BUSINESS PITCHING

PITCHING
• In its simplest sense, a business pitch is a presentation of
business ideas.
• It is a depiction of business plans to potential clients to
persuade them that your company is the right choice.
• A business pitch needs to give your audience a clear
understanding of your plan or goals to gain buy-in.
• To do this, you must gather and share relevant research
or provide a compelling vision.
• When you pitch effectively, you can motivate and
persuade your audience to follow your idea and make it a
reality.
TYPES OF BUSINESS PITCHING
What is an Elevator Pitch?
An effective elevator pitch should be concise, convincing, and convey your startup’s
value proposition and differentiators. At the end, include a call to action, such as the
amount of capital required to launch.
What is the Short-Form Pitch?
Short-form pitches can run from three to 10 minutes; if you’re pitching in a
competitive setting, note any length requirements. These shorter pitches can pique
investors’ interest and earn you the chance to present a long-form pitch. Highlight
the market size, how you’ll create barriers for competition, your plan to monetize
the business, and how much financing is needed.
What is the Long-Form Pitch?
A long-form pitch should communicate the business concept clearly and concisely to
capture the investors’ interest. Here zero in on your story and share a real-life
scenario. Detail the market size to show demand and clear examples of how you’ll
attract and retain customers. You should know for how you plan to test
product-market fit, early results, and a detailed monetization plan. Lastly, share
your exit strategy and the amount of capital needed to, one day, achieve that
strategy.
NINE BIG MISTAKES
• Don’t Make Unrealistic Market Size Claims: Investors need to
understand how big your relevant market size is and if it’s feasible for you to
eventually become a dominant market player. The key here is “relevant” and not
just “market.”
• Remember to Respect Your Competitors: Often, companies tell
investors they have no competitors. This often scares investors as they think if
there are no competitors, a market doesn’t really exist. Almost every business
has either direct or indirect competitors. Direct competitors offer the same
product or service to the same customers. Indirect competitors offer a similar
product to the same customers or the same product to different customers.
• Don’t Show Unrealistic Financial Projections: Businesses take time to
grow. It takes time to build a team, improve brand awareness, and scale your
business. So, don’t expect your company to grow revenue exponentially out of
the gate. Likewise, you will incur many expenses while growing your business for
which you must account. As such, when building your financial projections, be
sure to use reasonable revenue and cost assumptions.
• Avoid Presenting Investors with a Novel or a Napkin: While investors
will want to meet you before funding your business, they will also require a
business plan that explains your business opportunity and why it will be
successful. Your business plan should not be a novel; investors don’t have time
to wade through 100 pages to learn the keys to your success. Conversely, you
can’t adequately answer investors’ key questions on the back of a napkin. A 15-
to 25-page business plan is the optimum length to convey the required
information to investors.
• Be Sure You Understand Your Metrics: How much does it cost to acquire
a customer? What is your expected lifetime customer value? While sometimes
it’s impossible to understand these metrics when you launch your business, you
must determine them as soon as possible. Without these metrics, you won’t
know how much money to raise.
• Don’t Act Like a Know-it-All: While investors want you to be an expert in
your market, they don’t expect you to be an expert in everything. Entrepreneurs
who feel they know everything generally don’t fare well. A good investor has
seen many investments fail and others become great successes. Such
experiences have made them great advisors. Let them know that while you are
an expert in your market, you will seek their ideas and advice in areas needed to
grow your business.
• Don’t Focus Too Much on Products and Product Features: When
raising funding, you need to show you’re building a great company and not just a
great product or service. Furthermore, if your product has a great feature, be
sure to specify how you will create barriers to entry, such as via patent
protection, so competitors can’t simply copy it.
• Don’t Over exaggerate: When you exaggerate to investors who know you’re
exaggerating, you lose credibility. One key way to exaggerate is with your
financial projections. There are many other ways to exaggerate. For instance,
saying you have the world’s leading authorities on the XYZ market is great but
only if they really are the world’s leading authorities. Likewise, if you say it would
take competitors three years to catch up on your technology, when investors ask
others in your industry, they better confirm this time period. If not, your
credibility and funding will be lost.
• Keep Your Focus: The investors care about getting a return on their
investment. As such, anything you say that supports that will be welcomed. For
instance, talk about your great product that has natural barriers to entry.
Likewise, conveying too many ideas shows you lack focus. For instance, saying
you’re going to launch product one next year and then quickly launch products
two and three will frighten investors. Why? Because they’ll want to see product
one be a massive success before you even consider launching something new.
WHAT IS AN ELEVATOR PITCH?
• An elevator pitch or an elevator speech is a short, memorable, and
persuasive speech that provides a quick synopsis about yourself, your
background, and your experience to someone.
• It can help you expand your network, or connect with new colleagues
on your day at work.
• Usually, an elevator pitch does not take longer than 60 to 90 seconds
to get the message across, which is also roughly the same amount of
time you’d spend on a brief elevator ride. Hence the name elevator
pitch.
• The purpose of an elevator pitch is to help you get a second meeting
with the person you’re trying to pitch your ideas or solutions.
• These speeches are extremely handy every time you’re at an event or
occasion where you are likely to come across prospective jobs or
networking connections.
ELEMENTS OF ELEVATOR PITCH
✔ Strong opening (a Punch in the Nose): Start by introducing a wicked
problem supported by facts and data. It is very important to grab the
attention of the listener at this stage itself.

