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Eight Tips to Master the Art of Pitching

Not only is pitching useful for attracting investors and raising money, it is also a powerful tool that helps one come to an agreement on a subject. When executed well, it allows one to improve one’s capacity to close sales, secure partnership, raise money from potential investors or even improve one’s recruitment rate. Having a quick start and efficiently explaining the relevance of your project is mandatory if you want to keep your audience interested. Here are some tips that will help you master the art of pitching and reach your objectives.

Less is more

Long presentations don’t impress anyone anymore. They are more likely to bore your audience. Don’t bother trying to make it impressive by adding several different stories, go straight into the main topic: what you do!

This will help you grab your audiences’ and they will be fully attentive to what you are saying. If you don’t manage to be clear in a short period of time, your audience will assume that your project is not mature enough.

Don’t forget, a pitch is never too short. All you have to do is to figure out a way to deliver all the information you want to transmit in the appropriate duration of time.

Nothing you say is self-evident

This is also a strategic point. You have to force yourself to question everything you say and provide answers to any question that could come to one’s mind when you pitch your business, especially regarding the outcomes. To be able to do this, imagine that you are doing your presentation alongside a five-year-old kid who keeps asking, “So what?”

Know your audience

Pitching is not only about oral expression and presentation skills. It requires preparation, especially to determine who your audience would be. Find out what they are interested in and what you can do to get them interested in your project. If you don’t do this research properly, no matter how good you are, there is still a chance that you will miss the target. Your pitch will be outstanding but not adapted to what your audience needs.

So, first, learn what is important to the people you are speaking to. Second, gather information about who they are. Third, find a connection between their needs and your project. This will enable them to connect to your pitch.

The art of pitching a project has nothing to do with an academic exercise

Most entrepreneurs believe that investors and potential partners want to work with teams. So, they believe that different people from the team should have a role to play during the presentation (such as the marketing guy taking care of the marketing part, and so on).

This is a major mistake as it will lead to your audience losing focus. The CEO should handle the presentation himself. The team can pitch in during the question/answer session and help the CEO with technical answers on specific subjects.

Avoid fantasy hypothesis

When you pitch your business, you have to be impactful. This should be done through facts and provable-analysis, not fictional forecasts. As investors always look for profits, illustrating the potential growth of your business is beneficial. But you must not forget that they also take risks into account. Giving them an unrealistic figure will project an unprofessional and untrustworthy image. Always present an optimistic estimation, a pessimistic one, and a “most probable” view of what your business could be like in the future.

Don’t act like you are the smartest person in the room

No one likes a person with a know-it-all attitude. Be humble, get someone to take notes and listen to remarks and criticism even if you find them irrelevant. If needed, you can clarify and present your point of view later.

After every pitch, rewrite it from the scratch

This can be tough for entrepreneurs to accept and even more difficult to apply; but this does not make it irrelevant. If you keep using the exact same pitch for every presentation, you will start to find it boring and rebarbative. If you have this feeling, your audience will definitely feel it too and the impact of your pitch will reduce.

The art of pitching: a matter of repetition

Perfection is not something that can be achieved immediately. It will take you some time and several pitches to be able to deliver the perfect presentation. This is why you should keep practicing your pitch until it becomes as natural as introducing yourself to someone you have never met.

By putting those eight tips into application, you must be able to gradually improve your pitch and in fine, master the intricate art of pitching.
If you want to know more about this topic or about the services that SKEMA Ventures is offering, feel free to contact us or to leave a comment.

 

SKEMA Ventures

SKEMA Ventures is a business unit created by SKEMA Business School dedicated to impact entrepreneurship and innovation. Through a unique value chain, that encompasses teaching, coaching, incubation, and acceleration, SKEMA Ventures allows each SKEMA student and alumni to think, design, test and launch an impactful entrepreneurial project in a global context, on six innovative territories on four continents, benefiting from the best of each local ecosystem. With SKEMA Ventures, GloCal impact entrepreneurship is born! Watch this video to know more

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