How to Develop a Killer Business Plan Presentation [with Template]

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Before they meet you to discuss the possibility of funding you, investors will frequently want to read your business plan or at least your executive summary. If they like what they see, then you’ll have to present your business plan/concept to them.

You will use your written business plan to create a presentation or pitch deck to show your audience, which may include potential business partners, angel investors, venture capitalists, lenders and others. Whether you are starting a new business or growing an existing venture, if you need to raise funding, you need to nail this presentation!

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What is a Business Plan Presentation?

A business plan presentation is a summary of your business idea which highlights the company’s purpose, business model, funding requirements, development status, and other business essentials.

A presentation template typically includes the following:

Problem
Solution
Product and/or Service Demo
Market
Business Model
Competition
Go-To-Market Strategy
Team
Traction
Financial Projections
Funds Being Raised

Investors want to know more about your business and how you’ll make them money before they invest their money in your company. Make sure you provide the necessary information in your presentation to meet their needs.

Most business plan presentations are in the form of a pitch deck, or slide deck, however, there are some options in terms of the platform you use to present your business plan presentation. This may include Microsoft Powerpoint, Google Slides, Prezi, Canva, etc.

How to Create a Business Plan Presentation

To create a business plan presentation, often referred to as a pitch deck, you will need to go through the business plan itself and highlight the key points that investors need to know.

Start with a title slide with the basic information about you, any business partners you may have, and your company.

Then, follow the steps below for each essential slide in your business plan presentation:

1. Problem

On this slide, describe the major problems that your target customers are experiencing. Try to express the problem in simple language so that investors can grasp it quickly, especially if they aren’t within your target customer segments.

For example, if you have a website development business, you may want to express the problem as:

“Many business owners waste valuable time, energy, and money trying to create a business website on their own. This is because they lack technical knowledge of business website design and business development.”

2. Solution

Once you’ve successfully convinced the audience that there’s a problem, it’s time to present them with your company’s product or service. So on this slide, explain how your firm intends to address the issue you highlighted. Emphasize how scalable your solution is. Scalability refers to a business’s ability to expand as demand for its services grows.

Continuing with the website development company as an example, your solution might be:

“Our business provides website development services to business owners who lack the technical knowledge of business website design and business development.”

3. Product and/or Service Demo

On this slide, you’ll detail your product(s) and/or service(s). If you have a working prototype of your invention, it should be shown here. If a prototype isn’t feasible, attempt to convey your offering to the investors as best as possible. Offer pictures or screenshots of your product/service in use from customers.

For example, in a website development business presentation, you may want to show your business’s working product as follows:

“We provide website development services including business website design, business hosting, and business email setup. Our clients are able to manage their business websites independently without having to rely on external IT support.”

You may also link to some examples of websites that you’ve developed so far to demonstrate your skills in this field.

4. Market

Describe the real or predicted size of your target market in this slide to back up your claims about the scale of the problem and your company’s scalability.

This section of your presentation will pique the interest of potential investors. They want to know if the market is big enough and whether you can grow big enough to pay them a good return on their investment if you achieve a significant share of the industry.

So, describe the size of your market, key trends, and how big your business may develop if it achieves a major market share. This slide will be highly data-driven and is frequently evaluated by investors. Make sure your data is from trustworthy, verifiable sources and that all of your estimates are accurate.

For a website development company, this section may be as follows:

“There are over 25 million business owners in the United States alone. There were an estimated 32.4 million business websites worldwide by 2016 and this is expected to grow exponentially as business computing takes root across the globe. In fact, research from developer Gartner forecasts that business’s digital business models would generate more than $340 billion of business value by 2020, leading them to estimate that more than three out of four business processes will involve digital technology by 2018.”

5. Business Model

On this slide, you need to describe how your business generates revenues. You can include things like your business’s pricing plan, how much it costs to acquire each customer, the business channels you’ll use, etc.

Your target audience must find your business credible and pricing feasible. If you’re targeting large enterprises with big budgets, mention that in this slide.

For example, in a website development company, you might say something like this:

“Our business provides business owners with website development services. We provide business hosting and business email setup, both of which are paid services. Our business also offers business website design as a free service.”

6. Competition

On this slide, you’ll describe your rivals — those firms or solutions that are currently addressing the issues you described above. Clearly show how various options to your company exist in the market.

