Tips for Investor Pitches
This past Friday I had the opportunity for the second year in a row to Judge the UCF Joust Business plan competition. This competition, one that I previously won two different times, is organized by UCF’s college of business and numerous successful business leaders and investors are invited to judge various team’s business plans, venture viability, and pitch.
I learned a large amount by participating in the competitions as a contestant when I was in school, however being on the other side of the table teaches you a great deal and is a fantastic learning experience as well. For the record…I like being on the investor side much better 🙂
Here’s 5 quick tips on helping you successfully pitch your business to investors, or judges in a business plan competition.
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- Strong Attention Grabbing Opener– Try opening your presentation in a way that relates to your audience. Asking a question or utilizing a “Picture this” or “Think back when” statement is one that I often used in the past….Have you ever (been in this bad situation or felt like this)…well millions of others do every day. But we have come up with a solution…I’ll get to that momentarily. My name is (X) and I’m with (X company).
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- Follow a Logical Sequence– The sequence I usually use is a modified version of “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence”. Attention Grabber–>Market–>problem–>solution (your product/service)–>Team–>Marketing plan–>Sales–>Financials–>Ask
This keeps your presentation on track and flowing smoothly.
- Follow a Logical Sequence– The sequence I usually use is a modified version of “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence”. Attention Grabber–>Market–>problem–>solution (your product/service)–>Team–>Marketing plan–>Sales–>Financials–>Ask
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- Don’t Read Directly from the slides! The first two teams who presented on Friday read directly from the slides. This is not only very boring, but it also shows that you’re not very knowledgeable about your business. Reading from the slides also prohibits your passion for your venture from showing. Showing your passion is a very important part of selling your audience on a concept. The first two teams that presented this past Friday read from their slides and I wanted to slap some sense into them!
Please don’t make this same mistake.
- Don’t Read Directly from the slides! The first two teams who presented on Friday read directly from the slides. This is not only very boring, but it also shows that you’re not very knowledgeable about your business. Reading from the slides also prohibits your passion for your venture from showing. Showing your passion is a very important part of selling your audience on a concept. The first two teams that presented this past Friday read from their slides and I wanted to slap some sense into them!
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- Utilize Visuals– This tip goes with my last point and makes your presentation more engaging. Don’t simply put massive amounts of text on your slides. If your presenting about an actual product, bring your product or a beta in to share it with your audience. The other option is simply adding graphics to your presentation:
– Add pictures of your market
– Add images that represent the pain they are facing
– Add graphics of your product or service offering
– Add images showing your marketing initiatives
– Show a graph of your financials (revenue, expenses and break even
- Utilize Visuals– This tip goes with my last point and makes your presentation more engaging. Don’t simply put massive amounts of text on your slides. If your presenting about an actual product, bring your product or a beta in to share it with your audience. The other option is simply adding graphics to your presentation:
- Make sure your financials are solid! One team that presented in the competition didn’t even have financials! One of the other teams had financials that were very incomplete. The team spoke a large amount about their marketing and how they would capture 5% of a large market and didn’t even allocate a marketing budget! Don’t make this mistake! A business and financial coach like Jerome Myers would recommend having an income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement and financial assumptions. If you are very early stage everyone is going to know these are not 100% accurate, however you need to be able to defend these financial statements….hence the reason for your financial assumptions.
Now there are a lot more tips that can be said, but these were the five that really stuck out in my mind after judging the competition Friday.
I wish all of you the best of luck in your various entrepreneurial endeavors. If I can be of any assistance let me know!
If there are any other tips my readers would like to share feel free to drop a comment.
Cheers,
David
Thanks for the techniques. I find them explicit and very handy when having sales presentation.
Excellent post Dave, so true about role reversal! When you put yourself into the shoes of the interviewer as opposed to the interviewee or in your case investor vs. pitcher, you really gain so much insight into how to better present yourself, idea, product, or company. You quickly learn what really matters and what is essentially fluff.
To your other point, the pitch is about emotion. The facts and logic help, but when it comes down to the sale you are using facts, logic, pictures, stories, experience, enthusiasm to provoke an emotional response from your audience. You are tapping into that innate sense deep within all of us that have guided us through decision making and survival for thousands of years. In direct sales, people are usually buying YOU first. They look for your confidence, understanding, and connection in the product or service first. Win with emotion, close the deal with facts (and of course a great product).
ah, visual aids – the connecting factor.
good post!
