Perfecting a Business Pitch

Paul Davis

A member of the MBA Connections Facebook group recently asked me to elaborate on how I was able to secure funding from the Wake Forest University Schools of Business to pursue my MBA. 

After taking a few days to reflect on the process, I decided to share my perspective of how I was able to make a successful pitch to Dean Steve Reinemund. I will focus on five key factors: partners, preparation, planning, persistence and precision.

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PARTNERS: I certainly didn't do it alone. As Jim Collins writes in his book, Good to Great, you have to have the right people on the bus.

Vaishali Shah, who is one of the most creative and intelligent people I have ever known (and my better half), motivated and inspired me early on evaluate my strengths. She also challenged me to develop something to offer Wake Forest in exchange for additional funding. I also met with Mark Tosczak, a former co-worker who works in the marketing industry, to discuss the potential of social media. There were several other individuals who served as sounding boards as I developed my idea.

PREPARATION: I knew I had the journalism skills and social media savvy to build a platform, but I had to determine early on whether Wake Forest's business school needed my expertise. I conducted an audit of their social media and identified two deficiencies. The first was inadequate search engine optimization (SEO). For instance, it was difficult to find their original Twitter account (wfubiz) because the handle didn't mention "Wake Forest" or "MBA." 

I also realized that, while numerous students were blogging independently, the business school lacked centralized coordination of those efforts. In order to have a successful pitch, I needed to identify ways to improve on those shortcomings, and my platform needed to provide meaningful value to the university.

PLANNING: Identifying some of the deficiencies in Wake Forest's existing platform gave me a foundation to develop a new system that would be different ... and better. It took a few weeks to sketch out what I wanted to do. I set up a new Twitter account (WakeForestMBA) and created a blog before I had even pitched the platform to Wake Forest. It helps to have something tangible lined up before making a presentation.

I won't go into the high grass details of my pitch, though I envisioned a strategy of using social media to chronicle the overall MBA experience in a way that would galvanize the student body. And I put together a one-page pitch and a PowerPoint presentation to walk school administrators through my thought process.

PERSISTENCE: If you truly believe in an idea, you should be willing to fight hard for it. I initially had difficulty getting Wake Forest to take my plan seriously. It received a lukewarm reception from the Admissions office, where I was seeking extra financial support in exchange for implementing my idea. The Marketing Department quickly took a pass on it. I decided to go for a Hail Mary, sending my pitch directly to Dean Reinemund in hopes of securing a face-to-face meeting.

Photo: Walmart

It worked! A week later, I sat down with the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo and walked him though my vision. I supplemented my pitch with a complete PowerPoint presentation. Though he wasn't completely up to speed on the nuts and bolts of social media, Dean Reinemund understood and appreciated its potential. I felt confident and empowered throughout the meeting.

PRECISION: Near the conclusion of our meeting, Dean Reinemund asked me what it would take to get the platform started. I told him that I would need to enroll at Wake Forest, but I was unable to do so without securing an additional grant. I knew exactly how much I needed, taking into account how much my employer was paying, scholarships, etc.

I believe that such precision showed Dean Reinemund that I had taken everything into account. He informed me that Wake Forest had given out all of its available grants ... but he decided to instruct the marketing department to give me a job to coordinate social media. The pitch worked!

I hope that discussing my quest to implement a new social media strategy at Wake Forest will inspire others who are contemplating their own business plans.