It never ceases to amaze me how many architectural practices spend huge amounts of time getting the visuals together, thinking through the team, assembling the documents, and yet they rarely give any time to training the team of people who are responsible for selling all that hard background work to the client. No wonder the presentation is often a shambles and the potential client says: ‘Well if they can’t organise the presentation it’s for sure that they can’t organise my project!’ When you are putting together a team presentation it’s because the stakes are high. There is a lot of business at stake – so have the sense to put money aside to train the team. It can make you millions!
So what are some of the ingredients you need to think about in order to make your people look and sound like a team and win the pitch.
First of all make sure you choose the right people to present. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You obviously want to put forward your best presenters and senior members of staff but I find that more and more clients want to hear from the people who are actually going to be doing the work. These people tend to be more junior and are not polished presenters – so start training them! A good tactic is to have a senior member of staff to top and tail the presentation to show the potential client that they will be overseeing the whole process and will bring the gravitas required to the project but the meat of the presentation is hearing from the people ‘on the ground’.
Not only have you got to assemble the right people it’s also imperative to think through the personalities you’re going to be presenting to. I know that sometimes you have no idea who and what you’re going to have to face during the Pitch but I also know that very often you know exactly who is going to be there so use this knowledge to your advantage. Is there going to be a chief decision maker? What kind of a person is he/she? Very crudely there are 4 different personality styles – I call them Director, Socialiser, Relator and Thinker. So if you’re pitching to a lot of thinkers they want to know exactly how it’s going to work, they want to hear the pros and cons, they want lots of diagrams and charts, they don’t want to be rushed into a decision so perhaps blue sky thinking, flamboyant, enthusiastic language, whizzy fly-throughs are not a good idea!
Do think carefully about the audio visuals you use. Obviously you are in a very visual medium and they can be stunningly effective. I have to tell you that most of the visuals I have spent my life looking at are not visual at all – they are verbal – words on a screen. In my opinion the words are the province of the presenter. My advice to you is put on the screen what you can’t say not what you can – charts, graphs, diagrams, fly throughs, elevations. I also have to tell you that when I’m helping a practice prepare for the pitch I’m finding more and more that the client doesn’t want to have to sit through a powerpoint presentation. We all know ‘Death by Powerpoint’ syndrome.
So now we need to turn our attention to the format of the presentation pitch. There are 3 golden words that I always use to keep my presentations on track no matter how simple or complex the talk: Introduction, Development and Conclusion. Isn’t it amazing that in the panic of presenting we forget to use such an easy and effective template? Each member of the presentation team needs to have strong opening words to begin their presentation, 2 or 3 very clearly spelt out areas they are going to develop and extremely strong words to conclude their section of the Pitch. The person who is going to ‘top and tail’ the presentation – the Presentation Team Leader needs to do exactly the same but adding even more information in the introduction – spelling out the exact topic of the talk, why we are all gathered together, why the client should listen, introducing the team and explaining the presentation format. Likewise in the conclusion the Leader needs to build up to the climax by reminding the client of the topic of the presentation, what was in it for the client, the development areas that have been discussed and if appropriate asking for the business – certainly by ending on a strong motivational final call to action. I then get each member of the presentation team to write up the outline for their section of the talk on large pieces of flip chart paper and we then use this as the basis for a discussion of who is going to say what, to make sure there is no repetition and to make sure the content is the best it can be. Now we are starting to look and sound like a team and confidence is beginning to grow.
People buy People – the client’s team will look at your team and say: ‘Do we like them, can we work with them, do we trust them.’ So building rapport with the client is paramount. Obviously you have to take into account the personality styles of the people you are presenting to as I talked about earlier but on the whole I would advise you to be passionate about the project which means being passionate presenters. So use what you’ve got to build rapport: body, voice, eyes. Don’t be afraid to let go, smile at your audience and look as though you want to be there.
Rule Number 1 about all of this of course is: Be Prepared and it certainly applies to what you must do next. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. There is no substitute for it. Confidence comes from knowing exactly what you are going to say and exactly how you are going to say it – so don’t waste all this wonderful preparatory work by not rehearsing. But how are you going to make sure you don’t forget what you are going to say in the panic of the situation? My advice is to use cue/record cards. Put your key points/words on cards and rehearse from them. If you use them correctly they will force you to think and therefore to sound natural. They will act as your inspiration.
Another important area: the Question and Answer session! Apply Rule Number 1. Be prepared. When the presentation is over it’s easy to relax and think it’s all over. It isn’t. Research shows that the ability of a question and answer session to harm your presentation is greater than its ability to help it – so don’t get caught out. Think through the obvious questions and the nastiest questions – you know what they are – throw the questions at each other and find the best ways to answer them.
Another area that can catch us out – forgetting to find out everything we can about the venue. Pick the phone up and ask questions – layout of room, size of room, who will be there, exact timings, compatability of audio visual equipment.
Finally get the team leader to take on the responsibility of psyching up the team. While you are waiting to be called to present you will be nervous and quite rightly so – there is a lot at stake. So minds and bodies need to be under control, breathing needs to be under control and the team needs to visualise success. See yourselves in your mind’s eye walking away with the contract signed!
In conclusion If you are going to win the pitch you need to work hard for it. Coming second will not keep your practice in business. It needs committed time, energy and effort from all members of the team. You need to understand and put in place all the ingredients that I have taken you through so that you can prepare and practice efficiently and effectively. I want to finish by sharing with you the feedback I got from a practice I had worked with on a major pitch. Their client said: ‘We had no intention of giving you the business – you were simply there to make up the numbers – but we were so blown away by the quality of your presentation that we had to award you the project.’
That speaks volumes for investing time and money in getting the presentation right!
