After listening to many entrepreneurs present their business projects, I have seen specific errors committed with an exaggerated frequency. Unfortunately, good ideas do not survive bad presentations. As Aristotle said 2,300 years ago, “Knowing how to express an idea is as important as the idea itself.” No matter how good your project is, it will go unnoticed if you do not know how to sell it.
Next, I share the errors that I have identified with a more significant potential to blow up your presentation. Avoiding them does not imply the success of your production, much less. On the other hand, incurring any of them will lead your presentation to the most resounding failure.
You Have Not Yet Heard Who Your Audience Is
Throughout your business venture, you will speak to at least three different audiences: potential clients, partners, or investors. Although you always have the same project, you do not always emphasize the same aspects.
You will usually get the opportunity to speak to a single investor or a small group briefly. You must investigate them thoroughly to know their attitudes on social networks or collaboration platforms, personal investment preferences, industry knowledge, and investment profiles. If you talk to the wrong investor, you will both waste your time.
You Do Not Listen to the Investor
Investors will look for and find flaws in your project. Even if it is viable, your project may not be viable, the business model may still be immature, your growth estimates may be unfounded, or your business may lack scalability. They will help you discover holes in your business and improve it.
Pay special attention to investors’ questions. Many are logical clues or concerns that allow the presentation to pivot toward your needs. Do not act as if you are breaking your speech or trying to break free quickly. Please take advantage of their questions to build on them. Talk, do not just look to finish your pitch.
You are Not Clear About Your Goal
Do not confuse the investor with a user. You do not have to explain the inner workings of your project to exhaustion. Your goal is not to make a client but to get investment. And you will not get it in the first encounter.
In the first presentation, your goal is not to get funding to move forward with your project but to arouse enough interest in the investor to arrange a second appointment. It is not about telling everything but about awakening the desire for more. A presentation to investors is an act of seduction.
You Talk More About Your Product or Service than About the Business Model
You’re so passionate about your idea that you talk more about it than how you will make money. Remember that the investor looks to multiply his investment and a good exit, not how to use your technology.
Please speak to the investor in his language: money. Explain how your $100,000 will grow by X amount throughout four years. Most investor questions will aim to clarify your business model. The simpler the explanation of your business model and the better meditated you take it, the more attractive it will be to the investor.
Do Not Tell the Investor What he Wants to Hear
Professional investors want you to tell them clearly and simply at least ten things:
- What needs do you solve (problem)?
- Who suffers and would be willing to pay to satisfy it (market)?
- What is your solution, and how are you doing it already (project in progress)?
- Who is already serving that market (competition)?
- Why you are the right one to solve that problem and better than your competition (team).
- How do you plan to earn money, and what will your costs be (business model)?
- How will you get them to know about your existence and see you as the best service provider for that group (marketing and advertising)?
- What have you done so far? What is your current situation, and what are the prospects for the near future (roadmap)?
- What do you need to move forward (investment)?
- How will the investor recover his money multiplied (exit)?
The biggest mistake is going to the presentation without a transparent business model.
You’re Not Going to the Point
Typically, you will have very little time to talk to investors, at most 15 minutes. Eliminate unnecessary details and focus on what the investor wants to hear. Do not talk about what interests you but what interests your audience.
Enter the ten points above in your presentation and count them briefly and concisely. Do not overwhelm the audience with neat and unnecessary details. Remember that your goal is to get the second appointment—an account only helps understand your project and awakens interest.
You Think Your Idea is the Most Important
Ideas are worth nothing. You are the worthy one. Investors often invest in people more than in the specifics of a project. The investor trusts a team capable of carrying out a business idea, not the concept itself. He wants to verify your capacity to develop the idea and execute it.
To inspire confidence in your abilities, do not limit yourself to showing off your chevrons (bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, doctorates) and trophies (Founder and CEO in startup X, advisor in startup Y). Make clear what your bet is and what you have already done. Come with a project in progress; do not go with a PowerPoint.
You Lie More than You Speak
The investors seek reasons not to invest during your presentation. Please do not give them any. Do not even think of saying things like: “We have no competition,” “We are going to buy Google,” “Nobody has done anything like this before,” or “We are the best team,” and do not mention the Chinese!
It is essential to reflect passion and believe in your project, but not at any price. Do not make fancy growth forecasts or projections that nobody believes. They will detract credibility from you and your entire project. The monthly data to date, such as users, traffic, sales, etc., are much more credible than your forecasts and are the best way to show that your product is in demand. It transmits intelligent optimism.
Your Slides are a Disaster
Some PowerPoints look like Excel spreadsheets on the screen: transparent slides full of text, tiny tables, indecipherable graphics, lack of structure and organization, etc. Others look like multimedia encyclopedias: they pretend to tell everything, force you to read the transparent slides while looking at the screen instead of the faces of your audience, abuse PowerPoint with colorful but tiresome effects, and perform unnecessary demos.
Do not overwhelm or bore the investor with such PowerPoints. They may not interrupt you out of politeness, but they will have stopped listening to you long before you finish speaking. Put less weight on your transparency and more on talking with the investor. PowerPoint is an aid for communicating the fundamental ideas of your project and, from there, starting an enriching dialogue.
You Lack Passion and Conviction in Your Project
The investor wants to see a person involved in his project. You will not invest in part-time entrepreneurs who work in a bank in the morning and undertake in the afternoons, waiting for the investment to jump into the pool.
Your proverbial language (tone of voice, volume, rhythm, phrases, pauses) and body language (gestures, look, posture, movement) communicate as much as your words. Maybe your ideas were clear, and your words conveyed confidence, while the second conversation (non-verbal) conveyed insecurity and nervousness. Both messages, transmitted through verbal and non-verbal exchanges, must be consistent.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
