How to make a perfect pitch?
- Delivering the perfect pitch is very demanding. The idea is to present your startup in a very short time (for example 3 minutes).
- Covering all your research, accomplishments, team, market and your secret sauce that makes it all 10x better than 1000 companies doing just the same in 3 minutes may sound impossible, but it became very popular.
- Choosing the most important information for those 3 minutes is what the real challenge is.
Here are a few tips to help you start off, even if you pitch for the first time.
#1 What do you want?
Before you even start preparing your pitch, you need to know what the best possible outcome is. Are you looking for an investment, a customer, feedback or votes to win some pitching contest?
If you have only 3 minutes, you want every second to matter and focus on getting you to your goal. Every nuance matters, so make sure your pitch clearly states what you expect to happen.
That’s the only step where you look at your pitch from your own perspective. From this point on, consider every question from the perspective of your audience.
Tip 1: write down the best thing that can happen after you deliver your pitch.
Example: I want to get a 1h meeting with the innovation manager from consumer bank.
#2 Who do you pitch to?
If you want to inspire a certain action, you need to understand your audience. Even if you pitch on stage, in front of 1000 people, it’s sometimes worth to focus on the single person that can help you move things forward.
You will use different arguments, depending on my interests, my professional experience, my goals. The most important things you want to understand about your target audience is their fears and greeds.
Are they after another unicorn or afraid of losing the momentum to have an AI company in the portfolio?
Do they want to cut costs and save money or free their people from repetitive work and let them grow the company?
Tip 2: write down who your target audience is (e.g. VC, Customer or a specific person), what they fear and what they greed.
Example: I’m talking to the VC partner that’s afraid to miss the opportunity of getting to Fintech space.
#3 Why should your audience care?
8.5 seconds.
This is how much attention a person gives to a new message. If you don’t convince me to make an effort of focusing on your message for a longer time – you need to make me interested.
People are egocentric, they care about themselves and they have no interest in growing your business. It’s good news, it means they want something for themselves and if you are able to show them that you might move the needle for them – you get their attention.
Getting attention and inspiring action is what pitching is about. Ask yourself: what is the big thing the customer is struggling with and tap this topic within your first 8.5 seconds.
Just use this time to buy my attention with your promise or your story.
Tip 3: Understand what the customer’s fears or greeds are to attract and keep attention for longer.
Example: “Churn prevention strategies that telecoms use today win back 10% of the customers. Using SaaS Manager, our customers win back more than 30% and I can show you how.”
#4 What do you want them to do after your pitch?
You will not get what you didn’t ask for. You are a startup, not Lamborghini, people will not just beg you to let them touch your new product, invest in your startup or invite you on stage.
Make an ask.
Top 4: Tell what you want the audience to do. Specifically.
Example: “I’d like to meet with 5 banks to verify if they would use sales data for scoring customer’s credibility.”
Oryginally published on LinkedIn
