How to Pitch Your Business Effectively

Pitching your business can be an incredibly daunting but unfortunately unavoidable task for founders.

Whether you are looking for investment, partnerships or trying to entice consumers to engage with your product, being able to confidently and succinctly explain your business idea, why it works, what problem it’s solving and how it makes money, is vitally important to any startup’s success.

Across both the BetaDen Incubate and Accelerate programmes, founders have the opportunity to develop their pitch decks and presentation skills, with our Accelerate cohort’s journey culminating in the opportunity to present to a room of investors, politicians, entrepreneurs and local stakeholders at our Showcase event. A successful pitch may open the door for otherwise unachievable business growth, and as such we’d like to share our top 5 tips for pitching your business effectively.

Create a Compelling Story

Whilst potential investors and partners will want to see a watertight business plan that’s going to reward their time and money, it is just as important to put across an engaging story that pulls people in and creates a sincere, personal connection.

Whether it be explaining the reason that you started the business, the trials and tribulations that have led you to your current point or using real-life use cases to demonstrate how your business or product works, audience members are much more likely to stay engaged if they feel that both your presentation and presenting style is relatable – after all it’s not just the business that investors are buying into – it’s also the person behind it.

Keep Your Deck Simple

One of the most important components of any pitch is your deck – this is the first visual impression that audience members will have of your business. A common mistake that first-time presenters make is overloading the audience with information or creating a deck that drags on for too long, leaving the presenter rushing through to keep to a time limit.

A winning deck is one that is simple, visual and provides short supporting information to what the presenter is talking about. The deck should be the accompaniment rather than the main event, walls of text and particularly text that is too small will be distracting and disengaging to any audience member. As the founder, you know your business inside out and so the majority of information should be supplied through what you say, with a good short, visual deck with some light supporting evidence to back up your presentation delivery.

Remember Your Problem, Solution & Ask

One of the key aspects of preparing a really good pitch is to make sure you have a clear structure. You don’t want to be stood in front of a packed room with a confusing, meandering pitch that leaves the audience with more questions than answers. A simple structure that will put you on the way to success is to make sure to hit the three key points of explaining the problem, how you’re solving it and what you want from the audience.

Audience members will want to know why you have decided to introduce your business or product to the market, and this is where your problem comes in – explain what you are trying to solve and why current solutions may fall short of the mark. You can then add in your solution – what does your product or service offer that clearly addresses the problem and in cases of a crowded market, what does it do better than your competitors.

Finally, you may have perfectly explained your business or product, but it will all be for nothing if you don’t make it clear what you are looking for, whether that is investment, test cases or strategic partnerships, make sure your audience leaves your pitch knowing exactly what you need to progress.

Tailor Your Presentation

Establishing a clear ask leads us nicely on to making sure you have a presentation that is tailored for both the audience you are presenting to and also to what you want to get out of your pitch. For example, if you are pitching for investment and to a room of investors, then you will want to make sure your content is suited towards what they want to see such as clear indication of business growth and when they will achieve a return on their investment.

There is no point pitching for people to test your product and spending the majority of the pitch explaining how you’re going to see massive revenue growth in the next year, you’d be much better off spending the time explaining how the consumer will benefit from using your product. Having a base pitch that you can reel off when you need to is imperative, but be able to tweak and tailor it depending on what you want and who you find yourself in the room with.

Practice. Practice, Practice.

Finally and perhaps most crucially, is to make sure you practice, practice, practice. Your pitch is your opportunity to secure a potentially trajectory-altering investment or partnership for your business and so it is massively important to appear confident and knowledgeable when explaining your business.

By the time you get to your pitching day, you want to be able to reel off your presentation completely unaided – nothing will create doubt in the minds of your audience members more than reading off of your slides or looking like you don’t fully understand your own business – how is an investor expected to get on board with your idea if it looks like you aren’t completely sure about what you’re saying?

Knowing your pitch inside out could also prove hugely beneficial to you on any occasion that you find yourself having to explain the business, even outside of a pitching environment – whether it’s a chance meeting with a potential investor, or an interested customer at an exhibition stall, being able to simply and clearly explain your business like you’ve done it hundreds of time before will be the number one way to instil confidence in your audience.

Summary

There are many different ways to approach a pitch and an equally large amount of ways you can improve your chances of success, but if you make sure you have an engaging story, a simple, exciting visual deck, a clear structure tailored to your audience and a presentation you know inside out – then you’ll be well on the way to becoming a seasoned pitching professional.

Remember to try your best to stay calm – pitching to anyone can be an incredibly nerve-wracking experience, so making sure you’re well prepared is the best way to combat those pre-presentation jitters.

Below is a pitch video from Simon Mifsud, Founder & CEO of Garland Surgical – who have raised $5.4 million in funding, presenting at BetaDen Showcase 8.0. Have a watch and see if you can spot Simon’s pitch following the key tips we’ve outlined above.