All posts by Eric Dayal

Sales-Pitch-Presentation-Deck.pptx

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This is a very basic sales pitch presentation deck that can be used for a small or medium sized company’s sales pitch. It includes the basic structure of a sales presentation, and leaves room for you to fill things in for your company.

The fundamentals of a sales presentation pitch deck are included in here:
– About Our Company
– What We Do (product/service overview)
– Product Options and High Level Pricing
– Product Demonstration (placeholder slide)
– Our Clients (noteworthy current customers that build your credibility)
– Details (smaller points that reinforce credibility, such as a Better Business Bureau rating, security of payment transactions, data encryption, years in business, etc)
– Next Steps (next steps of the buying process on the prospect’s side and your actions to support them. Filling out the table together at the end of the presentation helps build commitment on the prospect’s side).

Cost-of-Sale-Calculator.xlsx

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This spreadsheet provides two models for calculating the cost of sale for a revenue channel of a business.

The first model calculates costs through Contriubtion Margin.  It starts with an estimate of the lifetime value of a customer.  Next, Cost of Goods Sold and Marketing Acquisition Cost are subtracted out.  Then, the Sales Cost and Account Management costs are subtracted out.  Each of these cells reference other tabs itemizing costs such as salary, commission, benefits, software licenses, office space cost, etc. 

The sales cost is estimated by taking all of these costs and multiplying them across the number of sales people, then dividing it by the number of deals they close in a given month. This provides the cost per deal.

The account management cost (or client services cost) is calculated by taking the similar costs and breaking it down to an hourly rate for the account manager.  This is multiplied by the number of hours the account manager spends on a given account throughout the average life of an account to provide a cost per account.

The net of this model provides amount that is contributed back to the business (contribution margin) from this particular revenue channel.

The other model provides net margin per deal.  It also starts with the average lifetime value of the account and subtracts out COGS and marketing acquisition cost.  Then, instead of subtracting itemized sales and account management costs, it subtracts out the company Operating Expense (OpEx), as a percent of revenue.  Using this model, it is subtracting out operating costs associated with the entire company instead of just the revenue channel generating the revenue. The result is net profit per new account signed expressed in both dollars and as a percent of revenue.

Project-Checklist.docx

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This document is a standard project checklist to use as you plan, organize and kickoff your project.  When launching a project, there are many things to be done and it is easy to forget some important and critical steps.  This project checklist helps you ensure you have all the major things covered.

The project checklist includes line items for high level tasks such as project goals, objectives, and a kickoff meeting.  It also includes more detailed items like scheduling regular stakeholder update meetings and preparing training materials.  

Enter your project name in the header, then click the checkbox in the project checklist to mark an item as completed. 

FMEA-Template.xlsx

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This FMEA Template (Failure mode and effects analysis) is built in Excel and automatically calculates the RPN score for you.  The FMEA is intended to help mitigate risk with a process, product or project. 

To begin using the FMEA template, identify all of the process steps or functions associated with your process or project.  Enter all of these into Column B of the template.  Next, identify potential failures (or problems) that can occur at each of these steps and enter them into Column C.  Also, identify the effects or impacts of each failure occurring and enter that into Column D.  Try to identify causes of the potential failures and enter them into Column F.  In Column H, enter any existing controls that are in place to address each of the potential failures you have identified. 

To complete the blue section of the FMEA template, you will need to assign Severity (Column E), Probability (Column G) and Detectability (Column I) scores for each potential failure.  Use a scale from 1-10 for each of these scores.  For Severity, 1 is not at all severe and 10 is extremely severe.  For Probability, 1 indicates not at all likely to occur, and 10 indicates certainty that it will occur.  For Detectability, 1 indicates it is very easy to detect and 10 indicates it is very difficult to detect (note this one may be opposite of what you expect). 

Once you enter all of these scores, the Risk Priority Number (RPN) will be calculated for you.  The RPN is calculated by multiplying the Severity times the Probability times the Detectability.  Items with the highest RPN should be addressed first.

To complete the green section, enter recommended actions to address the cause of the potential failure and assign an Owner to carry them out.  Once the actions are completed, enter them into Column M.  After actions have been completed, enter the new Severity, Probability and Detectability into Columns N, O and P.  A New RPN score will be calculated for you in Column Q. If you have properly addressed the cause of the potential failure, the New RPN should be much lower than the original RPN.

One-Page-Project-Charter.pptx

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This one page project charter is built in Powerpoint.  Project charters are typically very lengthy documents describing the background of the project, different options considered, detailed scope statements, etc.  The One Page Project Charter is meant to be a summary of the most important components of the charter in a single page.  For large projects, it is used in addition to a full project charter.  For small projects, it’s used in place of it.

The template includes sections to document:

  • Project Name
  • Project Description
  • Target Date
  • Costs
  • Gains
  • Project Team
  • Key Milestones

The One Page project Charter is also useful for communicating with an executive audience that is not interested in all of the minute details

Microsoft-Project-Example.mpp

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Microsoft Project Plan

This Microsoft Project Example is a Project Plan for an IT project involving data loads from a front end website into back end ERP systems.  The Microsoft Project Example highlights the following:

  • Grouping of Tasks in a hierarchical fashion
  • Resource Allocation and Resource Leveling
  • Work hours assigned and Confidence in estimates
  • Task Prioritization and Task Flexibility
  • Task Categorization
  • Predecessors to show which tasks are dependent on the completion of others
  • Estimated Start and Finish Dates

The MS Project example also shows the Gantt Chart with the tasks, duration, predecessors and resources.  The project plan accounts for gathering requirements, designing the solution, testing, implementation and training.

Test-Plan-Template-Excel.xlsx

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This Test Plan Template (Excel) is intended for the testing of software and information systems.  It is useful to prepare the Test Plan well ahead of testing and should be reviewed by the project or product manager, as well as others who have gathered the requirements.

The Test Plan Template contains separate tabs for each set of features to be tested.  Each row in a tab is a test case to be performed, and has a place to document the Expected Result as well as the Actual Result.  The Status of each row should be populated with “Pass” or “Fail” upon completion of the test case.  This will automatically highlight the row green or red.  Test data used in each test case should also be recorded in the test case row for future reference.  For any test case that fails, the details of the error or failure should be recorded in the Comments column.

Since the test plan template is built in Excel, the Overview tab is able to automatically calculate the number of cases Passed, Failed, and Remaining, as well as percentages for each.  The “Test Summary” at the top of each tab is also automatically calculated and does not need any manual editing.  The change log, reference material, overview, etc is also maintained on the Overview tab.  

Porters-Five-Forces-Example.pptx

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Porters Five Forces is a model used for analyzing the competitive environment of an industry.  This Porters Five Forces Example is for the PC Industry (personal computer) in 2008.  The five forces in Porter's model are:

  • Industry Competition/Rivalry – most notably identified by the level of price competition and product introductions.  
  • Suppliers – exert power by raising prices or making switching costs high.  Suppliers are most powerful when there are only a few key players.
  • Buyers – exert power by forcing prices down.  Buyers are most powerful when they are the primary customer for a company or when the product they are purchasing is a commodity.  
  • Potential Entrants – the threat of potential entrants is highest when there are no significant barriers to entry into the industry.  High profits attract new entrants to the industry.
  • Substitutes – The threat of substitutes is a concern when a new product or service might meet the same need better, faster or cheaper.  

The first slide in this Porters Five Forces example highlights the strength of each force in the PC Industry by the color of the box.  Red represents a strong force, orange a medium force, and green a weak force.  The comments on the slide describe the analysis in more detail.  

The second slide illustrates recommended strategies for a firm competing in the 2008 PC industry with the given competitive environment.  Strategies are indicated in blue, and expected benefits of the strategy are indicated in the lighter blue color.  Further analysis is described in the comments of the slide.  

Porters Five Forces analysis was initially introduced by Michael Porter of Harvard Business School in 1979.  It can be used to assess the attractiveness of an industry, as well as identify and develop business strategies for existing players.  This analysis in this example is intended for an existing player in the 2008 PC Industry.  

Household-Budget-Template.xlsx

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This is a Household Budget Template in Excel designed for monthly income and expense planning.

The left hand side in green allows you to enter all sources of income and how many times you receive each one per month.  This would include things like your paycheck, investment income, interest from savings accounts, child support, and social security (if you’re retired).

The right hand side in red allows you to enter all of your expenses and how many times you pay them per month.  Expenses would include things like rent, utilities, car payments, insurance, and other bills.

The monthly income and expense totals are also calculated automatically for your household budget.  The Remaining Cash section at the bottom in blue subtracts the total expenses from the total income to show you how much money you will have left each month after all of your expenses are paid.

This household budget template can be used for families with one or multiple incomes, or roommates sharing an apartment or house.

PERT-Project-Plan-Template-with-Expected-Time-Calculation.xlsx

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This Project Plan Template has a built in calculation for Expected Time using the Program Evaluation and Review Technique, or PERT.  

A full PERT Project Plan template would include additional components such as the critical path definition, a Gantt Chart, etc.  Other tools, such as Microsoft Project, are preferred over Excel for that type of work.  This PERT template is intended to incorporate the Expected Time calculation from the PERT Project Management method.

Expected Time is calculated based on three different estimates of time for a single task of work.  The first estimate is the Optimistic Time, or the minimum amount of time to complete the task.  It assumes everything proceeds better than is normally expected.  The next estimate is the Pessimistic Time.  This is the maximum amount of time required to complete the task and assumes that many things go wrong.  The final estimate is the Most Likely Time. This is the best estimate of time to complete the task and assumes that everything proceeds as normal.

The Expected Time is then calculated by multiplying the Most Likely Time by four, then adding the Pessimistic Time and the Optimistic Time and dividing the entire sum by six.  This takes into account all three estimates provided, but weights the Most Likely Time the heaviest.