Introduction to the team

You have now started your pitch, with the announcement of your project topic/framework summarised in one sentence. But people still don’t know you. This is when you should introduce yourself and your team. You might decide to make this presentation at a later stage, but it is good to proceed to this introduction at an early stage so your audience gets to know you better from the beginning.

Once this lesson is completed and approved, learners will be able to:

1. Introduce themselves

2. Introduce the people working with them

In this lesson, we will learn how to make a team presentation that enlightens its strengths and capacity to develop the project presented in the pitch.

1. Who you are?

You might be the only representative of your project on stage, but you need to show to your audience that you are not the only one involved in it. So here you should introduce yourself: “hello, my name is XX” and also name the rest of your team members. Depending on your situation, you will adapt your presentation:

2. If your team is physically present during the pitch

If you have a small team and that others can also attend the pitch, it might be a good idea to have more than one person participating in your presentation. It can be good for the audience to see several members of the team taking the floor and show the variety of profiles participating in the project. However, avoid having 10 or 20 people on stage, which would only add confusion. You have a very limited time, so you should have no more than 2 or 3 speakers to present the project.

3. You are the single representative of your team during the pitch

Then, you will make the presentation for everyone. Start with introducing yourself. Then, if you use a digital support, an option would be to show a picture of other team members, so your audience can put a face on them.

4. You don’t have a team

You always have a team, you are maybe just not aware of it. Even if you are engaged alone in this venture, a project always involves third people with whom you will have shared your ideas to build up your project. Even if you are not officially engaged in a collaboration, it can be good to mention them, showing that you are already receiving external support that inspires you to develop a strong project.

4. our team is big

If you represent a big team, you can not name each member one after the other, so you should just make a general presentation telling:

• How much you are

• General background and expertise.

2. Your team reflects your value

The launch of a new project, entrepreneurship initiative, and more if it is creative, is full of uncertainties and changes. If about 9 over 10 new businesses fail, this is especially the case in the creative industry which is characterised by constant evolution. Also, only the most capable and prepared team will be able to overcome the falls, and will be good enough to reach the expected success. /p>

While presenting your team, what you are presenting goes beyond individuals working together, what you are providing here is the proof that you have the necessary skills to achieve your objectives.

Your pitch is presenting something that is not developed yet, and for which you need support. But people won’t trust you and give you this support unless you tell them that you indeed have the capacity to implement your project.

This is why your introduction of your team should include:

• An introductory word explaining how this team was brought together. Name of key members and roles

• How it provides complementary skills that answer to your project needs

• Brief word on expertise and technical fields covered (but here again, avoid jargon, so take care of keeping this part understandable), professional background.

• Key previous experiences and achievements of the team. It is good to know that you already have previous successes, as individuals or a team, this will increase the trust people can have in you. So you should here mention the major asset of your key members. If some of you have previous experience in a big company or successful startup, it will give you additional points. If you all have a junior profile, you might insist on the relevant virtues of your members.

• Last but not least: the capacity of collaboration of these individuals to work as a team and commitment toward the project. Your team should be more than the sum of different individuals, it is a fully operational team working closely to collaborate to reach your common goals.

As we are talking about pitching, this exercise should be synthesized into the maximum, so you should get to the most relevant points only, and avoid dedicating more than 2 or 3 sentences to this presentation.

For instance:

Hello, my name is XX, and I represent XX project’s team today. Our team is made of X members, working together for more than 10 years, and who are all professional from the video and IT sector with long time experience, being awarded on several occasions by XX.

Conclusion

Properly introducing your team is a revelator of your internal strength. It will show your audience that you have the capacity to carry on with your objective and that you are the best people to do so.

Here you have the contents of the lesson in PDF: