Learn to pitch - Board of Innovation

Hey, I'm Nick from Board of Innovation. Today I'll be giving a webinar about pitching why you should pitch after completing an innovation project, how you can design a compelling and concise storyline. And then we'll end with some tips and tricks on how to actually pitch and how to handle the Q and A after your pitch. Lets dive in for those of you who don't know us, Board of Innovation is an international innovation agency with offices in the US and Europe. We work for Fortune 500s around the globe in a variety of different sectors. In this webinar we're going to talk about why you should pitch during and after an innovation project. We'll also cover pitch design, how you can design a compelling, concise and visual story. And finally, I want to share some practical tips and tricks on pitching and Q and A. You can find more details online on boardofinnovation.com let's start with the beginning. Why should we pitch? Typically you pitch during and after an innovation project to get feedback and buy in and to facilitate a decision. There are three key benefits to pitching. All of those benefits also have risks that are associated to them. So let's go through them one by one. First benefit from pitching is that it's an opportunity for you as a team to summarize your findings. You'll review all the evidence and you'll reflect carefully on next steps that should be taken. Risks here are teams that suffer from confirmation bias, so you might have fallen in love with your own solution or a tendency to oversimplify complex situations. Making a choice in terms of continuing or not too binary. Second benefit of pitch is actually an opportunity to get feedback from senior stakeholders. Senior stakeholders and decision makers typically have a more strategic perspective and they can give you the buy in and the access that you need to take your products or service to market. Associated risks here are the wrong questions will be asked quite often and that those stakeholders are comparing your project towards or vis a vis traditional metrics like roi, which doesn't always make sense, especially if you're working in more radical innovation where you don't have any historical data to compare to. The ways to mitigate this risk is by organizing sponsorship, training or an executive training to seniors for senior stakeholders so they know which questions they should and more importantly which questions they shouldn't ask. The third and probably most important element or benefit from pitch is that it facilitates a decision. As a team you have a great opportunity here. You get to present your call to action so you actually have an opportunity to influence the decision or in terms of what the next steps will be. And it also is a good point to get clarity on what's next, which can be stopping a project or scaling it. Risks here are sometimes wrong decisions are being made based on the wrong reasons. So again, really important here that whoever makes that decision understands the process that teams go through. And on the other hand that teams get demotivated even if the right decision is being made. So it's really key to provide teams with sufficient personal feedback and to really show appreciation for their efforts, whatever decision is being made. So what kind of decisions are typically made after a pitch? There are basically three options. Either a project is skilled, so there is an evidence based decision that's being made to save resources. It's important to note that quite often this, this is very positive. I've literally seen managers being really happy that a legacy project is being killed. And the teams actually pitch themselves to stop a project because they have validated that there is no demands or that the business model isn't viable, or that the implementation would be too complex or too expensive. Sometimes teams or projects also get kills while teams pitch to continue. In that case, it might be because a strategic prioritization that's being made by the decision makers. A second option is persevere. Basically acknowledging that there is an interesting opportunity, but also saying that there's no fit in terms of the solution. So the solution hasn't been validated sufficiently or the business model hasn't been validated sufficiently. And then the pitch is really a key moment to provide guidance and feedback to the team and to tell them to continue working upon it and come back for another pitch in a couple of weeks. A third option where a team has successfully demonstrated that there is a need, that the solution solves the needs, and that there is a business model that can support it. And they've presented sufficient validated learnings to support their claim and a clear path forward. That's the point where decision makers should decide to scale a project and put necessary resources behind it to bring it to market as quickly as possible. So after understanding the why behind the pitch, let's look into pitch design. How should you go about designing a compelling story? The key element in designing a successful pitch is your storyline. There's different storylines possible, but at Board of Innovation we like to take a very simple approach where you start from the problem and and you enter the clear call to action. So let's look at it in a bit more detail, starting with the problem. Answer questions like what problem are you aiming to solve? How does it impact the problem owner who owns the problem? So who's experienced that problem? And make sure that the jury really feels that problem and understands that you have a thorough understanding of the problem. After you explain the problem, moving to the solution, explain how you're proposing to solve the problem. Show a visual prototype of the problem. Talk about how feasible the solution that you have in mind is, and most importantly, show people what it actually will look like. Don't be vague here, don't say things like we'll make a platform. Be very concise and clearly explain what you are proposing to do about the problem. Once you have explained your solution, it's time to do a deep dive