How to Give a Great Sales Pitch II

You’ve got an important sales presentation to a group of potential investors or partners who have the money necessary to make your deal a success. Are you prepared? In this second part of our three part series, guest entrepreneur Creag Banta gives you some key elements to making your presentation a success.

Your Presentation:

Keep it Simple. Only a few points per slide on only a few slides
Hand out detailed information if necessary, but sparingly. On screen detail does not work.
Expand on the points. Do not read the slides or handouts.
Be open and attentive to questions. Demonstrate your leadership by how you lead the discussion.
Unless your portfolio is in the arts, skip the fancy stuff. Good information in black and white is best.
If you have not given presentations, get a good guide to great presentations. Find a coach.
Always start with the key benefit of your business. The payoff. Then fill in by priority.

Practice Practice Practice:

Practice saying with confidence, “Good question. I do not yet know. I will find out and get right back to you.” Do not evade, tap dance or attempt to bluff. If you dance, you will lose.
Work hard at identifying every possible “gotcha” question.
Funding managers are experts at identifying what is missing. They can sniff out “gotchas”. Be ready. Anticipate challenges. The harder the questions, the more interested investors are in determining the value of your idea. Seek out hard questions.

Make sure your presentation team works well as a team. Practice so that roles and responsibilities are clearly demonstrated during the presentation. Questions will be asked to provoke team conflicts and illuminate gaps in team competencies. How well your team works together in the presentation is an indicator of how well you will work together in the business.