Words are important .

Extrememe presentation's Dr. Andrew Abela posted a interesting video from youtube. It emphasizes again on how words are more important .

Original post is here.

This specially applies to the situations of business presentations, as Prof. Mehrabian's formula ( 7% words ,38% tone of voice and 55% body language ) is not applicable to these situations. It works only when communicator is conveying about his feelings and emotions.

Thus it is paramount important that your communication speech , need to boil down to central theme or ideas ,translate those ideas into key-words . Use these key-words in your power-point/keynote slides. Experience tells that graphics associated with these key-words will further enhance your message for pursuasive delivery.

Watch this interesting video .

Winning JMEC !

And ultimately we won JMEC !

Winning always has a good feeling, especially when you are through a tough competition. Ecstatic mood of whole team is well captured in this photo. No wonder about it. Team was struggling through sleepless nights through research, and totally uncertain about where they stand with respective to other teams due to confidentiality measures.

Once the business plan is submitted , feeling is like "Oh, there is light at the end of tunnel" . I empathize with them.

... When I look back on my experience of JMEC-12 , JMEC-14 and JMEC-15 , I realize today as a team-mentor that it is very important to keep up team-spirit. The way stretched rubber looses all its tension , team looses the steam after submitting the business plan.They just don't show up same level of enthusiasm while preparing for presentation. Most important is to boost team spirit for presentation and facing judges which is almost a month away after plan submission.

I think that's what makes the winning difference !

Whole JMEC cycle is a rich learning experience not only for Participants but for mentors too, giving excellent exposure to real life business scenarios. I am looking forward for similar learning experience in future too.

Presenting Business Plan

As far as JMEC ( Japan Market Expansion Competition ) goes ,though team has prepared the BEST business plan , still they are far away from winning. Team still need to present it to Judges ,face the critic and satisfy their doubts.

This post looks at the Presentation aspect.

JMEC arranges a excellent workshop on presentation skills specifically with respective to business plan. Further as a mentor I advised team to take a serious look at Guy Kawasaki's 10-20-30 rule of presenting business plan.

In general all following rules apply

• Very punchy, good start will ensure that judges will listen more attentively.
• Too much to read on slides or jazzy graphics, both is distracting .
  
• As a thumb rule less than 4 lines on a slide & less than 6 words in a line .
• Remember bullets kill and bullet points too ,know this "Death by Power-Point" ?
  
• It is good to prepare a list of potential questions with model answers – if possible with some backup slides.

From my experience ,sure tips to ensure satisfaction of Judges -

1. Does plan address market potential ?
   
2. Does plan establishes market need ? [ Do you understand the difference ?]
3. What magic team is recommending to the client to address 1 and 2 ?
   
4. And most importantly whether financial section supports this magic ?