The Business Game

Recently I had a luncheon with some funders for a business I’m starting. I knew it wasn’t going to be very difficult. I knew basically what to expect. We would have to go up, tell them what we did and how we were using their money, all the old smoke and mirrors that accompany something like this.

I noticed one thing throughout all of the presentations though. The more “presentable” the presenter was, the more interaction from the funders they received. At the time, I chalked it up to the funders having a better understanding of their projects and knowing what they wanted to ask. That was until one presenter finished. He wore “nice” clothes and had obviously prepared for his presentation. The downside to it? His presentation was awful. He read from slides, barely looked up, stumbled over his phrases. He got the most attention from the funders. I was a little confused by it but brushed it off until I went to lunch with a few people that were also there.

My business was the last one up to present. We went into detail about partnerships that we had been working on and where we wanted to take the business. We got one question. It had nothing to do with the partnerships. It had nothing to do with where we were headed. It was about the method we were going to use to collect dues. The most mundane part of our presentation was the part we were asked about.

As time passed and we were eating lunch, that question kept popping up in my mind and it was frustrating me. What was the difference between our presentation and the horrible one that got more attention? It finally clicked. He played the old school business game. Use the old inefficient way of presenting to play to the funders, who were all from an older generation. The clothes, the boring presentation, the lack of emotion in his speaking. That’s what they wanted. They didn’t want a “good presentation” they wanted a “business presentation”.

I’m not sure how I missed it but once I looked at the generation gap and the region we’re in, I knew that we approached it in the wrong way for that situation. It still confuses me when I think about how the older generation attaches the quality of a job/service/product with the way the people involved with it dress. Somebody less qualified can get further than someone that can do the job just by the way they dress.

This was my first time playing the business game and I guess I lost. I’m not going to tip over the board or never play again though. Now I know what I’ll be up against when I try to “bend the rules” to make things go in my favor without kissing ass or giving up my dignity for the sake of how someone sees me instead of how they see my work.