Advice from Johnathan Smith (Twitter @Johno_JS)
Pitch! Pitch! Pitch!………Not just to investors but also to potential clients, co-founders and employees – Your ability to be clear about defining and communicating your vision, the value that you’re creating and your need all play a big part towards attaining success.
All pitches have two components:
1. The business idea
2. The communication of that business idea
You need to practice your pitching techniques. In case you happen to suffer from a bout of nerves, draw courage from the fact that even some of the more skilled founders experience some anxiety when they pitch to investors or potential clients.
Guy Kawasaki, an American marketing specialist, author and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has a simple rule when it comes to pitching. He calls it the 10/20/30 Rule: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font.
You might also like to consider the following pointers:
1. Always be prepared.
As founder, not only do you need to know and understand every aspect of your business, you also need to be prepared for all eventualities on the day of your pitch. For example: Does your presentation format work on the PC at the venue? Do you have a backup flash drive or have the file available online? Will you still be able to pitch if all the equipment fails? Ensure that your electronic equipment is fully charged.
2. Use a simple pitch deck.
Most pitches can be greatly improved by simplifying the pitch deck. Keep your pitch deck as clean and simple as possible, work through the deck and understand what you are communicating. Here is a generic pitch deck that we use at the LaunchLab:
- Logo and tagline
- Problem or need (opportunity)
- Value proposition
- Target market (market research)
- Team
- Business model
- Traction, next steps and call to action
- Thank you and questions
3. Nail your value proposition.
Steve Blank, who launched the Lean Startup movement, has a great formula that you can follow to create your value proposition: VP = We help X do Y by doing Z. Short. Sweet. To the point.
2. Correct your presentation style.
You really don’t need to be Ms or Mr Personality but there are a few small aspects that can make a great difference to the quality of your pitch. Be confident; speak clearly and to the crowd; make eye contact with the audience, avoid filler words like uhm, and don’t speak too fast. Preferably, let one person do the pitch and don’t practice and recite your pitch like you would a poem in third grade!
4. Have a clear call to action.
End your pitch with a clear statement of your needs and provide rationale.
5. Anticipate the questions that could be asked.
Since there are many different questions that could be asked in 10 minutes and they are usually of a fairly generic nature, you might want to seed some questions (think of the movie Inception) by using specific statements and anticipating all the possible questions that could arise.
For example, the statement “Our product is more efficient than our biggest competitors’” could lead to questions like:
“Who’s your biggest competitor?”
“Why’s your product more efficient? ”
“How much more efficient: 5% or 50%?”
“How have you validated this claim?”
“How will you sustain this advantage?”
Practice, practice and practice your pitch. Make use of every opportunity you can to sharpen and refine your pitching skills. Pitch to friends and family. It is a great idea to video-record yourself, critically review the recording, share it and ask for feedback – then adjust your pitch based on this feedback.
Lastly, try to have fun while pitching!
About the author
Johnathan Smith is Innovation Officer at Innovus & Captain Calculator at LaunchLab
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