InspirACTION

Consider this the first timer’s guide and perspective to pitching your business to potential capital investors.

The 8 Things to Remember When Pitching Your Business Idea to Investors:

1. Tell a Story – Investors are people too. They want to feel emotionally tied to the idea by seeing your passion and desire to make it succeed. They are evaluating you just as much as your idea so you need to exhibit confidence and passion.
2. Show Your Strengths - Investors only know as much as you tell them. Bring your strengths to the conversation to add to your overall credibility. Showing your weaknesses will not get anywhere, but perhaps one of your strengths is delegating your weaknesses.
   
3. What’s the Opportunity and Why Will You Win? – Make sure to cover why the differentiation of your product is supreme, or why your business process will add value to the customer experience. Show a need in the marketplace and show how you’re going to meet that need and become profitable doing so.
4. Edify the Team – Doing this correctly adds to the credibility of your venture and showcases the team’s strengths accurately. Don’t forget to point out that your partner has experience as a cook when you’re pitching a new restaurant. Trust me. It happens.
   



5. Don’t Open Yourself to Criticism – You know how some people are “just asking for it?” Don’t give investors something to pounce on. If you’re not 100% confident in the numbers you’re putting up in your presentation or a very specific aspect of your business don’t put it up. You can’t play your strengths if you reveal your weaknesses.
6. Own Up to Your Gaping Holes – Be up front with the holes in your business. Nothing is worse than getting shredded by an investor while you babble through some explanation you were obviously unprepared for.
7. Minimize the Risks - Investors want to know why you’re going to win just as much as they want to know all the reasons you’re not going to lose. Often competition is one of the greatest risks your new venture will experience. Wouldn’t you rest easier if you knew your investment had a greater chance of success?
   
8. Ask Intelligently – Don’t make the same mistake I made because it makes you look dumb! The more intelligently you can articulate what you’re going to do with the investor money – the more credible you appear. The more detail you present shows evidence of your ability to think through the process completely.

Was this list helpful for you? Have you ever pitched to investors before?

This was certainly an InspirACTION I’ll remember for a long while!