When you give a speech or present your pitch, you have to do it quickly. At the same time, you have to explain to the investor what's in it for them and make them the hero. To do this, you need to maintain control throughout the pitch. – Guest article by Joachim Günster
WIIFY What's In It For YOU? For the investor! The fact that investors are human beings who are subject to various psychological constraints, including the conscious or subconscious desire for recognition, was the subject of the last part. Today I want to give you a few tips on how to structure a presentation with these two basic assumptions in mind so that the investor listens long enough, becomes enthusiastic, and even transfers the money.
First of all, I want to clear up a fundamental misunderstanding. Psychology or not. When you give a talk or present your pitch, you have to do it quickly. At the same time, you have to explain to the investor what's in it for them, make them the hero. To do this, you need to maintain control of the presentation throughout the pitch. So I'll repeat for the umpteenth time, and probably as the seven hundred and twenty-third person you've heard this from: There are no bullet points or text on slides! If the viewer, your inventor, starts reading the content of your slides, you lose control and with it a significant portion of your money. It's actually quite simple. If you have to present something, use Keynote or PowerPoint. Apple and Microsoft have put a lot of effort into these two programs, yet most of these presentation programs overwhelm you with text. If you want to hand out text to be read, use Pages or Word. These two applications are for text. Text has no place in presentations! The presentation content should support the lecture and is not the lecture!
Second, your chances of getting an investment are inversely related to the number of facts in your pitch. In other words: Tell a compelling story. You can find out how to do this in my book: No Story. No Business. Amazon Link and in this series on German startups. Remember that you have to help the investor justify themselves to "envious" investors and defend themselves in the event of a loss. Give them a cool story that's easy to understand, easy to retell, and one they'll remember time and time again.
And now for the third and perhaps most important principle. If you've only skimmed everything you've read so far and haven't truly absorbed anything, then sharpen your attention to the utmost now. This rule is the golden rule: Don't make them think!
Distract the investor from thinking. Make sure they don't get into thinking, calculating, calculating, or overthinking during the presentation. Inspire. Selling is inspiring. And offering shares of your company to an investor is nothing other than a sale, and you're the seller. No matter how many CEO/CTO or other titles you hold. No matter whether you've completed one or two degrees or even a doctorate. You have to sell, and you're the seller.
