Is your company ready for growth and investment? Do you need venture capital to fund your next great idea?
When pitching to investors, you should remember a few things as an entrepreneur. First, keep in mind that thousands of people like you meet with investors yearly. Only a small number of those receive funding. And it’s not always because they have the best ideas. It’s usually because they’re good at delivering their argument professionally and persuasively.
They recognize the distinction between being ‘salesy’ and genuinely interacting with possible business partners.
Great Preparation Resulted in a Great Presentation
“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation,” observed Robert Schuller. And it’s completely correct. Everyone enjoys the suspense and glitz of a spectacular pitch. However, few individuals enjoy the meticulous and sometimes frustrating preparation required to pull it off. However, to outbid your competition, you must prepare as if you were directing a blockbuster film. Consider this:
- People make snap judgments. Therefore appearance and upkeep are important.
- It’s not so much what you say as it is how you say it. You might even want to invest in a workshop to learn how skilled negotiators read your body language.
- You’ll need to combine your visual presentation with strong oratory abilities.
Believing Comes From Seeing
“Show and tell” is still the best approach to catch and keep people’s attention. Make use of visual aids and props, and ensure they are smooth and precisely structured. As an example:
- Make sure your pitch deck is tight, professional, and image-heavy. Make use of visuals and well-written, convincing prose. Hiring a professional copywriter to assist you with this is always a good idea.
- Handouts: Putting something in someone’s hand grants ownership. It improves subconscious approval, whether a one-page brochure, a small-scale model, or a product sample.
- Try to incorporate a brief, powerful opener or promotional film. It’s extremely visual and swiftly and convincingly presents the best components of your brand.
The Dollar is in the Details
Next, prepare by concentrating on the presentation’s invisible parts. Perhaps more essential than the pitch itself is how you frame it. Here are three crucial reminders:
1. Recognize Your Audience
Every group of investors is unique, as is each investor. Remember that a venture capitalist is often detail-oriented, looking at everything from every perspective and being persuaded by evidence. An angel investor is typically a wealthy individual looking for a bigger picture. They frequently want to hear about your cause, social impact, and financial returns.
2. Money is made of time
Practice your pitch to fit exactly into the time provided to you. Disregarding or disrespecting investors’ time is the quickest way to lose them. A 15-minute pitch has a very different tempo than an hour-long discussion. Make sure you tailor it appropriately.
3. Conduct Extensive Research
Discover what makes each of your potential investors tick. Who have they already invested in? What gets the best response from them? What types of inquiries do they pose?
It’s not a terrible idea to research and learn exactly what investors look for in a company.
4. Be prepared for less-than-ideal results.
Expect the best, but be ready for the worst. Be prepared to deal with unexpected events or bad sentiments. It happens, and if you’re ready, you can guide things in a favorable direction.
It’s Pitch Time!
Now that you’ve painstakingly prepared, it’s time to take the stage and put your company in the spotlight. You can do it.
Step 1: Develop Your Pitch
The technique of putting anything in a brief context is known as framing. In essence, you want to provide a high-level summary so that no one misinterprets the intricacies later in the presentation. Put up the main points, almost like an elevator pitch.
Step 2: Share Your Story
Don’t be hesitant to tell others about your experience. What drew you here? How did you come up with your business concept? What difficulties have you encountered? How do you see your company helping others?
Step 3: Arrange Data and Specific Information
You’ve sketched a sketch of your ideals and experiences. It’s now time for the nuts and bolts. Display to your investors:
- Financial, growth, and production records are all types of records.
- There have already been iterations and adjustments.
- Performance-based estimates are realistic.
Step 4: Be Open and Upfront About Competitors and Risks
Unless you’ve invented something completely new, you’ll have competitors. Explain how you are different from them. Show how you might be able to tap into their audience or market, as well as where you’re beating them. However, never disparage your competitors!
Step 5: Describe Your Prospective Market Share
This is extremely significant to a prospective investment. Your available or expected market share predicts the size of your company. Use accurate and dependable data to explain where and how you intend to do business. If necessary, seek expert advice.
Step 6: Explain How You Plan to Make Money!
What is your business model? Investors want to know how you make money and your profit margins. Prepare precise cost assessments, profit breakdowns, and scaling or product expansion strategies.
Step 7: Describe Your Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
Prepare to outline your marketing plan in detail. Depending on your product and business style, you may consider anything from direct marketing to trade exhibitions. Create a specific marketing strategy for your internet audience as well. Maybe virtual networking events are the way to go. Also, be open to investor suggestions; they may notice something you don’t.
Step 8: Ask and Be Specific It’s crunch time.
Know how much you will ask for ahead of time and be prepared to explain your demands. Everyone is aware that you are there to attract financial investment. Don’t be shy, but also don’t be brash. Determine how much investment similar-sized or organized enterprises have already attracted. You might be pleasantly surprised if you’ve done a good job selling your pitch and proving value.
Increase Your Influence
There are a few other clever methods to distinguish yourself:
- Include a functioning demo (if applicable and practicable for your product). Otherwise, watch a video.
- Introduce your group. Giving investors a sense of the caliber of your partners or teams might boost their trust and approval.
- Describe your exit strategy. Do you intend to sell your company once it has grown? How are you working to reduce its reliance on you?
- Follow up with a heartfelt thank you. Regardless of the outcome, make sure to thank each investor for their valuable time and interest personally.
Organization at Your Fingertips
Creating a fantastic pitch (or series) can take a long time. Hiring a virtual assistant to curate information and details is an excellent method to stay organized and free up time. Of course, a smart virtual assistant can be a fantastic long-term benefit to your company.