How to Write a Winning M&A Management Presentation

Are you looking for a new owner, scale-up funding or new financing for your business? If so, you need to invest in creating the best M&A management presentation your prospective investor has seen.

Really effective management presentations are like great CVs. They won’t get you the job, but they make the right impression to get you through the door, into the board room and onto the agenda. Great management presentations do this by making your audience want to find out more.

Every management team and business is different. That means there’s no simple template or formula that you can copy for your management presentation. Don’t believe people who tell you there is!

We’ve pulled these seven tips from the 15+ years’ experience of the team at Benjamin Ball Associates. Our management presentation coaching specialists have reviewed thousands of management presentations, and we know that small changes make a big difference. Incorporating these tips can make the difference between getting relegated to the ‘no’ pile, or having an investor take the next step to investing with you.

How to write a winning management presentation

1. Your management presentation should sell the investment, not your product

2. Keep your M&A management presentation simple

3. Be clear what makes you special in your presentation

4. Don’t let your management presentation be boring

5. Appeal to the heart AND the head in your management presentation

6. Be honest in your management presentation

7. Show, don’t tell

Best management presentation tip #1: Sell the investment, not the product

Investors are selfish. Your product may well change the world, but the investor is primarily thinking about their own risk and reward. This means that when they listen to you, they are subconsciously asking the question: ‘what does this mean for me’?

The best management presentations present everything in an investor-first context.

• So instead of slides that talk about your plans and ambitions, frame the information in terms of how those plans and ambitions will impact your investor’s returns.
• Instead of listing your team’s background, demonstrate how that background makes you a safe pair of hands for a new owner.
• Got great sales forecasts? Show how those forecasts will translate into rewards for investors.

Grab and hold their attention by using the language of M&A and investment and focusing on the things that matter most to potential buyers.  Read how to create a great pitch document.

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Best management presentations tip #2: Keep it simple

Investors don’t put their cash into opportunities they don’t understand. If you present a concept in a difficult or complicated way, the mental exertion feels painful or makes them uneasy. Investors associate this with a negative gut instinct about you or your opportunity. That road leads to a ‘no’.

Instead, make the investment proposition easy to grasp. Clarity and ease of mental digestion feels good – That means investors will associate positive feelings with you and your opportunity.

So how do you transform a complex business into a simple management presentation?

When Steve Jobs was trying in 1990 to explain the impact that computers would have on the world, he spoke about bicycles. He described how humans are inefficient movers compared to many other animals on the planet. A human on a bicycle, though, can move even more efficiently than a condor. And a computer is like a bicycle for the human mind.

This analogy used a familiar concept (bicycles) to make an unfamiliar concept (computers in 1990) relatable. Analogies are one of several tools that help communicate complex ideas more effectively. Others are metaphors, similes and stories. No matter how complicated or abstract your product is, there is a way of presenting it in a simple, visual and engaging way. Use these ideas in your management presentations.

Best M&A management presentations tip #3: Be clear what makes you special

We find management is frequently too close to their business to uncover the red thread that needs to run through their management presentation to make it exciting for investors. That’s where we help them discover their red thread and turn in into a seam of gold. What is the secret sauce that drives your success? Perhaps it’s your team, your IP, your connections or your track record? 

The best management presentations focus relentlessly on their unique advantage.
They demonstrate why it will contribute to the business’s success and how the team will leverage it.

One of our clients, a London-based block chain developer, used this idea to their advantage. Their original pitch had confused what they had done, the market, their technology, their products and the potential of the business. In all, it was unclear what the business did and why investors should be excited. For their management presentation, we helped them identify the red thread and then turn it into a few clear messages that ran through the presentation. The result was a compelling investment story that has taken them to the next level. 

Learn how to create a powerful equity story.

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Best management presentation tip #4: Don’t be boring

• Crowded slides?
• Long blocks of text?
• Lists of bullet points?
• Bland headings?
• Weak design?

If your management presentation pitch deck looks as boring as everyone else’s, then investors will not get excited about meeting you. The best management presentation pitch decks are easy to read. They grab interest from the start, avoid jargon and use engaging language. They arouse interest through compelling headlines.

