Business
How to Pitch a Business Proposal That Investors and Financial Lenders Would Love
In most cases, your pitch can help you gain the trust of investors for your start-up company.
Published
2 years agoon
By
MarioEntrepreneurs must be able to present their companies effectively. Even if you don’t intend to seek investment, having a strong elevator pitch shows that you are knowledgeable about your company, which is useful if and when you ultimately decide to look for investments.
How to Present Your Business to Investors
The first stage in creating a successful pitch is formulating a thorough business strategy. It would be best if you, therefore, determined what makes your business appealing and viable for investment. Even if you have a five-page examination of your proven financial history that compares you to competitors across many industries, you still won’t be able to cover everything.
As a result of the fact that when presenting to angel investors and venture financiers for the first business, you frequently only have ten minutes to make your case. Here’s how to make your succinct pitch effective.
Make a Presentation
Create your pitch deck first, taking your time. The goal is to create a short deck that you can use to work from and enthuse investors about your business.
Due to this, you should prepare two distinct versions of your pitch deck: one that is brief enough for you to give in ten minutes and the other that is lengthier and has all the material you want potential investors to see.
Use our free Powerpoint pitch deck template to get started, then look through our gallery of more than 50 different industry pitch decks. If you need help putting your pitch together, have a look at this list of tools to make a professional presentation.
Work On Your Pitch
It would be best if you got your pitch ready. If you can’t quickly communicate with every department in your firm, then none of the other recommendations on this list will matter.
Too many business owners think that merely by being knowledgeable about their firm, they can express their value of it succinctly and precisely. Additionally, having a great pitch deck with eye-catching graphics will serve as an adequate backup. As a result, when they attend pitch sessions, they are unprepared.
Describe The Issue with a Scenario
Introduce your pitch with an exciting story. It should address the problem you’re attempting to fix for the customer. This will grab your audience’s attention right away. If you’ve done any testing, try to include actual statistics here as well.
Suppose you can relate your story to your audience—in this case, the investor—all the better. Which industries did they previously invest in? What issues did their previous entrepreneurial endeavors have? Investigate the possible investor to understand their goals better and modify your story as necessary.
The Solution
Discuss the unique qualities of your product and how it will solve the issue you identified on the previous slide.
Keep it succinct, unambiguous, and straightforward so that the investor can explain it to others. Avoid using jargon unless possible investors are experts in your subject. Again, if you’ve done any assessment in the past, including the findings here to support the validity of your solution.
Your Intended Audience
Avoid saying that the entire world is your potential target market, notwithstanding the possibility that this will be the case in the future.
As you divide your business into TAM, SAM, and SOM, be honest about the targeted audience for your products. This will not only astound your audience but also motivate you to analyze your roll-out approach carefully.
If at all possible, try to develop a user persona or your ideal client while talking about your target market. This demonstrates that you have carefully considered the target market for your firm and can help investors picture the potential clientele. It is also less complicated to address a small group of people than a huge audience.
Your Company Model or Income
This slide typically interests investors the most. How will you generate income? Be very explicit about your offerings and costs, and stress once more how eagerly your market is anticipating your arrival.
Your Achievements: Early Progress and Landmarks
This is your opportunity to market yourself. Make an excellent first impression on the investors using your team’s recent successes (sales, contracts, key hires, product launches, and so on). This is the time to generate a complete snapshot of your firm, even though you may have revealed hints of it earlier.
But don’t stop there; make sure to discuss your future goals as well. Present them with a plan of the following steps, extra milestones, and even the cash needed to make them a reality.
Getting New Clients: A Marketing and Sales Plan
This is typically one of the components of a thorough business plan and investor pitch that is most frequently omitted. How will you connect with your audience? What will the price be? How will you assess your progress?
You should be able to calculate your client acquisition costs with ease using your financial statements. But you should also describe your strategy for reaching customers, the media you’ll use for advertising, and even give an illustration of your messaging.
You’ve done your homework and know your target market, so why not demonstrate to investors how that will work in practice?
Final Note
The main objective of this presentation, as indicated earlier in this article, is not to cram as much data into a limited time as possible but rather to deliver enough summary information to pique the investors’ interest and help them comprehend your strategy.
The conversation shouldn’t last more than 20 to 30 minutes.