Making Your Pitch Stronger
It’s really hard to build a great pitch in one go.
You usually need to build a basic skeleton of a pitch, make some simple visuals, then step back and see what’s working.
It’s likely that there’s 10-15% of the presentation that should be removed, some pieces that need to be reworded, and then you might be struck with inspiration for what else to add in.
Roughly speaking, each time you practice, you’ll find easy ways of making it 1/10 stronger.
e.g. 3 practices takes it from a 5/10 to an 8/10.
Let’s look at some of the ideas and traps that can take your presentation further, and help you prepare for the audience’s questions…
Five Questions For Spicing Up Your Stories
One of the best ways to enhance your work isn’t to add another section, but to add 2-3 sentences that double-down on your strongest points.
They usually hide behind these questions:
What’s interesting?
You’ve built this business because there’s something interesting here, why not tell us more about the details that drew you in?What’s painful?
You’ve mentioned a problem, but why is that problem a problem?
Why do we NEED a solution?
Help us walk a mile in your customer’s shoes and feel those blisters.What’s exciting?
You’ve mentioned an opportunity, but why is it an opportunity?
Why do this now?
What’s the drawcard for people to follow your journey?What’s lucrative?
You’ve seen a business opportunity, how big is the payoff?
Is there a low breakeven point?
Is there a solution that naturally makes a margin?Who will this affect?
Who might be the less obvious beneficiaries of your work?
Who is better off?
Why might they be excited?
Entrepreneurs often have “the curse of knowledge” – they’ve forgotten how much they know and how little the audience understands.
While the above might feel obvious to you, on behalf of your audience we need these points spelled out.
Red Flags
Some details are red flags to your audience, instantly raising doubts about the validity of your idea.
These red flags aren’t always true or accurate, but they invite skepticism and that’s unhelpful, so you may as well avoid them from the start:
No competitors
Every business has competitors, and to ignore that fact says you’ve either not done your homework or haven’t thought it through.
At the very least, a scary competitor is called “Doing Nothing”, it’s low cost, low effort and low risk.
Your future customers are using some sort of make-shift solution today, and you’re unlikely to be the only one in the market to see this opportunity.
No customer perspectives
This tells us that you’ve built the business idea in a dark room, with no input from real people who might be your customers.
You’re totally guessing, and what are the odds of guessing perfectly?
It suggests that you’ve decided what you want customers to do, rather than responding to actual demand.
Links and videos
Embedded links and online videos make the audience hold their breath, because they’re usually associated with tech failures and awkward silences.
If you’re not using your own room or own equipment, these are hard to get right.
Messy slides
Some presenters see the limitation of 10 slides as a challenge to be worked around, and stupidly decide to cheat by packing each slide with twice as much content.
Their solution is to denote the split focus of the slide with two different images, further adding to the visual chaos.
No, the cap of 10 was to help you.
Good ideas can be explained simply – if you need chaos, you might have the wrong version of your story.
No real-world examples
How would one person use this?
When and how?
Can you give us a mental picture?
If we can’t picture how this would be used, it’s hard to imagine it taking off.
Bad suits
People naturally associate bad suits with bad salespeople, and for good reason.
A bad suit is a suit that doesn’t fit or suit you, because you never wear it or borrowed it from someone else.
It’s inauthentic.
It has nothing to do with the price of the garments, it has to do with the fact that you’re pretending to be someone else, and aren’t getting away with it.
Worst of all, you’re likely to be uncomfortable and it will affect the pitch.
You’re better off dressing one level more casual and actually looking like someone who wants to be there.
Dismissing questions
You don’t need to agree with everything that the judges/investors say, but dismissing a question suggests extreme arrogance or extreme naivety.
Good entrepreneurs still get questions, some fair and some unfair, but a good founder still responds to the bad question, even if they’re not trying to change someone’s mind.
Green Flags
It’s not all negative, there are several things you can do that are instant green flags.
These build your credibility, likeability and make people want to like whatever you say next:
Sales
Remember Kevin O’Leary’s rule: No matter what I think, sales will prove me wrong.
Sales take your presentation from a hypothetical to a success story, because we now know that customers really exist and are genuinely drawn to your offers.
Stories
People love stories, far more than they love PowerPoint.
The story still has to be interesting, but we’ll naturally give you the benefit of the doubt for 3-4 sentences, even more if you have a visual to put with the names.
Rationale
If you can explain why you’ve made certain choices, it generates clarity and respect even if the audience might not have drawn the same conclusion as you.
This is good for talking about parts of your business that haven’t worked, because you can talk through your logic and how you responded to failure.
Clear numbers
Presentations aren’t good for spreadsheets, we need 1-3 clear numbers that convey your story.
