Recipe for a Successful Pitch Part 3

So far we’ve discussed preparing for a pitch by 1) Knowing Your Ingredients, and 2) Preparing Your Ingredients. Today we’ll cover step 3) Arranging Your Ingredients.

My experience in repeated pitching taught me the importance of practice and arranging the ingredients, the pieces of your presentation, carefully. The order in which you mention details is key to the audience to which you are pitching.

In one instance, it might make sense to start with the problem and how you solved it. In another situation, it might make sense to start with your personal journey, or the team, or the funding, or the ask.

Be aware of the people in your audience and arrange your ingredients to be productive and effective. Most of all, be prepared for “soft ball” questions — by understanding what key info they need, and what key info you could hold back. Be ready to answer any questions, and to follow up.

How do you arrange your ingredients? In the last blog, I mentioned the specific components needed for pitching. At a high level:

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

This is not a six-hour presentation! You will usually be granted up to 15-minutes and if you are invited back, you could have an additional one- or two-hour presentation or detailed discussion. For now, think about the initial ingredients you need to get the wheel started. You could put things in layers — have all the various types of info at your fingertips so you don’t have to hunt for them when it’s time to add them in. Please continue to line up your ingredients and think high-level about how they can work.

• Introduction about you in the business

• The story of how you got there, which could be personal or a friend’s story

• What is the bigger problem you are trying to solve, or what you discovered and your unique solutions

• If you have them, talk about IT, Intel Property, or a patent — maybe you talk about the market, how you got into the market (first customer) and how you expanded

• How do you make money? Projections and milestones, and what you have achieved so far

• The ASK, and what you plan to achieve with any money you are given

• Have a recap slide where you leave things open for questions or comments

These are the general ingredients — you might have to order them differently, based on your audience.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. How will you organize your ingredients?

2. In what format (slides, handouts, etc.) will you present?

3. What tools have you used to engage an audience?

_____