Over the past few months working on a pitch for a collective and creative business, I have personally had to learn a lot of in depth information about various industries and what it really takes to set a business up. Learning about business models, markets, competitors, fund raising etc etc has helped to put an element of my future into perspective. Everyone wants to aim big, especially when you strongly believe in your business proposal, however it was really enlightening to find out just how much effort, dedication and funding it takes to be successful and keep a business afloat.
As well as the wealth of knowledge I have learnt, working as part of a team was a key skill that I feel I have mastered throughout the business preparation and pitch presentation. I have personally never felt comfortable in my own ability as an illustrator, therefore I knew going into this that I had extremely low confidence when it comes to working with others and putting my own ideas across as well as inputting my efforts. My specific team members really helped with this hurdle. Instantly my confidence began to build as each team member was completely comfortable with one another, able to put across ideas, speak out and bounce off of each other. We were all able to capitalise on our differences and come up with a business plan which I feel is very strong, with all elements of its set up being distributed evenly across all members of the team.
I suffered with some illness and regrettably missed a few of the key PPP sessions leading up to the final presentation of our "Lemon Collective" business. Luckily I had managed to stay in contact with the whole team via the Facebook chat group we had set up, where the team could keep me up to date with any progress, send files to each other and i was able to see what areas of work I needed to contribute in order to get all our preparations done. I feel despite missing some sessions, I was able to contribute massively to the business idea, slides and overall pitch presentation, hopefully relieving some of the stress from the group and proving I can work well and be committed to the team.
Speaking publicly is another of my weaknesses. I speak extremely fast with little control over how I am coming across to my audience, subconsciously wanting to get it all over with as soon as possible. Working as part of a team helped enormously with this as not wanting to let the members down and also wanting to communicate an idea for a business I was proud of, meant I consciously wanted the presentation to be successful and began to enjoy its delivery after the first few slide nerves. It also helps to be up in-front of the audience as part of a group effort, however any confidence i can build within myself at this stage when talking in-front of people is great and will hopefully help me in the solo PPP presentation at the end of level 5.
I think my personal strengths in the lead up to our final presentation, were the visuals and mock-ups created for the slides. I did input research when completing both of the "Growth & Expansion" and "Customer Base" slides, however i most enjoyed visualising our business in terms of promotion and merchandise/products. Seeing our logo work really well as part of a larger business concept, made the whole process seem real and a viable way to set ourselves up as a collective. The process of creating visuals, mock ups and illustration for our business pitch also opened my eyes to an area of illustration in industry. I may not be a part of the business and what is being proposed, but I can see how my skills as an illustrator with visual input can be used and overall vital to a business pitch and startup.
Overall I think the delivery of our business concept and final presentation went really well. I have really enjoyed working as part of a strong team for "Life's a Pitch" and it was nice to see all of our planning and ideas come together for Lemon Collective. If I could have the chance to do the presentation itself again, I would have liked to have taken extra time to prepare for its delivery and for it to have lasted longer. I am aware that the overall presentation was shorter than the requested 10 minutes, which was a disappointment. However I do think that we had enough input, slides and information to make the presentation last longer, our nerves and presenting first just got the better of us on the day.
Presentation Feedback
The feedback received from members of the audience after our presentation were all positive and a relief to hear. The amount of research we as a group had done in order to outline our 5 year plan as well as giving an insight into our competitors, promotional ideas, property and customer base were all highlighted as strengths in our presentation.
It was mentioned that we had put a lot of effort into the slide aesthetics with our own illustrations and that our concept and manifesto were strong and exciting.
"Would the audience like to be customers of the Lemon Collective"
Audience answer "YES!!!"