BEAUJOLAIS REPORT AND PRESENTATION

On Thursday, each of the groups presented their recommendations to the professors in the form of a business presentation, using Power Point. Some of the groups took an extremely analytical approach, using "Porter analysis" (what that is I'm not exactly sure), but after these presentations the professor revealed that "for presentations to managers such an approach might work, but with entrepreneurs you have to present things differently."

In the afternoon we had to make a one-minute pitch to the head of Inter-Beaujolais, a union of merchant and growers in the Beaujolais area. We had one minute to sell him an idea of something that he hasn't thought about. That after all, is what the venture capitalists will say when they take you on: tell me something I don't know or haven't already tried.

I took on the responsibility of the presentation. Since two other French colleagues (one an experienced salesman whose presentation skills I learned a lot from, one a human resources manager) had made the longer presentation in the morning, I told them that I would gladly make the shorter sales pitch in the afternoon. After all, this was an exercise and I thought that it would be an excellent experience for me: why not practice now before having to do a real presentation someday?

And so I did it: wrote up a Power Point presentation, practiced a couple times, and then did it in front of the crowd (and more importantly, the head of Inter-Beaujolais.) Oddly enough, it felt a lot like when I was teaching, with me standing in a classroom full of people -- only in this case, a group of adults, some a little more hostile than others.

I hope to make more presentations in the future: that's the only way I'm going to get used to presenting in front of a group of people.

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LINK:

I just dug up the Porter 5 forces analysis on Wikipedia. Enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_5_forces_analysis