Lesson 6: General Tips For a Great Pitch

How not to screw up your presentation

While some people thrive in front of an audience and relish the idea of presenting their business opportunity to investors, for others it’s a fate worse than death. Even if you have all the skills and knowledge to tell a compelling story to your investors, sometimes the delivery can fall flat. This section will give you general presentation tips, as well as showing you how to manage a potential pitch disaster.

Notes should be short and concise, containing only key points for you to remember as you go along. They should not have your entire script written on them. Reading from a script will make your presentation wooden and un-engaging, and investors will be reluctant to take an interest in your product.

You will very likely be nervous for your presentation, which is perfectly normal. While notes are handy for not forgetting your pitch, they can easily show your nerves when they shake in your hands. One solution is to stand to one side of your presentation and make it the centre of attention. You can enhance this by making your slides more engaging. That way, the audience is only listening to you, while their eyes are on your presentation.

Another solution would be to put your notes on a table in front of you. If you plan on holding something up to show the audience, like a board or a graph, you can even paste your notes on the back of it.

If a disaster happens to your pitch – your presentation format is wrong, there is no power, or your USB drive does not open on the computer – it’s not the end of the world. The following are some useful tips to prevent gremlins from ruining your pitch:

• Always have a backup USB drive with your presentation on it.
• If you are using a special font, make sure to put the font file on the USB drive.
• However, it is much simpler to just use standard fonts.
• Have hardcopies of your presentation to hand out to your audience.

If you have followed the above, when disaster does strike, you will be able to carry on confidently, giving your investors a good impression of your forethought and preparation.