The Pitch Deck: Organizational Considerations
Raising venture capital is the lifeblood of growth for many organizations. Further, attracting key partners may be crucial for a firm’s success. Companies who wish to do either find themselves in the position of needing to express their core propositions in a compelling and overarching manner- in the form of a pitch deck. Quite a different challenge than actually running the company, pitching requires both an authoritative document, along with a winning delivery.
Many CEOs have found ways to successfully manage the crafting or reconstruction of the pitch deck by delegating respective portions to business unit heads, and engaging in active feedback sessions to advance each portion. This approach requires alignment between all departments in messaging strategy. Another way to achieve success in the pitch deck is to delegate one person to lead the effort internally, but this may lead to hierarchical paralysis. Other CEOs have found success by wholly doing the work themselves, which is time consuming and will require multiple parties to edit and refine. Lastly, leadership may choose to hire a Pitch Deck Development Consultant to develop or improve the pitch deck.
The use of an external consultant may ameliorate several of the primary challenges in developing the pitch deck. It must be recognized that the development of the pitch deck requires an all-encompassing view of the firm, and therefore must include the CEO and/or senior executives. All too often, these team members are flat out and cannot dedicate the time and mental space necessary to critically engage with such a pivotal document. Furthermore, leadership faces an intrinsic problem of hierarchical processes generally: all aspect of the pitch require interpretation, iteration, and at times push-back in order to advance messaging, as well as to point out any spaces in which the business model itself may be weak or interpreted as such. It may be difficult for internal employees to offer this range of candid and critical feedback within the time-critical space of pitching.
What do you think? Who in your organization is responsible for the pitch deck? Is it different for start-ups, SMBs, or larger firms?