In business, you have to know how to pitch your business. You might not be having plans to fund having a solid elevator but pitching ensures that you know your business pretty well. And this comes hand in hand when you eventually decide to seek out investments.
How do you make a pitch to an investor?
What we all need to know when talking of pitching is that whenever an entrepreneur wants to create a successful pitch you have to good business plan. From there you will be in a good position to identify what will make your business valuable and worth investing in. Here are some ways how to make your pitch successful.
1. Creating a good presentation
Before doing anything else, take time to put your pitch deck. Your aim is to create a deck that is easy for you to work on and get investors happy about your business. Considering that done, always have in mind to have a small version that you can speak to within some minutes as well as an extended version that contains everything you would like to give potential investors access to.
This is the best time to use your free pitch deck template for PowerPoint to keep you going. In case you may need help in putting your pitch together you can check out this list of tools that can help you put together a professional presentation.
2. Practice your Pitch
You need to practice your pitch and ensure you know everything because not being able to quickly speak about each element of your business makes every other part on the list meaningless. Many businesses always think that by just understanding their business they can quickly explain its value hence they end up going to pitch meetings without getting prepared.
Take your time and practice, simplify your messaging, and only keep the important elements that will give a positive impact on your business.
3. Use a story to outline your problem
Here, you can begin your pitch with a very compelling story and have in mind that the story should address the problem you are trying to solve and with a story, your audience will be fully engaged. Always try including any form of data if you have done any testing.
Ensure you conduct some research about the investors so that you know what they care about if you can tell your story to them.
4. Have a Solutions
Tell your audience the unique things about your product and how it will help them solve the issues. Make it brief, concise, and simple for the investors to understand and can explain to others. Avoid using buzzwords unless your investors are very conversant with your business. And if you have done any testing before, plugin results to give in solutions more easily.
5. Your target market
Having a target market means having a specific group of audience that you basically major in as per your industry. Just try to be realistic about who you are building your products for.
If you can try and develop a user persona of your ideal customers when talking about your target market then this can help visualize the potential customer displays that you have thought wisely of who your business will serve. Note that it is always easier to speak to a named individual in a quick pitch rather than speaking to a big demographic.
6. Your Revenue
As an entrepreneur, you have to major in this because you need to know how you will make money. You need to be very specific about your products and the pricing. As well as emphasizing how your market is highly waiting for your arrival.
7. Your funding needs
Feel free when dealing with your investors. Clearly spell out the amount of money that has already been invested in your company and other preferable details.
Remember to remind your audience why your management team is of importance and capable of managing their investments for growth. Discuss to them how much you need, the reason as to you need the funds, what it will be used for, and the intended results.
8. Take feedback and refine your pitch
Never be discouraged by the outcome of your pitch, whether positive or negative always strive to look for ways you can improve. Always ask for feedback and take them to account for the next time you pitch and if the investor is not willing to provide any don’t insist, furthermore it is their time you have spent so it is more or less the same.
Always work with your team so that they can help you in note-taking and review with them later. Look for the weak points and the areas you stumbled over which led to the negative reaction of the investors. Always keep practicing, and executing even if you have the best pitch.
It is not always easy for one to how good your pitch is until you actually do it. Work smart and learn to treat every investor pitch as a learning experience for you and your business.
The above discussed are just some of the ways one can use to become successful in pitching business ideas to the investors. Feel free to look for more from different sources for the best outcome in your businesses.
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