Quick Tips

Skillfully presenting a compelling business case to internal or external executives for new product ideas is essential for product managers as well as for entrepreneurs.  Here are some of the tips for success provided by a distinguished Product Strategy Network panel of business executives and early stage company investors that included Randy Eager of Innovation Works; Jim Jordan of the Pittsburgh LifeSciences Greenhouse; Dan Torrens of Confluence; and Dick Heilman of the Pittsburgh Glass Works, formerly PPG Automotive.

• Tell ‘em.  In giving me a pitch, tell them why they should care about this, why it’s going to change the world, how you’re removing risk, why you have the talent to do it, what market share you’re going to get, why it’s reasonable, and what you’re going to do with the money. 
• Don’t Do a Dilbert.  Avoid MBA-style marketing words and heavy reliance on shop jargon.  It’s confusing and detracts from the essential narrative.
• Fire silver bullets.  Write a business plan with seven bullet points.  Whittle it down to five.  If you can’t get it to five where it makes perfect sense, you don’t have a business case.
• Why you?  Ideally, your pitch should describe a problem that no one else has solved, why your intellectual property solution is impervious to competitive advancement, how your business model works, who your partners are and the timeframe of investors’ returns.
• Money talks.  Nothing is more persuasive in presenting a business case than a strong customer verbatim, except perhaps contracts which have been reached ahead of time.  When a customer says they would be happy to pay a million dollars to solve a problem, people listen.
• Who’s buying?  Include a profile of the user-buyer, what their problem is, what their day-to-day life looks like, what their goals are.  And include direct quotes from those customers in the presentation.
• What’s the alternative?  Tell your investors or management the alternatives: if you’re not going to do this, what else could you do?  Show what you’re not doing in relation to recommending what you are doing.
• Build a team.  To present the case for a product, include the product manager, an engineer, and a business analyst to talk about what your solution will do, what it will cost, and why it makes sense to move ahead with it.
• Know your history.  Knowing how your company’s other products have done in the past is important so that your claims don’t seem unrealistic.  But in the current economy, what the company did last year may not matter as much; 2002 may be a better benchmark.
• Ask the experts.  Poll more experts to build greater confidence about taking a technology risk.  In the end, you have to rely on the credibility of your technologists as to whether they can solve the problem.  Share their consensus with your listeners.
• Recognize outside risks.  New products entail risks that aren’t always in the technology.  They could include its adoption by your distribution channel, or changes in government rules for regulated products.  Acknowledge them. 

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