Investors should be able to flick through your management presentation pitch deck and understand your key points just from reading your slide headings. But those headings should also be different and intriguing enough that investors want to find out more. For example, instead of naming one of your slides ‘About Us’ or ‘Our Team’, choose a headline that reinforces your key message.

If your business is about running rock festivals, your headline for the team section of your deck could be ‘Ten Years’ Combined Experience of Running Profitable Events’. If you manufacture widgets that draw on your experience working with the inventor of the leading vacuum cleaner, your headline could be ‘James Dyson’s Protégé’. Finally, the best management presentations are often professionally designed with plenty of white space and relevant visuals. Don’t let amateur design let you down.

Best management presentation tip #5: Appeal to the heart as well as the head

Stories are an incredibly effective way to bypass investors’ heads and reach straight for their hearts. Instead of delivering plain facts in your management presentation (which are quickly forgotten), provide them within the context of a story.

• Identify the problem (the ‘villain’ of your story) and then
• Introduce your solution (the ‘hero’ of your story).
• Show what happens after the hero takes action, and
• Lay out the consequences of that action (or the consequences if that action doesn’t happen).

Perhaps your product is a small security device that alerts friends and family when you need help. Your presentation could focus on the software behind the invention. You could talk about how easy it is to set up. You can list the features and benefits. Or you could share what it’s like to feel safe and connected. You could show a video of someone whose life was saved, and how he or she felt when help came running – thanks to your device. That’s what great management presentations feel like.

When you trigger your buyer’s emotions, they become invested in your business and in you. Your management presentation becomes memorable and shareable. Remember: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Start Improving Your Management Presentation Today

Best M&A management presentation tip #6: Be honest

The best management presentations are from teams who don’t pretend to be perfect. Teams admit their mistakes, but also what they’ve learnt from them. They don’t hide their strategy changes, but instead share why and how they changed their approach, and the impact this has had. They have the confidence and self-awareness to be honest. As a result, investors see them as being trustworthy and having integrity and credibility.

Investors know there’s no perfect opportunity, there’s no perfect team, there’s no risk-free reward. So they are – rightly – wary of management teams that claim to offer any of these. Equally, if it appears that you’re trying to hide or mislead them, the investor will start to question everything else about you. To avoid this, be explicit about the data backing up your track record and the methodology used for your forecasts. Address doubts in your management presentation instead of creating them.

Best management presentation tip #7: Show, don’t tell

In your management presentation, Instead of describing how your product works, embed (or link to) a short film or screen-capture showing how it works. Instead of stating that your product changes people’s lives, include screenshots of customer reviews in which people say they will never be the same again. You could say that your product or service is different, but it’s much more powerful to show it, with mock-ups, testimonials and clippings from your industry’s trade press. 

A few years ago we helped a diamond mining company raise money from investors in London. To back up the powerful pitch deck that we helped them create, for their management presentation we suggested they bring a raw diamond into their meeting. Why? Firstly, few investors will have ever handled a raw diamond. Secondly, it allowed the management team to bring the business to life with stories:

• How often a diamond of that size was found,

• How many tons of rock they had to move to find that diamond,

• At what depth they found it, and

• What they did about safely and security.

This one small prop transformed the quality of their presentation and made it much easier for the team to raise the money they needed to expand the business.

Transform your M&A management presentation

Call us, you’ll get  practical, easy-to-implement advice that will help you to grab investors’ attention, impress them and get you invited in for that vital face-to-face management presentation. You’ll benefit from our 15+ years experience transforming management presentations. Then, ahead of  the meeting, we help you rehearse the management meeting so that you come across as just the right team to help the investors achieve their investment objectives.

We do this every day for scale-ups, quoted companies and private equity firms. 

Call Louise today on +44 (0)20 7018 0922 or email louise@benjaminball.com to discuss how we can best help you.

Start Improving Your Management Presentation Today

About Benjamin Ball Associates

At Benjamin Ball Associates, we help clients to communicate better.

Over 15+ years the award-winning BBA team has improved hundreds of investor pitches globally. You get access to a transformational toolbox of techniques to help you become a clear, confident communicator.

We’ll help you create a powerful first impression that hooks and engages your investors immediately, and we’ll transform you to deliver clearly, confidently and with impact.

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email louise@benjaminball.com to find out more and discuss your investor pitch.

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