We all understand that story telling is a better way to get an idea across than reading out bullet point after bullet point. Still, most presentations happen in a business context. And in business, people do not have the patience a movie audience has (15 versus 90 minutes).
One approach I use to plan a story flow for a business presentation is anticipating the next question of a smart audience. Each pitch, each situation, each industry, each vertical, each country, each type of meeting has their own sequence of questions:
- What is it they actually do?
- Will it work?
- Why is this a big deal?
- Why has this not been done before?
- Can they pull it of?
- Can people game the system?
- Will anyone sign up for this?
- What happens if Google enters the market tomorrow?
- Can they make money?
- Will people pay for this?
- Can they sell it?
- Are they focused enough?
- How financially stable are these guys?
- Do I like these people?
- What is the accent?
- When is lunch?
- Do they have data to prove it?
- Why did no one else invest?
- Isn’t this exactly the same as the idea I heard last week?
- How can a 25 year old make this happen?
- Can it scale?
- Will the government agree to this?
- What if a “Black Swan” event happens?
- Why is she not answering my question?
Text book structures for business presentations follow a generic, logical sequence of questions. Your pitch might have to deviate from that.