To make your entrepreneurial dream come true, you’ll need money once you’ve developed your business idea and business strategy. It’s normal to feel anxious when your chances of raising money depend on giving a 10- to 20-minute presentation to possible investors. You’re under a lot of strain right now, so you need to perform at your best.

So how can you convince possible investors while eradicating your anxiety? Business News Daily conducted interviews with several professionals, one of whom was a previous Shark Tank contestant on ABC, to learn how to make a killer pitch to possible backers.

What is a business pitch?

A business pitch is, at its most basic, a presentation of business concepts. It is an illustration of a business plan intended to convince prospective customers that your company is the best option. It could be written, presented in a multimedia format, or given in person as a personal pitch.

A thoughtful presentation delivered successfully can convince decisions and close the transaction, whether it is made to a single person or a huge group of people.

Despite the fact that they may vary differently from one another, all business pitches aim to persuade the person listening to them to make a purchase or invest in your company which can also be referred as pitching to lenders.

Why Should You Create a Business Pitch?

1. It Grabs Attention

A business pitch is a concise, efficient, and suitable technique to introduce a group of ideas in a way that grabs the attention of the people listening. A strong business pitch can have a significant influence, much like a well-directed trailer might entice viewers to attend a film. It manages to generate and maintain interest in addition to quickly proposing a well-thought-out approach. All of this is necessary for the success of attracting investors with a business plan investment.

2. It Emphasizes Uniqueness

A business pitch is a condensed version of your business proposal that is infused with your unique ideas. This distinguishes it from other ideas since nothing sticks out more in a sea of mediocrity than an innovative and imaginative concept. This is the reason why decision-makers give corporate pitches such weight. They astonish prospective customers and reassure them of your originality and sincerity. This ultimately has the power to determine whether or not they accept your business offer.

3. It Displays Accuracy

When clients evaluate possible companies that they would want to financially invest in, they are searching for dreams that can actually be realized in addition to fresh, innovative concepts. A well-done company pitch demonstrates to potential investors your ability to distill concepts and your capacity for precise, methodical labor in addition to effectiveness. One should never undervalue a quality like this, particularly in the cutthroat realm of business.

Now that you know why it’s essential to write a business pitch, let’s get into the specifics of how to accomplish it!

Six type of business pitches

1. Elevator Pitch

This type of pitch is ideal for presenting your business idea in a hurry to a panel of judges, investors, or even simply your family, friends, and fools.

A pitch of this type often lasts between three and five minutes in total. Since you won’t always have visual aids available, we advise you to write a script and use it to convey an engaging story that inspires your audience to take action.

• Start with your inspiration and why you do it.
• After that, talk about how you do it.
• Lastly, describe what you do.

2. Investor Pitch or Pitch Deck

A pitch deck for funding, which aims to present a business idea in order to draw investors or partners to your enterprise, is another item you’ll encounter. A business presentation with 15 to 20 slides is what this kind of pitch looks like.

In this instance, the visual aids will be essential for effectively conveying your message and inspiring your audience. They are particularly important because you will be forwarding this presentation often to investors, potential customers, accelerators or incubators, innovation programs, etc.

Here are a few pointers for your deck:

• Assemble the graphic elements you plan to utilize.
• Examine Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle for guidance.(why,how,what)
• Demonstrate the worth of what you’re offering and accomplishing.
• Remember to state your target audience’s name, the nature of the problem you’re trying to solve, and the suggested remedy.

3. Sales Pitch 

You should write a sales pitch if your objective is to close deals with one or more customers for your good or service.

As you create your presentation to provide them with solutions, you should consider the objectives, issues, and requirements of your potential clients. In doing so, remember to introduce them to your company and:

• Make an emotional plea
• Tell a tale.
• Emphasize successful examples 
• Provide calls to action that you can use.

In this case, drawing in leads will primarily depend on your use of visual components. 

4. Customer pitch

This ought to have been number one, I just realized. Your consumer pitch, which takes the shape of discussions and comments, is the most crucial of all. It’s not sales, this. She is already a customer because you already made that sales presentation.