✔ Need: Explain why we need a solution for the problem or why a

solution is necessary for the wicked problem.

✔ Approach: Explain the solution that you are suggesting and limit to
further explaining how it is different from existing solutions (if any).
Don’t talk about benefits and competitors at this stage.

✔ Benefits: Explain the benefits of your solution (qualitative and

quantitative). What will it cost to the user. Only tell the retail or whole
cost of the product. This step should highlight any innovation or
novelty that you are bringing.
✔ Competition: Here you are telling about all the direct and indirect
competitors that are already present in the market and very briefly
how your solution is better or different.

✔ Financials: Start with explaining the cost of making to retail or

wholesale selling price to highlight the profit margin. If you had
prior sales then their details and profit margins. Be very specific
(not speculative “about”, “like”) about how much you need? Come
up with a rounded number. Explain how that money will be used.
Further based on forecasting of sales, how much will be returned
by when. The valuation of the product or company is very
important.

✔ The Ask: Now you ask for the money for Equity (%?), Loan (%?) or
debt (no %!) based on valuation. Suggest a specific date. Get their
contact info. If rejected, ask for a referral to a better match. Always
be polite, warm and receptive for any criticism.
SKILLS NEEDED TO
MAKE A GREAT
IMPRESSION
• Put Your Hands Up!: It has been observed that the hand gestures to
instantly build trust with their audience. Why do hand gestures have such
an impact? They can show intention. So when you walk into a room or
are waiting to meet someone, keep your hands out of your pockets.
Pockets are murderers of rapport. Don’t let desks, purses or laptops block
them, either. And never, ever skip a handshake.
How to master that perfect handshake:
• Keep it dry.
• Keep it vertical.
• Be firm.
Don’t ruin the connection with one of these bad handshakes:
• The limp shake.
• The wet shake.
• The terminator shake.
• The pump handle shake.
• The look-away shake.
• The fingertip shake
• Stand Like a Winner: Projecting an air of confidence is absolutely
critical when meeting someone new. In the first few seconds of an
interaction, we’re looking for indications of confidence. We’re trying to
decide if the person we are speaking with looks like a winner or a loser.
And that person is looking for the exact same thing in us.

FOUR THINGS TO WATCH FOR:

• Stop fidgeting: Eliminate tapping your fingers, shaking your leg, tapping your
feet. Those are signals that you’re insecure and uncomfortable.
• Be sure to lean in: “If you’re leaning away from someone in conversation,
that’s saying, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’ Lean into the conversation
to show your comfort level.
• Watch the face: Your autonomic nervous system kicks into overdrive if you’re
feeling nervous or lying, making you itchy. Pulling on your nose or scratching
your cheek can signal deception.
• Flail = fail: Sometimes if you don’t know how to use your hands properly, you
start flailing all over the place. But don’t be too stiff. Be easy at the wrist and the
elbow, which will show you have command of the situation.
• Look them Straight in the Eye: if you’re the one being evaluated,
how do you communicate that you’re worth aligning with? Easy: eye
contact. We’re programmed to interpret the right amount of eye contact
as a nonverbal signal of goodwill because when you like someone, you
look at them more. Body language experts say the ideal is to look
someone in the eye 60 to 70 percent of the time you’re interacting with
them. If you do far less than that, you can appear timid and nervous.
Three ways to perfect your gaze:
Hold it; But not for too long; And take breaks.

• Trash the Script: What’s the point of following nearly identical

social scripts every time you talk to someone? Good conversation
has tons of sparks: little bursts of pleasure we remember. In other
words, being memorable boils down to inducing chemical
pleasure. When you produce dopamine during a conversation, you
not only give your partner more enjoyment; you are also assigned
more significance, which increases your memorability.
THANK YOU