You will produce a presentation outline for a real or practice buyer built only from discovery notes.
You have a presentation with a real buyer on Thursday. Your discovery notes are good, the buyer confirmed your summary, and you know roughly what you want to say. The temptation is to open the company deck and start editing. Two hours later you have thirty slides, a buyer's logo on the cover, and the same presentation you always give.
This exercise does it the other way round. You build the outline only from your discovery notes, then time it and cut. You will need your notes or written summary from one discovery meeting, a blank page and a timer. Allow about forty minutes. The worked example is Priya, the bookkeeper, preparing for her meeting with Joel, who runs two cafes in Tiong Bahru.
The first section is the buyer's situation played back, ending in a check question, as in lesson 1.1, Start the presentation with the buyer's own situation. Take it straight from the summary the buyer confirmed. Use their words.
Priya's opening, written from the summary she sent after discovery: "Here's what you told me. You run two cafes in Tiong Bahru, and you and your wife do the books on Sunday nights, five or six hours a week. The two outlets close up differently, and you can't always tell if a gap in the till is a mistake or something worse. Your accountant needs clean records by the end of February. You want your Sundays back and a till that matches the sales every week. Is that still right, or has anything changed?"
Write yours out in full. It should take about two minutes to say.
Now list the problems the buyer confirmed. Give each one its own short section with three parts: the solution part that addresses it, what changes for the buyer, and one piece of proof chosen as in lesson 1.2, Choose proof that matches this buyer.
Priya's notes have two confirmed problems.
Problem one is the Sunday nights. Solution part: she takes over the monthly books for both outlets, from receipts and bank feeds. What changes: Joel and his wife stop doing the books on Sundays. Proof: a property agency owner who handed over his books to her two years ago and still does.
Problem two is not trusting the tills. Solution part: a weekly till reconciliation for each outlet, with gaps flagged by Monday. What changes: Joel knows every week whether the tills match the sales. Proof: the bakery with three outlets, whose gaps stopped by month three.
The accountant's deadline is not a separate problem, but it shapes the start date, so Priya notes it for Step 3.
Then check for anything in your outline that does not link to a problem. Priya had planned to mention her payroll service. Joel never raised payroll, so it goes.
Buyers want to know what happens if they say yes. Add a short section with the first steps and dates. Keep it concrete and honest about what you need from them.
Priya's version: week one, Joel sends access to the bank accounts and the till reports. Weeks two and three, she brings the records up to date for the accountant. The first weekly till report arrives on the Monday of week four. She writes real dates beside each step, counting back from the end of February so the accountant's deadline is met with time to spare.
Now say the whole outline out loud with a timer running. Do not read it silently, because silent reading is always faster than speaking, and the gap is bigger than most people expect.
The target is about twenty minutes, which leaves the rest of a typical one-hour meeting for questions, concerns and a decision. Priya's first run took twenty-nine minutes. She found three places to cut:
The story about how she started her business, which Joel had not asked about A second piece of proof under problem one, when one was enough A long explanation of bank feeds, which she replaced with one sentence and an offer to show it if Joel wanted
Her second run took twenty-one minutes. Close enough.
If you are still well over after cutting, look for a solution part you are explaining in too much detail. The buyer needs to understand what changes, not every step of how you do it. Save the detail for their questions.
A finished outline fits on one or two pages. It opens with the buyer's situation in their words and a check question. It has one section per confirmed problem, each with a solution part, what changes and one matched piece of proof. It ends with how working together would start, with dates. It has no section that does not trace back to something the buyer said, and when you say it aloud it runs close to twenty minutes.
Attach the problem and solution map from lesson 1.1 to the outline. Together they form the module's capstone, and you will reuse the opening paragraph when you write the proposal in module 2.
Pick the buyer you will use now, open their discovery notes, and start the activity below with the playback.
Write the outline for one buyer, time a run-through out loud, and cut until it fits twenty minutes.
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