Competition is generally a good thing. Investors frequently believe a market or issue does not exist if there are no competitors.

Perform a SWOT Analysis for similar organizations and emphasize their distinct qualities. How does your firm distinguish itself from the competition? What makes your product or service stand out? What is it about your company that gives it an edge over the competition? State what gave you a competitive advantage.

Competitors for a website development company might include business website builders, business email providers, and business hosting services.

“Our company provides business owners with website development services. We provide business hosting and business email setup, both of which are paid services. Our business also offers business website design as a free service.”

Your business plan presentation should include the specific benefits that your business brings to customers. Financing demand is not enough; you need to show the compelling reasons why people will buy your product or service rather than someone else’s.

7. Go-To-Market Strategy

The goal of the Go-To-Market approach is for your company to communicate its unique value proposition to specific target consumers.

On this slide, you’ll explain how you intend to attract consumers to your product or service. If some aspects of your marketing plan are already in place, note them and the outcomes. The goal of this presentation deck’s slide is to demonstrate to investors that you have the capacity to expand your business into a global market.

As a website development business, your go-to-market approach may include business networking events, business trade shows, and business partnering opportunities.

“Our business networking events provide us with the opportunity to market our business by meeting potential clients. Businesses that are interested in finding out more about what we do attend these business networking events.”

8. Team

On this slide, name the individuals on your management team. To demonstrate how and why they are the ideal individuals to manage your project, describe their skills and prior accomplishments.

Investors will be particularly interested to learn who will be in charge of executing the company ideas outlined in the presentation. Due to bad execution, a lot of wonderful business ideas never get off the ground because there are not enough competent individuals in the correct positions.

9. Traction

The term “traction” refers to evidence or proof that consumers desire your firm’s goods or services.

On this slide, you should include the following information: annual growth rates for your business based on relevant measurements such as sales, website traffic, users, sign-ups, downloads, and so on.

If your business is growing at a consistent rate, add a graph to the slide. Include indicators that are most easily measurable in your company’s success and expansion.

For a website development business, the indication of traction may be the business website traffic count.

“Our business has more than 10,000 business websites on our hosting service plan.”

10. Financial Projections

Here you’ll include a three to five-year projected income statement for your company. If you’re a startup, make sure your estimates are reasonable since you won’t have any prior data.

Investors will use your projections to determine the potential future scale of your business and whether it may satisfy their desired ROI.

On this slide, indicate when you anticipate breaking even and begin generating profits. Also note where additional fundraising is required, which advances to the following slide.

An example of financial projections may look like this:
5 year income statement

11. Funds Being Raised

The final slide of your business plan presentation should detail the amount of money you’ll require to reach your objectives. Rather than providing a fixed figure, you may wish to provide a range and demonstrate what you can accomplish with various amounts of money.

Importantly, emphasize the core benefits of the funding. Is it for staffing, product development, marketing strategy, or something else? To grow your company, where and how will the investor’s money be utilized?

An example of funding requests for a website development company may look like the following:

“Our business is in need of XX additional funds to further grow our business into a global market. Funds will be utilized for business website hosting, network leasing, business website traffic measuring equipment, and advertising.”

Free Business Plan Presentation Templates to Download

Business Plan Presentation Template – Google Slides Format
Business Plan Presentation Template – Microsoft PowerPoint Format
Business Plan Presentation Template – PDF Format

When Should You Create a Business Plan Presentation?

Investors want to know more about your business and how you’ll make them money before they invest their money in your company. Make sure you are providing the necessary information in your presentation to meet their needs.

Also, be sure to make your presentation deck well in advance leaving you enough time to rehearse your pitch, so that you feel confident during the actual presentation.

Business Plan Presentation Mistakes to Avoid [& How To Do It Right]

No matter what platform you choose to design your presentation there are common mistakes business owners make when developing the presentation. If you avoid these pitfalls, you will have a much higher chance of success.

Focusing on Non-Essential Information in the Presentation

One of the most common mistakes when creating presentations is including the entire business plan into the deck instead of just the main points your recipients want to see. Most investors do not have time to read hundreds of pages of non-essential information.

How To Do It Right:

Before you start crafting your presentation deck, create an outline highlighting the main points necessary for presenting to your potential investor. Be sure to answer the following questions when designing your pitch deck:

How is this company different from others?
Why should I invest in your business when there are other funding options available to me?
Who is the target market for this company?
What measurable outcomes do you hope to achieve in the next 3 years?
What will be your biggest obstacles to success in achieving these business goals?

Not Timing Your Presentation

If you have thirty minutes (or ten minutes or five) to present, you simply must time your presentation to use the time available – no more and no less. If you go over the time allotted you might not be cut off, but they will keep in mind that you could not follow directions when they consider starting an investing relationship with you. If you do not use the entire time available, you will lose a valuable opportunity to explain your concepts further and they may, again, consider you somewhat incompetent.

How To Do It Right:

Practice, practice, practice! Building a beautifully designed deck is only part of the presentation. Practicing is the single most critical part of the presentation. Rehearsal is especially important if you are pitching to a new company or people with specific expertise who will be looking for every detail in your presentation. Remember, timing is not just about how long your pitch deck should be but also about getting up and walking around to keep your audience’s attention. As you become more comfortable with your presentation, your confidence will also grow which will initiate a more memorable experience for your investor.

Obsessing Over Graphics and Animation

You should spend time on your presentation deck because it is a reflection of you, not because you want to use cool animations or graphics. If an animation needs explaining, don’t do it – just go with plain pictures that are easy to understand. Animated slides that are not used sparingly can lose their effect and be distracting.

How to Do It Right:

Your slides should be easily understood by individuals who have little background in your industry – just like the investors you are pitching to. If an animation or graphic is necessary to illustrate a concept, keep it simple and to a minimum so as not to distract the intended listeners.

Presenting Poorly Designed Slides

Avoid using too much text on the slides by including all the information from your business plan. The problem with too much text on slides is that the investor will attempt to read rather than listen to what you are saying. And if there is too much text, it will become more and more difficult to read the font size.

How To Do It Right:

Quality slide design takes practice and is a topic in and of itself. To develop presentations with quality slide design, entrepreneurs should either hire a designer or become trained on the proper presentation software – most likely PowerPoint, Prezi, or KeyNote – so they can do it themselves.

Each slide should be focused on graphics or a few bullet points. Paragraphs or lists of text should be narrated by the presenter rather than written on the slides. Double-check all slides for spelling and grammatical errors. Having another set of eyes on the presentation will help to get another perspective.

The investment owners make to improve their presentation delivery will be well worth it as prospective investors are often turned off by owners who do not have professional slide designs and mistakes throughout the presentation.

Giving the Full Financials

Presenting the complete pro forma financial statements on slides is another serious mistake. In a short presentation, an investor does not have the time to take in all of this data and all you will convey is that a) you have a financial plan and b) you don’t know how to present.

How to Do It Right:

Financials should be presented in summary format with just a few key metrics and numbers on each slide. Presenting these numbers in chart or graph format is an even better idea. If the numbers you show interest the investors, they will have time to peruse the complete financial projections and statements within your business plan at a later time.

Lack of Clarity and Confidence

Remember that these presentations may be the first, and only, impression with your prospective investors. If you seem ill-prepared or muddled when presenting the deck, investors will not get an accurate picture of what your business is about.

How To Do It Right:

Rehearse your pitch multiple times until you can deliver it in a way that is clear and confident. You need to know what you want to convey in each slide and how this information compliments your business. Practice your pitch with family members or friends who will provide constructive feedback to help you prepare.

Failing to Deliver the Message

Business plan presentations are not meant to be a reiteration of a business plan. While you may think that you should convey all aspects of your plans, remember you are really marketing yourself and your business idea.

How To Do It Right:

A successful presentation is about your ability to execute your business idea or concept by highlighting the following pieces of important information: who you are, what you want to accomplish, why this will succeed, and how you plan to do it.

This means that while there should be enough content in the slides for investors to conduct more research on your company on their own, your mission is not just to slide through hundreds of pages but convey a specific pitch in just a few slides.

Conclusion

The business plan presentation is your opportunity to show investors what you have planned for the future of your business. If you want to create a perfect business plan presentation, utilize the information in this article and remember these quick tips:

Keep it simple and focused on one or two key points.
Make sure that your business slides are easily understood by those who don’t know much about business, especially your industry.
Present the numbers in charts and graphs rather than as full financial statements.
Practice! Rehearse until you feel confident and clear before taking on any potential investors.

You’ll be able to make an excellent first impression with them if you do all of this right – now go out there and ace those presentations!

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