for really critical meetings. It takes more time and several iterations to do this.
Fees
I generally charge by the hour. I ask that you pay me at the end of each session unless we make different arrangements.
If your needs are great or on-going, we can talk about a retainer contract. I can focus and coordinate all of your materials throughout the whole funding campaign, and beyond.