The purpose of this pitch is to find out her thoughts on the product and how she is doing. Why is it that she loves it? What about it bothers her? One thing I like to ask is: if I were in charge right now, what would you change? The majority of people dislike breaking bad news to one another. In your pitch, welcome the critical criticism. Request the information you do not wish to know.

5. Employees pitch

Pitches to staff members come in two varieties. The ones you present to potential hires and current staff members (which I prefer to refer to as vision and motivation). I will just discuss the first one here. The pitch should take into account both the employee’s future and your vision for the business. It needs to be a discussion about how to be a part of a narrative. Which role are you interested in taking on? Do you think you could assist me in realizing my dream? Yes, you must include shares, compensation, and other benefits. 

What is superior to this, though, is truly appreciating your job because you feel like you belong there. Everybody has a reason for being here. When you present the company to a prospective employee or coworker, try to convey yours. Thrill them! Motivate them! I apologize; I get worked up over this.

6. Partners pitch

Forming alliances is difficult, particularly with large organizations or the government. This pitch, which combines investment and sales elements, is most likely one of the hardest. If you are awarded the partnership, you must exercise caution. It’s challenging to persuade a large corporation that your product would improve their lives, boost sales, or lower expenses. Speaking with the real decision maker is crucial in this situation. Avoid trying to rush people. Be wise and identify the individual who will be delivering your pitch.

The partner should be the main focus of the pitch, not your business. You must appeal to their goals and needs. What you can do particularly to help them matters more than what you can offer in general. Make the extra effort to assist them and improve their quality of life.

How to Introduce an Idea to a venture capital

It can be tempting to reach out with a few half-baked ideas and a dream when you have that eureka moment, but investors are too astute and pragmatic to bite at that.

Ideas and visions don’t really convince people that they will get a promising return on their investment. They require proof that they have that potential.

This is why, before you begin pitching, you should think about these stages.

1. Create an Elevator Pitch

Skilled comedians typically have a “tight 10” — a limited, dependable list of jokes that they can rely on to be funny — practiced and ready. Even if there may not be much of a connection between comedy and business, new entrepreneurs can nevertheless learn from that tactic.

An engaging and educational elevator pitch is essential for aspiring and new business owners. It is a thirty-second summary of your offering, value proposition, and business that aims to get you a second interview with a possible investor or network link.

2. Focus on Your Target Audience

When it comes to pitching, preparation is half the fight. If your efforts aren’t customized to the investors on the other side of the table, they won’t go very far. You should therefore do extensive research about the person you will be speaking with.

Examine closely the other categories of companies they invest in as well as the extent to which they typically participate in their day-to-day operations. Find out how inexperienced they are with investing. And try to find out more about each of their unique characteristics.

For some companies, this process will be far simpler than for others. While many investors will make a lot of their information publicly available, some have a tendency to keep their activities and preferences more private. You must, however, take great care to ensure that you are as prepared and deliberate as possible for the encounter.

3. Markets Analysis

Having completed and arranged market research is one of the finest strategies to make a compelling pitch. Demonstrating the capacity to gather, evaluate, and derive significant insights from market data conveys to investors your commitment, shrewdness, and reliability.

It may lend more credence to your viewpoint. Your pitch will be far more engaging if you can demonstrate how market trends support the success of your solution than if it is solely based on speculation.

4. Make a model and business plan.

You can’t just enter the market with a concept and hope for the best if you want investors to take you seriously. Without specific strategies in place, even the most fascinating concept is meaningless.

Ultimately, investors want to profit from their investments, so you need to show that you have the systems and plans in place to fulfill that goal.

Additionally, you must clarify the expected return on their investments for them. If you can’t demonstrate the precise, realistic, and captivating outcomes that will follow from your good business plan, it won’t look impressive.

5 Have a Demo Ready

Prepare a demo and make sure all the technical problems are resolved before meeting with investors, regardless of whether you’re trying to raise money for a real goods or digital services.

Verify that the product model functions as intended and that any batteries or electronics are completely charged and operational. Make sure everything is operational for digital goods or services even minutes before the pitch.

