Deciding what to wear ended up being a no brainer. Though I have done Hawaiian shirts, jean as well as rude tshirts in the past, we just took Guy Kawasaki’s advice… When in doubt, over dress. Still by the time the presentation started, I had already dumped the jacket. Also as per Guy’s advise we did quick sound checks, laptop checks and remote checks as soon as the stage was made available to the presenters.
Azhar Rizvi (THK Solutions, Co-Vicechair for MITCEF) did the networking rounds and quick introductions with Imran Saeed on the judges’ panel and a number of other delegates. Jehan, Ashraf, Arif and the senior team took their seats and we waited for the proceeding to begin.
The props were a chair, four folders full of banking regulation, one folder of reports and four business recorders. Before above, after below.
The flow was based on a combination of Guy, Seth and Presentation Zen.
00:00 – Who we are and what we do (1 slide) – 30 seconds
00:30 – The Customer and his Pain (2 slides & props) – 2 minutes
02:30 – Our single biggest achievement (1 slide) – 15 seconds
02:45 – Market Size (1 slide) – 15 seconds
03:00 – Our credentials (1 slide) – 1 minute
04:00 – The problem defined (3 slides) – 2 minutes
06:00 – How we address it (1 slide) – 30 seconds
06:30 – Why is it special (8 slide & props) – 2 minute
08:30 – Competitive advantage (1 slide & props) – 1 minute
09:15 – Validation (5 slides) – 45 seconds
09:45 – Acceleration Plan (2 slides) – 45 seconds
10:30 – Pitch (1 slide) – 30 seconds
11:00 – Team (3 slides) – 1 minute
12:00 – Close (1 slide) – 30 seconds
The sanitized power point (without some of the screen shots and reports) is here (BAP Pitch). If there was one lesson that we learnt it was to use images as much as possible and let them do the talking. My job was to point the audience in the right direction and allow them to make their own connections. Show them, don’t tell them. The 15 and 30 second slides above were all show them slides.
This went really well, as rehearsed and then the judges asked their questions. The first came from Ali Jameel (Tracker) which is when I realized that we weren’t prepared. The next two came from Mudassir (BMA) and were relatively easier. Lesson learnt: In addition to practicing the pitch, also identify the audience and the holes they will shoot in your logic. Come prepared with answers.