into the business model. How are you going to capture value? Will this be a revenue generating solution or a cost saving solution? From who are you capturing value and how much value will this generate? You don't need a detailed financial plan. You do need ballpark figures, high level estimations of, for example, revenue coming in, and clearly listed assumptions on which these numbers are based. If you use numbers, and you should use numbers, make sure that there's a clear logic behind where those numbers come from because you will be asked those questions. The most important question that you will be asked, or that you should be asked rather during a pitch, is how do you know? Decision makers should continuously question you and make sure that everything that you're saying is grounded in evidence. So throughout problem, solution and business model, ensure that you talk about validation. What are the assumptions that you had about the desirability, the viability and the feasibility? How did you go out and validate those assumptions? What kind of experiments did you run to go and validate those assumptions? Really make sure that throughout your pitch you continuously refer to evidence and that you're not just making everything up. If you have explained your problem, your solution and your business model and you've supported it with validated learnings, it's time to move to the next step. Ensure that you have a very clear call to action. What do you need to make your solution a reality? Don't be vague, don't say we need your buy in and your decision. No. Be very clear and offer concise next steps on how to go to implementation. You're the expert. You have spent a lot of time working on this project. People sitting across the table probably just heard about it for the first or the second time. So it's up to you to show the path forward, show that you are entrepreneurial enough, and be very clear on who is going to take this forward, what kind of resources do you need in terms of investment but also in terms of people? What are the biggest risks taking it forward, what are logical stage gates and so forth. So ensure that you have a very simple structure. We've designed a couple of tools that can help you provide the structure for first is a pitch in Canvas. It basically allows you to build a narrative, to storyboard your pitch and to test out different versions. Before you open up a PowerPoint, make sure that with your team, you sit together and you talk through different options for your pitch. Typically, facilitating such a discussion in the beginning really simplifies turning it into a decent presentation afterwards. The pitching Checklist is meant to challenge your draft. It has detailed questions on problem solution, business model and validation and your call to action. And you should go through it and ensure that you are covering the basics in your pitch. Now as I mentioned, storyline is the most important part, but you can have a brilliant storyline presented in a terrible way and you won't move forward. So what I'm saying here is avoid dead by PowerPoints. We've all seen these presentations that don't make any sense and where you fall asleep after five minutes. So I just want to share three key rules that we use when we design pgdex. Very simple first rule, no more than three messages per slide. If you look on the slide on the left, you'll see complete information overload. I might be talking, but everybody will be staring at the slide trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The slide on the right, in contrast or in comparison, is really clear. There's three messages people won't remember more and it serves as a supporting visual to the story that you are telling. So maximum three messages per slide. Second, be visual. Try to use compelling images. Try to use interesting graphs and so forth to make sure that you can support your message with visual aid. If you're going to talk about four key bullet points, don't put four full sentences on one slide. Rather, put keywords with the supporting images on four separate slides so it could for example, look like this and you talk to each one of them. Not all the text should be on the slide, you can just talk to it. The third rule is provide structure. A couple of ways to do it. Most easy is to start with a table of contents. Share the outline of what you're going to say in the beginning. Explain that you will end with a detailed call to action. This will avoid people from interrupting you and asking questions that will come further down the line of your pitch. Also Provide visual cues throughout your pitch deck. Make sure where you are. Use titles, go from problem to solution, for example, and thirdly, repeat key messages. Determine for yourself what the key messages that you want to bring across and keep repeating it over and over again. You want to avoid people walking away and not remembering what the key message of your pitch was. I want to share some extra resources that can help you in designing beautiful pitches. The first one is a brilliant TEDx talk that you really should watch. It's called dead by PowerPoint. You can click on the link or just go on YouTube and type in dead by PowerPoints to get a bit more insight on why most corporate PowerPoints are boring people to this and how you can avoid that. Talking about avoiding it and using stunning images, I would strongly suggest that you use unsplash.com it's a website with beautiful images. They're all under Creative Commons license, so you can use them without any copyright infringements. And it's the perfect place to start making your pitch nice and sleek. So you have designed a clear storyline, you've designed a beautiful pitch deck. What's next? You have to stand up in front of those senior decision makers and deliver your pitch. I want to share a couple of practical tips and tricks when it comes to pitch delivery. First one is about flow. Pitch flow is really important. How do you ensure you keep dynamics high? A good trick is to start off with a problem and make your audience really feel the problem. They should actually become slightly