How to pitch a business idea to investors

1. Describe a tale.

A recurring theme among specialists was the necessity of being affable and crafting a story. Whole numbers and facts are useful, it’s crucial to use them to create a compelling narrative. You can better communicate your enthusiasm for your company by framing your business idea as a narrative.

• An effective technique to establish a connection with your audience to grab and hold their attention is through storytelling.

2. Describe the issue.

You may be completely enthralled with your company idea. You’re excited about your business strategy and have excellent product prototypes. Sadly, investors won’t share your enthusiasm if your solution doesn’t satisfy a client demand or solve an issue.

Corporate storyteller for startups Donna Griffith said, “Start with the problem.” “Are you aware of the current needs in the market? Do you have the supporting information for that?

Being able to respond to these inquiries is essential before meeting with investors. Extensive market research, in conjunction with customer surveys and interviews, can demonstrate the necessity of your product. Unless you have evidence to support your idea, it will be hard to captivate the audience and harder to convince investors to fund your project. 

Griffith observed, “I’ve seen startups try to cut corners on this and end up with glazed-over eyes in their audience.”

3. Get as much practice as you can.

It is not the time to be bashful in the days and weeks before your pitch to possible investors. Make your case to neighbors, relatives, friends, or anybody else who is open to hearing it. Not only can practice help you become less nervous, but it also shows you where you can make your presentation better.

Don’t be afraid to present to several possible investors. Ciccarelli traveled the nation with his team, meeting with a few investors in each location. This provided practice for his group and increased awareness of his company idea.

As soon as you feel confident in your pitch, begin paying attention to the specifics.  

Pitching success or failure can be determined by using appropriate body language and correcting speech errors. Planning your pauses is something Ciccarelli suggests doing when you go over the little things. You may make a well practiced speech seem natural by doing this.

4. Your competitor

Once more, this is a crucial portion of your pitch that many individuals leave out or undersell in order to highlight their unique selling points from rivals.

Presenting this slide in a competitive matrix format, with your competitors listed down the left side of the page, your features and benefits across the top, and checkmarks in the boxes indicating which company provides each service, is the best way to communicate your value proposition over those of your competitors. To demonstrate your competitive edge, you should ideally have check marks all the way across the top for every category while your rivals fall short in important areas.

5. Your financial requirements

Indicate in detail the amount of money invested in your business, who has contributed it, the ownership stakes, and the amount of money remaining to advance to the next stage (being specific about which stage this is). Will you require more than one financing round? What kind of investment are you looking for—an equity round, a convertible note, or something else?

Remind the audience of the reasons your management team is qualified to oversee their growth-oriented investment. Inform investors of your needs, including the amount, the reason for the need, the intended usage, and the goal of the funding.

6. Your exit plan

In the event that you are pursuing substantial investment funds beyond $1 million, the majority of investors will inquire about your exit strategy. Do you intend to go public (very few companies do this), be purchased, or pursue some other strategy? Demonstrate that you have thoroughly investigated this exit strategy, the firms you are pursuing, and the reasons it will make sense in three, five, or ten years.

7. Be sensible.

Although it is vital to practice your pitch, it is uncommon that everything will go according to plan. It will be easier to prepare if you have reasonable expectations. It is crucial to rehearse for a genuine presenting experience, when queries from investors could interrupt.

Presentation errors to avoid

Additionally, there are a few crucial things you should never do when pitching:

• Arrive at the meeting late.
• Don’t wear proper clothing. Your audience and the brand of your business or product will determine what is appropriate.
• Neglect to communicate a clear benefit to your intended audience.
• Use jargon, slang, or acronyms that your readers might not be familiar with.
• Don’t talk over or interrupt your audience members.
• Be affirming of yourself; for example, “This is a great idea/product!”
• Dispute with possible investors.
• Discuss contract specifics, such as price, too soon.

Proceed with confidence.

A commercial deal needs to be made and closed with patience and perseverance. You may make sure that you’re ready to make the pitch by paying attention to the advice provided above regarding what to do and what not to do.

These inspiring tales of young, prosperous entrepreneurs can encourage others to keep going even if immigrants and women business owners may encounter additional difficulties.

Making a good impression and receiving the investment you desire depends on you remaining confident and communicating your belief in your company or product idea without coming off as conceited.