The CEO introduced himself; then, one-by-one, he introduced the members of his team. They sat side-by-side at the conference table, each clad in business attire, each with a Franklin Planner deployed and ready. On cue, each said a word or two about his or her background.
Then the CEO came to the last member of the team. “This,” he said, “is D.F. Krause.”
Needless to say, this was some years back. I know it’s hard to believe, but I wasn’t always a CEO, and I didn’t always own my own business. That means someone in the past actually thought I would make a good employee.
And so I presented my background, qualifications and the role I’d play on the account team should we be chosen. One of seven-strong, I went along like the rest of the good little doobies to show the prospect that yes, we had depth and strength and, if chosen, we wouldn’t fail.
There were just so many of us.
Ever since those days, I’ve hated presentations—especially capabilities presentations—and especially capabilities presentations where you bring as many bodies as you can just to show your “depth.”
Let me explain why this is always a bad idea. First are the reasons it may keep you from getting the account:
• A cabal of team members is, most likely, going to consist of one of two combinations. It’ll either span the seniority scale from top-level executives to entry-level peons, or it will be top-heavy with executive types. Clients don’t like either combination. With the former, they suspect (accurately in most cases) the peons will do most of the work. With the latter, they figure there’s no way all these execs are going to form a team to work on their issues. You’ve shown them numbers, but you haven’t shown them how they’re going to get anything useful out of it.
• A presentation team is as good as its worst presenter. If you bring seven people to a presentation, one is going to be the worst. And, given that most people aren’t blessed with public speaking skills, your worst presenter may be very bad indeed. You may know that and may try to compensate by having your worst presenter just sit there and smile. That’s even worse. Now you’ve told the client this person has nothing to contribute—yet the client can imagine Silent Sam nevertheless billing hours against the account.
Those are bad. This is worse: In spite of everything, you might still win the account. Now you have a disaster on your hands. Why? Because, as dumb as it seems, some people are clueless enough to be impressed by numbers, and you’ve apparently just stumbled upon one of them. Guess what. You’re not going to like this. The client now thinks there’s nothing you can’t do. No request is unreasonable. No turnaround time is unrealistic. Look at all those people you have!
By telling the client you have seven people who will add to their billings, you advertised you’re poorly managing your overhead. You got away with it, but now you can’t say “no” to any request, any timeline or any expected result.
It gets worse. You had everyone at the presentation give a business card to everyone on the client side. Guess what? The client plans to copy every single one of them on every account-related email, no matter how irrelevant, sensitive, lengthy or laden with megabyte-eating attachments. This is crucial, of course, to keep every member of the team up to speed on everything, especially since the client will be expecting to see all of them at every monthly review meeting. Those will start at 8 a.m., and the client will order box lunches. Aren’t you glad you won the account?
Admit it! You never planned for more than two people to work on it. You brought along the other five to make yourself look bigger than you really are. Now you’re screwed.
This is a common trap of the capabilities presentation. Take five competitors in any industry, and it’s unlikely that one is substantially different from the others. So you seek ways to make yourself look bigger and stronger than you really are and you end up succeeding.
Capabilities presentations are often conducted when there isn’t even a piece of business to be given out, but the purchasing people just want to know who’s out there to call when they need something.
What’s the harm in that? Nothing if you keep it in perspective. The CEO in the presentation described—my last boss—opened the presentation announcing, “I’ve been wanting to get into your company for 10 years!”
Oops! This was actually a groveling session disguised as a capabilities presentation.
I may be crazy (shut it!), but I refuse to take part in capabilities presentations. I tell companies I want our meeting agenda to be about their strategic needs, and once I hear about those, we can discuss how our capabilities might be applied to meet them. If you’re dealing with the purchasing department of a huge company, they’ll take a pass, because they have no idea what the company’s strategic needs are. They’re just looking for ways to get stuff cheap.
On the other hand, I might actually end up having a useful conversation with someone.
Regardless, I simply can’t do the suit-and-tie-business-card-Franklin-Planner routine as part of a mini-invasion of some company just because I’m trying to show off my numbers.
My capabilities? I’ve managed to stay in business for eight years despite having no apparent qualifications whatsoever. Just think what I could do for you!