Hi very great aids i love very much fore this post.
Most importantly, don’t forget to practice, practice, practice. Just because you have given a thousand pitches in your life, don’t assume you can finesse this one by reading the bullet points in real time from the slides that your team put together for you. You need to be totally familiar and comfortable with your pitch to give it effectively.
Both of these points are about putting some context and relevancy on the upcoming pitch and discussion. If you make the problem feel real and explain it in an entertaining way it’s going to resonate much more strongly with investors. The same holds true with the history of the company.
In the early days I had a couple of consultants who specialized in presentation skills. These consultants would work with our clients to get them ready to pitch to investors.
@May…glad you like the tips. If I can be of any assistance let me know. thanks for stopping by
@Bruce very good points Bruce. It’s proven that people make a purchasing on emotion and justify with logic. Therefore it’s essential whether in sales or pitching (which is essentially selling the investor) to tap into emotions.
@Joel..Yep visual aids work wonders. Everyone digests concepts and content differently and visual aids really help the prospect think the way you want them to.
@Gas…thanks for stopping by. Glad you like the post
@Bubba..solid points. Practice is very good, but experience and truly knowing your topic is key. You don’t typically want to practice and memorize pitches because they come off as robotic, but if you know your topic your confidence will shine through.
@car purchase….”If you make the problem feel real and explain it in an entertaining way it’s going to resonate much more strongly with investors.” Well said! Thanks for commenting
Well its important to know basics of creating elevator pitch because its the description and the first impression of your company and a product or service and so it should be well written that any one can understand it.
You need to have other people pitch you, not pitch yourself. If you try to pitch yourself its going to come off as bragging and egotistic and turn people off.
This is nice article. Thanks for sharing it. Have a nice day.
Very solid suggestions. I have a very good friend who has to listen to pitches all the time for his money and I find him saying the same things. Its nice that you get to go and be apart of something that you once won.
I did not take part in any business plan competition, you speak very good!
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Thanks for those tips, David. They’ll come in handy for me as I’ve been trying to raise support for some ventures.
Till then,
Jean
Excellent point! One of the panelists also suggested using visuals to help them understand how the technology fits together, which I think is part of the same point. They didn’t really want to know all of the technical details; they just needed to understand the big picture.
This must have been an eye opening experience. Since you were more used to being on the pitching side of this competition, you may not have realized all the mistakes people are making. It sounds like you have a strong grasp on making pitches.
Excellent takeaways Dawn. As one of the five presenters I can tell you that four minutes goes by in a heartbeat and forces you to really focus – which is, of course, intentional by the organizers. It is worth noting that VC’s see thousands of business ideas a year. You have to be focused and tight with your presentation to cut through all the noise and really catch their attention.
I worked as the Business Development Manager for ActionCOACH for almost 2 years and it is the best system that I have seen.
When we screen companies to present at the private equity investor forums we put on for the Network of Business Angels and Investors, they complete a comprehensive application form and submit all the documents that they will provide to investors.
nice tipps thanks for your time to make this post.
Wow very nice post and all video is looking a great meting all is very impressive.
Actually, be careful with the use of humor when pitching. If the humor falls flat or you don’t get the response you were expecting then (a) you can be thrown off your game, and (b) it can represent bad on you and what you’re pitching.
I need a profitable product from click bank to promote that will make me that much in ten days or at least let me repeat and rinse.
I want to pitch a business idea to someone that can finance the business.
That’s a very detailed procedure, NPRE. Most professionals I have met do it that way too.
Till then,
Jean
Excellent takeaways Dawn. As one of the five presenters I can tell you that four minutes goes by in a heartbeat and forces you to really focus – which is, of course, intentional by the organizers. It is worth noting that VC’s see thousands of business ideas a year. You have to be focused and tight with your presentation to cut through all the noise and really catch their attention.
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I have a magazine advertising mailer that my borther and I have started in Garner/Clayton N.C. We have 3 issues out right now but we have no money. I’ve been painting houses to finance “The Local Business book”.
You might build a prototype, and sell your vehicles one at a time until you are sure that there really is a market for your invention. If you have an operating model, a few sales, and a business plan, you’ll stand a better chance of attracting investment capital.
Hi very great video and article telling about tips for invstor pitches all is looking any great company meeting.
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Investors actually can “see” what your idea is. They can better analyze the practicality of your idea and do a rough risk analysis of whether this might be a good investment for them. Seeing is believing for most people. Better than theory and ideas anyway.
