The Executive Pitch

The best AI ideas die in conference rooms every day—not because they're bad ideas, but because they're poorly pitched. In this lab, you'll develop a complete executive pitch for an AI initiative, including stakeholder analysis, objection handling, and presentation materials.

What you'll create:

• A comprehensive stakeholder map
• A one-page executive summary
• A pitch deck
• Objection response playbook
• A 5-minute verbal pitch script

Choose Your Scenario

Option A: Real Initiative Use an actual AI opportunity in your organization—something you'd genuinely like to propose.

Option B: Retail/Commerce Scenario Propose an AI initiative for a retail company:

SCENARIO: Regional Retailer

COMPANY PROFILE
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Company: HomeGoods Plus
Industry: Home goods retail
Locations: 85 stores across 12 states
Revenue: $420M annually
Employees: 2,800
E-commerce: 22% of revenue, growing 18% YoY

CURRENT CHALLENGES
• Customer service tickets up 34% YoY
• Average response time: 18 hours
• CSAT score: 72% (industry avg: 78%)
• Support team fully staffed, hitting capacity
• Peak seasons cause 3-4 day response delays

OPPORTUNITY
Implement AI-assisted customer service to:
• Reduce first-response time
• Handle routine inquiries automatically
• Free agents for complex issues
• Improve CSAT scores

CONSTRAINTS
• Limited IT team (5 people)
• Risk-averse leadership
• Previous chatbot failure (2022)
• Union considerations for support staff
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Option C: Create Your Own Define a different retail/commerce AI initiative that interests you.

Document Your Initiative

INITIATIVE DEFINITION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Initiative Name: _________________________

Problem Statement:
[What problem does this solve? Who feels the pain?]

Proposed Solution:
[What AI capability would you implement?]

Expected Value:
[What outcomes would you achieve?]

Initial Scope:
[What's the bounded first phase?]
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Identify Your Stakeholders

List everyone who has influence over or interest in this initiative:

STAKEHOLDER INVENTORY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

DECISION MAKERS (Can say yes or no)
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________

INFLUENCERS (Shape the decision)
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________

AFFECTED PARTIES (Impacted by the change)
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________

POTENTIAL BLOCKERS (Could derail the initiative)
Name/Role: _________________________
Name/Role: _________________________
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Create Your Influence Map

For each key stakeholder, assess:

Develop Stakeholder Strategies

For your 3 most critical stakeholders:

STAKEHOLDER STRATEGY 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Stakeholder: _________________________
Current Position: _________________________

What they care about:
• _________________________
• _________________________

What they fear:
• _________________________
• _________________________

Strategy to move them:
• _________________________
• _________________________

Key message for them:
_________________________________________
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Repeat for stakeholders 2 and 3.

Create a One-Page Executive Summary

AI INITIATIVE: [Name]
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THE OPPORTUNITY
[2-3 sentences: What's the problem and why does it matter now?]

THE SOLUTION
[2-3 sentences: What are you proposing?]

EXPECTED VALUE
┌──────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┐
│ Metric           │ Target                        │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┤
│                  │                               │
│                  │                               │
│                  │                               │
└──────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘

INVESTMENT
• Pilot cost: $_________ (90 days)
• Annual run rate: $_________ (if scaled)
• Team: [Who's involved]

TIMELINE
• Pilot: [Start] to [End]
• Decision point: [Date]
• Scale (if approved): [Start]

RISK MANAGEMENT
• Key risk: [Risk] → Mitigation: [Approach]
• Key risk: [Risk] → Mitigation: [Approach]

THE ASK
[One sentence: What do you need approval for?]

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Anticipate Objections

Based on your stakeholder analysis, identify the objections you'll face:

OBJECTION PLAYBOOK
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OBJECTION 1: _________________________
Who will raise it: _________________________
Their underlying concern: _________________________

Response:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

Evidence/example to cite:
_________________________________________
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

OBJECTION 2: _________________________
Who will raise it: _________________________
Their underlying concern: _________________________

Response:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

Evidence/example to cite:
_________________________________________
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OBJECTION 3: _________________________
Who will raise it: _________________________
Their underlying concern: _________________________

Response:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

Evidence/example to cite:
_________________________________________
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OBJECTION 4: _________________________
Who will raise it: _________________________
Their underlying concern: _________________________

Response:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

Evidence/example to cite:
_________________________________________
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OBJECTION 5: _________________________
Who will raise it: _________________________
Their underlying concern: _________________________

Response:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

Evidence/example to cite:
_________________________________________
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Create a 6-Slide Deck Outline

Structure your pitch deck:

SLIDE 1: THE PROBLEM
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Headline: [Problem statement in 8 words or less]

Key data points:
• [Stat that shows problem magnitude]
• [Stat that shows urgency]
• [Stat that shows impact]

Visual: [What image/chart would make this real?]
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SLIDE 2: THE COST OF INACTION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Headline: [What happens if we do nothing?]

Key points:
• [Financial cost]
• [Competitive risk]
• [Operational impact]

Visual: [Trend line, comparison, or projection]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SLIDE 3: THE SOLUTION
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Headline: [What you're proposing in 8 words or less]

How it works:
• [Step 1]
• [Step 2]
• [Step 3]

Visual: [Simple diagram of the solution]
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SLIDE 4: THE VALUE
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Headline: [Primary value proposition]

ROI table:
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ Investment    │ Year 1 Value  │ ROI           │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│               │               │               │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Additional benefits:
• [Benefit 2]
• [Benefit 3]
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SLIDE 5: THE PLAN
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Headline: [90-day pilot to prove value]

Timeline:
Week 1-2: [Setup]
Week 3-10: [Execution]
Week 11-12: [Evaluation]

Key milestones:
• [Milestone 1: Date]
• [Milestone 2: Date]
• [Decision point: Date]
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SLIDE 6: THE ASK
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Headline: [What you need from them]

The ask:
• Approval for: [Scope]
• Investment: [Amount]
• Resources: [People/access]
• Decision by: [Date]

Success criteria:
• [How we'll know it worked]
• [What triggers scale vs. stop]
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Write Your 5-Minute Pitch Script

THE 5-MINUTE PITCH
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[0:00-0:30] HOOK
Start with the problem in human terms.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[0:30-1:00] PROBLEM MAGNITUDE
Make it real with data.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[1:00-1:30] COST OF INACTION
What happens if we don't act?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[1:30-2:30] THE SOLUTION
What you're proposing and how it works.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[2:30-3:30] THE VALUE
What we get and why it's worth it.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[3:30-4:00] THE PLAN
Bounded pilot, clear milestones.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[4:00-4:30] THE ASK
Specific request with timeline.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

[4:30-5:00] CLOSE
End strong, invite questions.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
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Create a complete Executive Pitch Package:

1. Stakeholder Analysis (Part 2)

   • Stakeholder inventory
   • Influence map
   • Stakeholder strategies for top 3

2. Executive Summary (Part 3)

   • One-page summary ready for email/pre-read

3. Objection Playbook (Part 4)

   • 5 anticipated objections with responses

4. Pitch Deck Outline (Part 5)

   • 6-slide structure with content

5. Verbal Pitch Script (Part 6)

   • 5-minute script, timed

Practice the Pitch

1. Use an AI assistant to role-play your pitch
2. Have the AI play different skeptic personas:
   • The risk-averse CFO
   • The burned IT leader
   • The threatened department head
3. Practice your objection responses
4. Refine your pitch based on what you learn

Record yourself delivering the pitch and review for:

• Confidence and clarity
• Time management
• Handling of objections
• Strength of close