by Scott Hoffpauir, Managing Partner

To those who may know me, I enjoy mountain biking. It’s my way of getting outside, relaxing and clearing my mind. Now, when I say I “enjoy” mountain biking, some of you may be rolling your eyes. Why, you ask? Because during my days at BroadSoft, I’d get caught shopping for bike parts instead of paying attention in meetings.

While I’m not the best rider, I do like to have nice bikes with the latest components. When I’m bored, I peruse mountain biking websites looking for the latest and greatest accessories. As my wife likes to tell me, “The capabilities of my bikes far exceed the abilities of their rider.” But, hey, if you can’t be good, then you should at least look good.

At this point you’re probably wondering, “OK Scott. We get it — you like bikes, but so what?” Well let me tell you.

These days, I listen to a lot of company pitches. It’s surprising how people don’t take the time to refine and fine tune their pitch. Think about it. You only have a limited amount of time to capture and keep someone’s attention. So, you need to layout the pitch in a structured way, and ensure that you hit all of the key points. Not doing this means that you’ll lose the attention of your audience, especially if you’re pitching to me because that means I’ll start shopping for bike parts.

A company overview is hard. It’s much easier to do a detailed set of slides than it is to do a set of overview slides. You have to make your overview concise, understandable and relevant. You have to make sure it gets the point across without overwhelming the listener with too much detail. The outcome of a successful pitch is that the listener understands what the company does, the problem their solution solves and how they solve it.

Based on our experiences, we’ve come up with an outline that we recommend to our clients.

Introduction

State the mission and vision of your company, the type of customers you serve and the key members of your team. If you don’t already have a mission and vision statement, then put it on the top of your priority list. It’s important for everyone — employees, customers, prospects, investors, press, analysts — to understand why your company exists and what it does. You also need to talk about your team, and how they’re the best at what they do. Don’t provide their entire professional history and life story, but summarize their key accomplishments relevant to your mission. Your team is as important as your solution.

Problem

Clearly layout what problem you’re solving or opportunity you’re addressing. Make it understandable and relatable. Tell a story and relay a personal experience. You need to make sure that the listener relates to the problem or opportunity, and also believes it is big enough to worry about. Use market data to layout the total addressable market with metrics on how it grows over time. This is important, as I often see pitches where a company is solving a problem that isn’t big enough or relevant enough to care about.

Solution

This is where you talk about how your solution solves the problem or addresses the opportunity. Introduce your solution, describing generally what it does and how it solves the problem. Highlight the product and its key components, but keep it high level. Point out what’s different about your solution vs. other ways of solving the problem and how your competition solves the problem. Remember, the goal is to provide the listener with a high level understanding of how your solution solves the problem. It’s not about providing a detailed product overview.

Use Cases

A use case is focused on one buyer, one need and one value proposition. It’s ok to have multiple use cases, but in an overview, it’s always good to limit it to your top use cases — no more than three. You should call out the key buyers for each use case — like the IT team, line of business owner or network engineering leader. Highlight the specific problems being addressed, using the terms relevant to the buyers and their industry. Then, clearly state how the problem is solved and the value associated with the solution. Use metrics in your value proposition — things like our solution results in a 50% cost savings or solves the problem twice as fast as existing solutions. And last, remember to call out the key benefits of the solution, as compared to existing or competing solutions. Make sure the listener understands why your solution is the best at solving the stated problem.

Proof

This is where you highlight customers that have chosen and purchased your solution. The best way to do this is with case studies. Call out at least two case studies, which best represent the value of your solution. In an overview, you need to keep the case studies high level. Summarize the problem the customer faced, with the specific things the customer wanted to improve — speed, quality, cost, etc. Then, describe how your solution solves their specific needs. Again, use metrics to emphasize the improvements provided by the solution. Case studies are key, and one of the most important things to highlight. People relate to these, and compare them to the problems they’re facing.

Summary

This is where you wrap things up. Reiterate the problem, your solution and its key benefits. You want to leave the listener with a solid, high level understanding of what problem you’re solving, your approach for solving the problem and why your approach is the best. Keep it simple, straightforward and concise. The listener should remember, and be able to reiterate the message to their colleagues. And finally, suggest a call to action or next step — demo, deeper dive, free trial, etc.

That’s it — simple and battle tested. Remember, for someone hearing the pitch for the first time, you need to keep it high level, concise and understandable. A good company overview should take no more than 15–20 minutes to present. Try it out with your company and provide us your feedback!