pitching to investors
Pitching is a Sales Process – Part 1
By popular demand (OK, a couple people asked) I’m writing a follow-up to my post a couple weeks ago about pitching your idea. I’ve been working with corporate clients for 15 years, developing interactive training programs built with my SoundLearningX© system. Because of the nature of the program, I got involved in a lot of sales-related projects, everything from financial and insurance sales to nuts and bolts and pharma sales, even military recruiting and tax preparation (seriously).
Startup Assembly Manual is mostly about getting a founder “investor-ready”, building a package that will resonate with potential investors. That, obviously, leads to the process of “pitching the idea”. When I got to the chapter on presenting to investors, I put two and two together and realized that it is a sales process. Having pitched a few deals, watched a lot of pitches and investor reactions, and caught a few deals as an angel, I came up with a structure for pitching.
First, you have to understand the expectations and motivations of an investor. Why are they there? What are they looking for? What do they want to hear? What is the fundamental, crucial point you have to prove to… Continue reading
Pitching to Investors is a Sales Process
When entrepreneurs try to raise money at any level, it involves a “pitch”. Pitching to investors can be defined within the context of a sales process where you and your idea is the product and the investor is the customer. There are some rules, but first, don’t pitch until you are ready.
Before the pitch, entrepreneurs have to understand the investor’s mindset, what they are looking for. They want a place to put money that has the potential for maximum return with as minimum of risk as possible. They don’t normally want to “take a flyer” on an unproven concept. Therefore, you have to prepared with as strong a “proof of concept” as you can. There are three flavors of proof of concept: technical (does it work; does it give the customer the value proposition it promises); economic (is the price customers will pay be more than a summation of the costs involved in producing and selling and distributing it).
The third is “social” proof of concept where you have proven that there a lots of people with a) a real problem (the one you think they have), b) an urgent need to… Continue reading