Getting a “no” or “I’ll think about it” after presenting a business pitch can be disappointing. A lot of the time, pitch ideas are rejected because it’s not structured clearly for the decision-maker. Strategic thinking and structured ideas are the pillars of a perfect pitch. The best ideas go unsold if they lack a compelling approach.
A business case helps decision-makers see the bigger picture of a project. The case should weigh out the problems of the project, the various solutions, finances as well as risks and benefits. When making a business case, not only do you have to thoroughly research these points and present them clearly and simply, you also have to base it on facts and statistics rather than personal opinions.
When you get down to the insights and statistics behind a business case, there’s usually a lot to unpack. How do you decide which to use and which would be useful? We’ll discuss The Pyramid Principle and the SCQuARE Model, the two thinking models that can help you build a more logical and action-driven business case.
If you want to become a pro in making a business case, sit tight and get your pen and paper out.
The Pyramid Principle
It is a competitive world and you don’t want your voice getting lost in the crowd. Being heard requires a straight-to-the-point and quick approach and the importance of structured thinking should not be undermined. At some point in your professional life, you’ve had to use presentation skills to deliver ideas to other professionals or your team. When presenting your ideas, you don’t want to waste any time while still being impactful. This is when your structured communication skills come in handy.
The Pyramid Principle is a great tool that will help you structure your thoughts when working on a business case.
What is the Pyramid Principle?
In the words of Barbara Minto, founder of the Pyramid Principle at McKinsey: “The pyramid is a tool to help you find out what you think. The great value of the technique is that it forces you to pull out of your head information that you weren’t aware was there, and then helps you to develop and shape it until the thinking is crystal clear.”
The Pyramid Method is a top-down approach, i.e., beginning with the end and working your way to the beginning.
It has three basic rules:
begin with the answer
compile and summarise supporting arguments
logically arrange your supporting arguments
Begin with the answer
Executives or decision-makers often prefer a top-down approach, which is why the Pyramid Principle is a successful communication structure to use. The answer first approach gets you and your audience on the same page right at the get-go.
Beginning with the answer does not come naturally to many of us. Some believe in the build-up before stating the facts, but this may divert attention away from your main idea. When you start with answering a question, you buy yourself more time and induce curiosity in the audience while the facts and the whys come after.
Let’s paint a scenario to better understand the pros of starting with an answer. Imagine you’re trying to send some important files to a client but there’s a glitch in the mailing system, which you can’t seem to fix. You ask your colleague for help but instead of showing you the solution, they state the facts on how they can solve the issue and where they had learnt it from. When you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, you want to know the solution first before the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’.
Time plays a very important role in business. Your clients, colleagues or executives become uninterested if you waste their time on build-ups. All they want is to know if your solution can help them.
Another reason to begin with an answer is that it makes you more convincing. Starting with the answer is a persuasion technique that reflects confidence in your idea. Directing the answer to the problem right at the beginning makes you appear more self-assured.
Compile and summarise supporting arguments
The next part of building a pyramid is grouping and summarising your supporting arguments. The Pyramid suggests that each level of the pyramid should summarise the ideas grouped below them. By grouping your supporting ideas and summarising them, it helps your audience follow your insights. It also prevents you from diverting away from the main idea and helps your audience gain better clarity of your thoughts without going into minor details.
A very effective way to do this is the rule of 3 (discussed below!).
Logically arrange your supporting arguments
The last step is to link the ideas together. Even if you have an exceptional idea and support it with arguments, these arguments should complement each other. You can logically order them in the ways listed below:
Time Order: Group them according to the cause and effect sequence of the event
Structural Order: Break a single idea into various components to ensure the supporting ideas are covered
Degree Order: List them based on their importance from most to least important.
The Pyramid Principle is an amazing tool when it comes to strategically structuring your ideas. Leaders can also use it to communicate with their team or stakeholders when making a business case.
The Rule of 3
It is said that if you want an idea to stick in someone’s mind, you need to put it in a sequence of three. For instance, stories and movies are divided into three parts- the beginning, middle and end.
When working on a business case, you can combine the Rule of 3 and the Pyramid principle to influence action and land you that ‘YES’.
So why exactly does the number three work?