Investors won’t invest unless you put in a substantial amount of your own money, so that you will have an incentive to do your best to make the business work.
I’d add one more suggestion: if it’s an investor pitch, don’t make it a product demo! (One of the presenters Monday fell into that trap, taking up almost all the time with a demo.) An investor wants to hear about the business opportunity, not just watch a product demo.
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Excellent point! One of the panelists also suggested using visuals to help them understand how the technology fits together, which I think is part of the same point. They didn’t really want to know all of the technical details; they just needed to understand the big picture.
The pitches lacked ‘oomph’ and the structure was never quite right. They were not focusing on WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) from the investors’ perspective.
Hi excellent post find ha ha ha.
Great stuff. Fits a lot of circumstances and should be adopted by many sales people
ne of the companies started the pitch with a very long story about a briefcase, which had several of us in the audience thinking that he was pitching a company that made briefcases here in Oregon.
Great stuff. Fits a lot of circumstances and should be adopted by many sales people.
I’m sure they will 🙂 The bottom button just doesn’t respond well to the usual pattern and gets lost. I think you can put a smaller version on top, so there won’t be any problem with pics.
The particular thing that comes up in that show is they really want to invest in a person and they often want to make sure that you have no other side projects on the go and the idea being pitched will get all of your time and effort.
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My business partners and I are pitching our concept to an investor in 2 weeks and we aren’t sure what is going to happen after we do it. So far, from what one of our partners who has already met with him, this guy is interested….
They found a woman who owned a brownstone but was $60,000 behind on her mortgage. The investor went into contract with the owner to pay the $60,000 off and take half of the equity.
Awesome post buddy! Thanks for sharing with me. I have a very good friend who has to listen to pitches all the time for his money and I find him saying the same things. Its nice that you get to go and be apart of something that you once won.
Fill out the form below to have a representative contact you about pitching to Investors. Be sure to note which city you would like to pitch in.
They uncovered a woman who owned a brownstone but was $60,000 behind on her mortgage. The investor went into contract with the proprietor to pay the $60,000 off and take half in the equity.
They observed a woman who owned a brownstone but was $60,000 behind on her mortgage. The investor went into contract while using owner to pay the $60,000 off and take half in the equity.
They found a woman who owned a brownstone but was $60,000 behind on her mortgage. The investor went into contract while using proprietor to pay the $60,000 off and take half of the equity.
The certain issue that comes up in that present is they really need to invest inside a man or woman and they typically wish to make certain that you could have no other side projects on the go along with the idea becoming pitched will get all of one’s time and effort.
The particular factor that comes up in that display is they really wish to invest inside a man or woman and they frequently need to make confident that you have no other side projects on the go as well as the concept getting pitched will get all of the time and work.
The distinct point that comes up in that display is they definitely would like to invest in a human being and they generally need to make positive that you have no other side projects on the go along with the notion getting pitched will get all of your time and effort.
Hi very great video and article telling about tips for invstor pitches all is looking any great company meeting. 😉
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Excellent point! One of the panelists also suggested using visuals to help them understand how the technology fits together, which I think is part of the same point. They didn’t really want to know all of the technical details; they just needed to understand the big picture.
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Granted these were 4 minute pitches, but you never really know how long any meeting with an investor will actually last.
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The selected problem that comes up in that present is they definitely have to invest within a man or lady and they normally desire for making selected that you simply could have no other side projects on the go along while using idea becoming pitched will get all of one’s time and effort.
Excellent post Dave, so true about role reversal! 😉
Excellent point! One of the panelists also suggested using visuals to help them understand how the technology fits together, which I think is part of the same point. 😉
They didn’t really want to know all of the technical details; they just needed to understand the big picture. 😉
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Excellent point! One of the panelists also suggested using visuals to help them understand how the technology fits together, which I think is part of the same point.
If you make the problem feel real and explain it in an entertaining way it’s going to resonate much more strongly with investors.thanks..
iam admired the way you pitch big time investors. keep posting more about your pitching success stories. i feel charged!
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This reminds me a little of the show Pitchman. You really have to have a solid presentation before you play with the big dogs.
“The success of your pitch depends on the clear and defendable presentation of an opportunity (big problem + big market), your plan for addressing it (your solution) and identifying the team that is uniquely positioned to do so,” Canaan explains.
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