That might be the amount a customer saves, the point at which you break even, or the number of people you’ve served in the past year.
Believable results
Audiences are naturally hesitant to believe in your promises of “billion dollar opportunities”, they just want to see sensible ideas and a strong work ethic.
If your pitch sounds too good to be true, it will feel like deception.
Personal connection
Some of the best stories are the ones where you get to talk about why you care about this work, they are almost always magnetic and emotionally charged.
It can be based on your past experiences, people you care about, how you built a business that scratched your own itch, or why you find this industry to be compelling.
It’s one of the few things that cannot be rebutted, and it invites the audience to share your passion.
Enthusiasm and energy
These are an advantage because they are very hard to fake.
Most founders aren’t trained actors, and fake enthusiasm is usually easy to spot.
Enthusiasm and energy force the room to listen to what you’re saying, and makes your presentation instantly feel different to your peers.
A desire to be entertaining
You can tell within 60 seconds whether or not a presenter is committed to being entertaining.
It might be through a joke, a clever line, a story, interesting visuals, or how they stand.
If you show the audience that you value their attention, you’re likely to earn it.
Classic Audience Questions
A lot of pitch events invite questions from a select panel or from the broader room.
These are usually high-stakes moments, and often bring the entrepreneur undone.
To understand why, let’s look at the three types of audience questions:
• Questions about the idea, because the audience didn’t understand the model.
• What-If questions about the future, competitors, opportunities and ideas.
• Statements from your audience poorly disguised as questions.
The reason why these are awful is because the entrepreneur is put on the spot – expected to have a sharp answer with no warning, lots of eyeballs on them and potentially money on the line.
The panel’s job is to stimulate conversation with the founder, clarify important points and create more interest in their work.
They play in important role.
The broader room however, does not always have your best intentions at heart when they grab the microphone.
By our observation, this is 80% men and 80% rich people, and you get the feeling that they might enjoy the attention more than they enjoy being helpful.
Remember, if this person was asking the question as a way of helping you, they’d probably approach you afterwards instead of doing it in the spotlight.
Questions about your idea are fine and fair, since you should be able to give a succinct answer.
What-if questions are a trap, and sometimes are phrased with such spin and judgement that there’s nothing you can say that will please the asker.
Statements disguised as questions should be politely acknowledged, and do not require a direct answer.
The truth is, people can ask what they want, and you’re not obliged to provide a detailed answer, but you are obliged to treat them politely in public.
Rudeness or dismissal are worse than not having a clever response.
Classic Judge/Panellist Questions
We go on a lot of panels and host a lot of panels, and find these are the first thoughts that go through your mind when assessing a pitch:
Can I imagine who’d buy this?
Rightly or wrongly, we assume that because we know lots of people in our lives, we should know someone who would be your ideal customer.
If we can’t picture that person, or suspect that person might have hesitations or better offers, it’s hard to get excited about your promises.
Are you better or cheaper than the competition?
It’s good to be one or the other, but terrible to be neither or both.
Who are you competing with, and where might you have an edge?
Will this be sustainable?
You don’t need a billion dollar valuation, but you do need to still be afloat in two years time.
How do you make money, and can your revenue outpace your expenses?
Is there an obvious devil’s advocate?
Scrutiny and skepticism are helpful in small doses, and it’s helpful to think about the obvious drawbacks or counterpoints.
This isn’t done with suspicion or a “gotcha!” moment, but is a way of testing the big claims made by the founder, which are prone to exaggeration.
Why hasn’t this been done before?
Usually new ideas have been done before, deemed impossible, or were never conceivable in any other era.
Which is the case here?
Why would it have failed, or been dismissed, or not been considered in the past?
What’s your advantage?
If this is a good opportunity, why you and why now?
What do you have in your Key Resources or Key Partners that help you capture a good market or outmatch your competitors?
Again, all of this is done to better understand the opportunity and the reality of your position.
These questions help judges pay attention to your ideas, clarify your plans, and offer truly useful feedback, rather than empty praise or bitter cynicism.
Questions To Think About Now
Before your pitch, double check with yourself:
• Is our pitch interesting?
• Who else is doing something similar right now?
• Have we got a clear example of how we make money?
• Do we know our margins?
• Have we got a clear, specific ask?
• Do we know who is in the room?
• Are we prepared for a tech failure?
• Do we have clear visuals or a prototype?
• Have we timed ourselves?
• Have we got a great opener and a great closer?
• Do we look competent?
That should do it for now – if you’ve thought about that, you’ll be in a great position for whatever the pitch might throw at you.
Good luck with your presentation, hopefully it opens new doors, introduces you to good people, or shows you a valuable opportunity for telling better stories in the future.