depressed when they're listening to you and they should really feel the problem themselves. So really try to empathize with the end user who's having that problem. After they feel a bit depressed, you're going to present them with a solution that solves the entire problem. So you're basically going to surprise them, you're going to stun them, and from then onwards, you're always going to present smaller problems and come up with the answer. So they basically go in between being a bit worried towards relieved that you're actually answering their questions. So the trick to do that is make sure that each slides answer a question that's triggered at the end of the previous slides. I also want to share a couple of pitch delivery tips. So very short 11 tips that I want to walk you through. First one is don't apologize. Your slide might be outdated, the Beamer might not work, or an animation isn't working as you thought it would. Don't apologize. People won't notice. If you apologize for something, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position and you're actually putting all the attention towards something that's not going as well as it should have gone. Try to be relaxed. It's very understandable that you are nervous when you are pitching. Just breathe in, breathe out. Try to think about what's the worst thing that can happen. Be everywhere. Use your room and walk around. It shows confidence and it will really have a positive impact on your pitch. Simple trick, just take a glass of water, put it on the other side of the screen, which will force you to walk around and be more dynamic. Be personal. Use a picture of yourself interviewing an end user. Talk about how the interview made you feel, the audience listening to you or the juries are also human. They like to have a human connection. So don't be afraid to share some personal stories or some personal insights. Be positive. Even if you get harsh feedback. For example, always thank people for their feedback and then answer to it in a positive way. Be clear. Support statements that you made. Make sure it's grounded in evidence. Don't try to please everyone. Try to be as concise and clear as possible. You should be ready to pitch, but also don't be afraid to share what you don't know and share assumptions that you have in the same. In the same way, don't fool around. This remains a business setting. You don't want to start telling inside jokes or childish jokes. Take it serious. You've been working on this quite hard and the jury should expect from you that you are actually taking this serious. I think the most important rule is be selective. Make hard decisions on what not to include. If you have worked for weeks on a project, it's very hard to put it in 10 minutes. So really think it through and make sure that you cherry pick what you want to share in a way that provides an honest overview of the status of your project. Being selective will allow you to not overshoot. Keep an eye on your timing. If you have 10 minutes, use nine, nine and a half. Don't go for 12. People will notice. They'll start to get annoyed, they will stop paying attention to you and they'll miss the most important part of your pitch, which is your call to action at the end. Talking about the end of your pitch. Don't fade out. Make it very clear that your pitch is over and open the floor to questions and thank everyone in the room. You should get an applause here. So really make it clear that you stopped and don't just mumble and go straight into your Q and A talking about your Q and A. This is probably the most important part of your pitch. And it's also the part that's hardest to prepare for. It's the part where you have the least control. There are luckily a couple of ways around this. We like to say that you can hack your Q and A. How can you do that? Imagine you have a 10 minute speech and a 15 minutes Q&A. While designing your storyline, leave out a couple of things. Key elements of your pitch. You create those loopholes on purpose. You provide the slides and the content and the answers to them. But you put it in your Q&A. For example, provide high level next steps and mention during your pitch that you have a detailed plan that you can share during the Q and A, someone will ask for it. And you can spend four or five minutes outlining in detail how you want to take the project forwards. By doing it this way, you make sure that you actually only have five minutes of unexpected questions which will drastically in 20 minutes to really impress. And this should drastically improve your chances of success. Don't make the mistake of leaving everything in your Q and A. Make sure that you're impressed in the pitch as well. Otherwise you run the risk of no questions being asked. So how can you prepare for those five minutes of unexpected questions? Present the pitch to your colleagues. Record a video of yourself doing the pitch and show it to your teammates. Make sure ask them to ask questions that they would expect from the jury. This is typically the best way forward. Don't wing a pitch. It's an important moment and you should really prepare for it. Another great way is using the VC Question tool. It's a very simple tool that will ask you a bunch of questions that venture capitalists typically ask from startups and you need to answer in 15 seconds. You won't be able to answer all of them. They won't all be relevant to you. But it's a great way to spend an hour the day before your pitch sort of looking at the kind of questions you could expect. And it's also a great trigger for you to identify things that you didn't think through in sufficient detail. If you've gone through all this preparation, you should be fine. And the most important thing to remember is to just stay calm and just do it. There's a lot more information online on our website boardofinnovation.com you can also find tools there on boardofinnovation.com tools. So I would say browse around. I'm also always happy to jump on a quick call or to answer your email or to connect on LinkedIn. So please reach out if you have any questions and then always happy to discuss. Thanks a lot.