Pitching a 'corporate style' presentation.

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Most of what I'd advise has already been mentioned.

Speak slowly and clearly. Show you're in control.

Don't trust technology. Have a back up and have hard copies of the powerpoint presentation to hand out and refer to if technology fails you.

Believe in what you're saying. Confident succesful people generally want to deal with other confident succesful people.

If you're worried in speaking to important people then just remember; they go to the toilet just the same as us. They pick their nose the same as us. They're human.

If you want to overcome your fear or test your abilities then get a book, go to your nearest Tim Hortons when it's busy, stand on a chair and read a full page from the book to a room full of strangers. If you don't get sectioned by the Police it will give you confidence. I did it in a pub years ago just after i'd started in sales.

Draw a seating plan of the room and write everyones name down and where they're sat. Forgetting someones name is embarrasing and rude.

Don't use humour unless you're 100% sure of your audience. But smile while talking. Smile on the inside and try to smile on the outside. It will come through in your voice. You're happy to be there, show it.

And, as said above, you're the most knowledgeable person in that room about the subject of your pitch. Remember that and, again, speak with confidence.

I would say good luck but, as someone often reminds me, if you're relying on luck then it means you didn't train or practise hard enough. Remember poor planning equals poor performance.
 
When Victor Kiam was a young up and comer he took a trained monkey to a board presentation and let it run wild. It destroyed the office and ran amuck for half an hour before Kiam left with it, saying "When you think about this day, remember it was us that brought a monkey".

He got the contract a day later.

Beat that!
 
You have some good advice here already. I will add:

1) Know your audience. Learn as much about them as you can you can in advance of the meeting and see if you can tailor your presentation based on this info
2) Anticipate questions/objections/concerns they will have. The temptation is to focus exclusively on the positives of the project but you should also be very mindful of the various risks involved and know what you can do to mitigate them
 
Thank you all for the responses - I will update this thread if not Friday, over the weekend. I have bookmarked the thread, and will be reading, and re-reading all of your responses word-4-word.
 
bump

presentation is ready.

We have the power point ready to go, and we have 7 copies of the Power point printed out on Glossy presentation paper that will be handed out.

Boarding flight @ 2:15 pm.
 
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My group and I went in there, expecting to just pitch the presentation for 30 minutes and hopefully get what we wanted. By point 10 on the powerpoint, the President, VP, Director, and tech guy got into a huge debate between themselves, and between my group and me. At one point, we all took a 5 minute break to clear our heads, because we were already in the board room for 1 hr 30 minutes. I still can't fathom how well the presentation went.. The only concern with the project, is my employer is going to want 51% MINIMUM. He's not even set on 51; I'm hoping for 51, but he could get greedy and say 55-60%.

What do you do in these situations?
 
ep1x said:
My group and I went in there, expecting to just pitch the presentation for 30 minutes and hopefully get what we wanted. By point 10 on the powerpoint, the President, VP, Director, and tech guy got into a huge debate between themselves, and between my group and me. At one point, we all took a 5 minute break to clear our heads, because we were already in the board room for 1 hr 30 minutes. I still can't fathom how well the presentation went.. The only concern with the project, is my employer is going to want 51% MINIMUM. He's not even set on 51; I'm hoping for 51, but he could get greedy and say 55-60%.

What do you do in these situations?
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They were debating you? Not a good sign.
 
killerkeith said:
They were debating you? Not a good sign.
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The only time my group and i were debated, was when we discussed equity shares.

When the president, vp, director and tech guy debated between themselves, it was the the president making a negative opinionated response for one of our points, where the VP, director and tech guy completely ganged up on his negative opinion and turned it into something positive.

we were there for almost 2.5 hours.
 
ep1x said:
The only time my group and i were debated, was when we discussed equity shares.

When the president, vp, director and tech guy debated between themselves, it was the the president making a negative opinionated response for one of our points, where the VP, director and tech guy completely ganged up on his negative opinion and turned it into something positive.

we were there for almost 2.5 hours.
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I can't say for sure without being in the meeting, but if you didn't win over the boss, I'd say it was a wasted journey.
 
we never even finished the presentation. out of 14 points, we finished @ point 10.

I met with the director for a beer on saturday, and even he was shocked at what the president was offering. Huge advertising budget - a lot larger than what the director thought we would get.
 
killerkeith said:
I can't say for sure without being in the meeting, but if you didn't win over the boss, I'd say it was a wasted journey.
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we did win over the boss.

it's a matter of deciding my employer's equity share at this point.

I pray he will give us some leeway, and be set on 51%.
 
All of the points above were very good. I've done enough speaking in front of an audience to have picked up a lot, if not all, of these points over the years.

Don't sweat it if the proposal doesn't work out. Learn from it, grow from it, and come back stronger next time.
 
ep1x said:
In my 23 years I have been living on this planet, this presentation will be one of my biggest moments. If it's a success, I will be forcing myself to keep my composure while we shake hands, and leave the office, where I will be screaming and jumping on the street, and running to the nearest bar downing celebratory shots of the hardest alcohol my money can buy. If it fails, I will bow my head in shame, and think suicide is my only option from here on out.
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If anything causes you to mess up, ^^^ this will.

Fact is, whether you succeed or fail in the end doesn't matter a lick in the grand scheme of things. If you can accept that and stop making such a big deal about your navel lint then you won't care how well you do, and the whole edge comes right off. No more nervousness means no more chance to make a blunder.
 
I was going to say, if they were debating before you finished that is a good sign because it means they have decided.
As for negotiating terms, I suck at that and usually cave too much so I'm likely not much help. One colleague of mine always acts like he could care less whether they take it or not and this works well for him but if it doesn't he is an expert at back peddling. Mind you he is an alpha male and judging by your posts I would wager you are not. Just don't be a pussy. Sounds like you have some major charm and charisma though and with those skills you should be able to convince them to give you what you want. But what do I know, I'm just some broad ;)
 
Just remember in negotiating, never tell the other party straight out things like "no" or "never" or "can't do it" when he says "I want a 65% stake" just instantly start explaining why you want a 49% stake. Make sure to either believe in what your saying , or do your absolute best to fake it. Personally I think genuine beats fake hands down, and you don't sound like a snake oil salesman, so just believe in what your saying, and believe in yourself. Most importantly, be cool and collected, no one wants to give over a cheque to a sweaty, nervous dude who's fidgeting and biting their nails(unless you're paying a computer geek to hack something, then they all look like that, lol, just kidding my IT peeps :) ) Look smart, feel smart, know your product. Now go, grasshoppa, may the force be with u.
 
D23 said:
When Victor Kiam was a young up and comer he took a trained monkey to a board presentation and let it run wild. It destroyed the office and ran amuck for half an hour before Kiam left with it, saying "When you think about this day, remember it was us that brought a monkey".

He got the contract a day later.




Beat that![/QUOTE


If it was a trained monkey why was it running amuck and busting up the office? who trains a monkey to do that? Asian offshore ninja monkeytrainers thats who....... Victor Kiam, if he wasnt dead I go kick his *** myself.
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