Pitching Your Business Idea to Potential Investors (Funding Agencies)
Category: Funding & Financing
Tags: business investment, business plan presentation, elevator pitch
If you are an entrepreneur, or starting a business – you’ve most likely heard the term “elevator pitch”. If not, an elevator pitch is typically a quick presentation of 30 to 60 seconds summarizing your business. Think of it this way, you just walk into an elevator, and as the door closes the other person in the elevator asks you who you are and what you do. What do you say? You have limited time so be sure to be prepared with a persuasive speech that will clearly spark interest.
Most people think that an elevator pitch is only used to pitch products and/or services, but in reality an elevator pitch can be used for anything. However it can be used towards pitching your boss at work a new idea, selling yourself at a job interview, negotiating down a price of a car and much more.
When it comes to business, an elevator pitch is the perfect way to get the ear of potential investors.
Most likely before you create the perfect pitch, you will have to go through it and re-write it a dozen times. Your pitch has to sound natural in a conversation, and has to answer the right questions and keep the listener wanting more.
Keep in mind, most people only do listen for 30 to 60 seconds, so if you are boring, or slow to start – you’ve lost them.
Identify Your Goal
Start by thinking about the objective of your pitch. For instance, do you want to tell potential clients about your organization? Do you have a great new product idea that you want to pitch to an executive? Or do you want a simple and engaging speech to explain what you do for a living?
Explain What You Do
Start your pitch by describing what your organization does. Focus on the problems solved, how you help people. If you can, add information or a statistic that shows the value in what you do. What do you want your audience to remember most about you? Keep in mind that your elevator pitch should excite you first. People may not remember everything that you say, but they will likely remember your enthusiasm.
Example: Imagine that you’re creating an elevator pitch that describes what your company does, to use it at networking events. You could say, “My company writes mobile device applications for other businesses.” A better explanation would be, “My company develops mobile applications that businesses use to train their staff remotely. This results in a big increase in efficiency for an organization’s managers.”
Communicate Your Position
Your elevator pitch also needs to communicate your unique selling proposition (USP). Identify what makes you, your organization, or your idea, unique. Example: To highlight what makes your company unique, you could say, “We use a novel approach because unlike most other developers, we visit each organization to find out exactly what people need. Although this takes a bit more time, it means that on average, 95 percent of our clients are happy with the first beta version of their app.”
Engage With a Question
After you communicate your USP, you need to engage your audience. To do this, prepare open-ended questions (questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no” answer) to involve them in the conversation. Make sure that you’re able to answer any questions that he or she may have. Example: You might ask “So, how does your organization handle the training of new people?”
Put it all Together
When you’ve completed each section of your pitch, put it all together and read it aloud using a stopwatch. Then, try to cut out anything that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. The shorter, the better! Your elevator pitch should be no longer than 20 – 30 seconds. Example: Here’s how your elevator pitch could come together: “My company develops mobile applications that businesses use to train their staff remotely. This means that senior managers can spend time on other important tasks. “Unlike other similar companies, we visit each organization to find out exactly what people need. This means that, on average, 95 percent of our clients are happy with the first version of their app. “So, how does your organization handle the training of new people?”
Practice
Like anything else, practice makes perfect. Remember, how you say it is just as important as what you say; without practice, it’s likely that you’ll talk too fast, sound unnatural, or forget important elements of your pitch. You want it to sound like a smooth conversation, not an aggressive sales pitch. Practice in front of a mirror or, better yet, in front of colleagues until the pitch feels natural. As you get used to delivering your pitch, it’s fine to vary it a little – the idea is that it doesn’t sound too formulaic or like it’s pre-prepared, even though it is!
Keep these ideas in mind when creating your pitch to potential investors. Remember that these investors could be private investors, banks, potential business partners, family and friends or it can be government funding agencies.
If you need assistance in creating the perfect pitch for help with getting your small business funded through government grants, government loans, bank loans or from private investors, consider using our tool “Investor PitchDeck“.
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