Make it easier to remember for decision-makers
You’ve heard the popular tales of The Three Musketeers and Three Little Pigs. These childhood fairytales are all similar in their number of characters — three! Since we were kids, we’ve been wired to expect things in groups of three.
Decision-makers are not much different from us. When you list ‘three’ reasons supporting your pitch ideas, the decision-maker becomes more attentive.
Scientifically, three is the smallest number of elements required to create a pattern, which makes the Rule of 3 a pattern we subconsciously react to. Research also shows that our short term memory recalls items in threes.
When an idea is broken down into groups of three, decision-makers become more attentive as it makes it easier to absorb the information and remember the key takeaways. At the end of the day, you definitely want to be remembered for the perfect pitch!
PRO TIP: Constructing the perfect pitch requires you to build your emotional intelligence to tap into the psyche of your decision-maker. Find a common ground with the stakeholder to turn empathy into influence.
Motivates you to pick the three most important points
Grouping your points in three forces you to pay more attention to the details. By narrowing down your ideas, the best three points you choose are likely the most impactful ones. We tend to want to list out every single detail with the fear that we may miss out on an important piece. Remind yourself that your decision-makers do not have the time or mental capacity to take in several ideas. It’s best to prioritise your top three arguments and shoot your shot.
Improves credibility
Decision-makers want credible proposals and confident presentations. If you present your case with the opening ‘these are 3 solutions to your problem’, you build influence and confidence in your idea. This approach is bold, straightforward and persuasive.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
~ Albert Einstein
The SCQuARE Model
In his work The One Thing You Need To Know- The SCQuARE way to better business planning and decision making, Ross Lovelock summarises the underlying principles of the SCQuARE model and illustrates how to be more persuasive.
The SCQuARE Model helps you put together an impactful argument to get a ‘YES’. SCQuARE defines all the points you’ll have to keep in mind when making a business case.
S-Setting
According to the SCQuARE Model, the first step of a business pitch is identifying the current setting of the situation you’re solving - subject, scope and time frame. With this, you have to determine your main aim, which all your planning and research will be concentrated on. To understand the setting, contextualise data and facts that cover the positive points of the current situation including its strengths and successes. Analyse your data into key groups and find how these figures lead to your main aim using the question “so what?”.
C-Consequences
While defining the setting is picking the positives of the current situation, the consequences concentrate on the negatives, which are essentially the issues that you need to solve in your business pitch. You will first have to identify the causes of these issues and ask yourself “what are the consequences?” Knowing the consequences of the causes ensures that you truly understand the issues at stake so that you can make a strategic plan to solve them.
Qu- Pivotal Question
The central question of your idea should be the combination of your analysis of the setting and consequences. Once you have defined the issues, you need to structure the main question that addresses these points and leads to a solution. The question should cover the action you need to take to overcome the consequences and harness the positives to achieve the main aim of your pitch. Take your time with the pivotal question and refine it well so that it naturally leads to your main strategy.
A-Answer
In this stage, you answer the pivotal questions you asked earlier. Your focus should be on resolving the issues. Moreover, your answers to the questions should be far from complex. They should be clear, short and to the point.
This is the stage where you will be building your strategies, so interrogate all your options against the consequences and complications.
RE- Recommendations and Evidence
In the final stage, your action plan and strategies should include recommendations and evidence that back up your ideas to ensure credibility. Ross Lovelock explains that you have to answer two key questions at this stage - ‘how will I do this?’ and ‘why will I do this?’ Once you’ve ticked these boxes, your business pitch should also address any questions your decision-makers may have about your strategy.
INSIDER INFO: Our Pitch to Win™ workshop teaches you emotional intelligence and assertive communication techniques to land you a YES every time.
Selling an idea can be nerve-wracking but as a leader, making a business case to stakeholders is unavoidable and naturally comes with the leadership role. In these situations, the technical skills you’ve had for years may not help you much with communicating and collaborating with our decision-makers. The first step of perfecting your pitch is improving your presentation skills by structuring your pitch ideas with these principles we’ve discussed. A well-thought structure with a sprinkle of persuasive communication techniques can get you closer to landing the YES you need.
Resources:
https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey/the-pyramid-principle-f0885dd3c5c7
https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey/the-rule-of-3-c1cd82dbc96e
https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/business-management/why-is-business-case-vital
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