4 business pitch deck tips for small business owners and startups
Building a new business from scratch is not an easy task. Entrepreneurs are required to learn new skills and will face numerous challenges. Your life as an entrepreneur would be much easier if you mastered the art of pitching your business.
To be able to talk about your business confidently, you need a business pitch deck. A business pitch deck is a presentation that will help convince a CEO to invest in your business or for pitching your business to prospects interested in funding your business.
Even though you might not plan to pitch for funding in the near future, having a business pitch deck ready to present is a great idea. You’ll have a solid elevator pitch on hand, when and if it’s needed.
If you are not a designer, it can be tricky to put together a compelling presentation for your business pitch. You could be presenting to a group of investors, attempting to convince them that your startup has merit and their investment would be fruitful. There is a lot at stake and the pressure is on!
Building your business presentations is a major step in pitching your business to investors. The key here is to understand that you are going to be talking to a group of people who know nothing about your business. In this one deck, you’ll need to give them enough information and at the same time, convince them that there is a huge market opportunity.
Investors are not going to throw money at every emerging venture. They need to be assured that their money is not being flushed away on a bad idea or by poor execution.
Most investors receive many requests seeking an audience for the same purpose. Out of the total number of requests received, they’ll likely only be interested in a select few opportunities.
So, for every opportunity that arises, you need to make the most of it. Before you get started with the deck, make sure you have an outline in mind. Here is a list of topics your deck should definitely cover:
The company overview
The mission and the vision of the company
The problem and the solution
The market opportunity
The product, the unique selling proposition, and the customers
The technology and the competitors
The business model and the Marketing Plan
Present financials of the company and the ask
You can plan the outline keeping these key topics in mind. You will usually have 15 minutes to make your case. Here is how you make a successful business pitch.
4 Tips for Building an Engaging Business Pitch Deck
The content - the 10/20/30 rule
The marketing expert, Guy Kawasaki, introduced the business world to the 10/20/30 rule for making business pitches. The rule is so effective that investors, as well as entrepreneurs, have fully embraced it. He says that any business pitch should not be longer than 10 slides, should take around 20 minutes to walk through, and should be typed in no less than 30-point font.
This rule helps you to stay concise and to-the-point. You might have a detailed 5-page proven financial history and a deep analysis of how you stack up against the competition across multiple industries, but the investors do not want to sit through a barrage of slides and listen to you ramble on about your business.
You need to bring a laser focus to your ideas and really hone your pitch. Even investors, just like the rest of us, can have short attention spans. This rule will help you to eliminate all the unnecessary clutter in your deck and help you present your vision clearly.
The presentation deck - less is more
Once you are done with the outline of the deck, designing the presentation is the next key task. Your presentation should be attention-grabbing, but the design should not distract the audience from the content. The layout of the deck should strike a balance between aesthetic appeal and visibility of content.
You are free to experiment with different designs but be careful when choosing the color scheme. The color scheme should match the brand logo to increase brand recall value. You can look for free PowerPoint templates available online to avoid designing your deck from scratch.
Weave a story and connect the dots
While building the presentation deck, you are bound to get overwhelmed. You’ll want to present all the information you have on hand, but fitting it all into 10 slides is not possible. In your effort to include all the information, you might end up glossing over crucial details or fail to get your message across.
Instead of trying to be overly comprehensive in your deck, try to weave a story. Have a flow and reveal information as you go forward through your presentation. This will create intrigue and keep the audience hooked. Try to make the story relatable for your audience, pack emotional punches if needed, and build a connection.
A major emotion that your presentation should convey is a sense of urgency. Make the audience feel the FOMO (fear of missing out). At the end of the meeting, you want your potential investors to leave the room knowing that your idea is so good that they need to invest in it right away, before someone else gets the opportunity to do so.
Numbers and data speak a thousand words
While pitching your business to a room full of investors, there is one element that is common for all—they are all there to analyze the monetary value of your idea and your product. It all boils down to numbers and data.
Potential investors need to know everything there is to know about the numbers and financial data of your business. Based on this information, they can make their final call. They need enough information to determine whether or not your business is a suitable investment for them or not. Disclosing all the data and allowing them to reach their own conclusion is advisable; rather than presenting them with the conclusion upfront.
But, in the effort to include numbers and graphical data, do not lose the storyline. You won’t want to just list down sets of numbers, bullet points, and graphs. Instead, use your numbers and data to tell a story about your business and customers. You can highlight your key points and data using photoshop artistic effects to further beautify your deck. Present your data in an easy-to-read format through graphs, charts, and photos to communicate and reiterate your key ideas.
The Takeaway
An engaging investor pitch deck with all the right elements will significantly increase the chances of obtaining financing for your startup. All you need to do is keep the above-mentioned tips in mind and tell a compelling story.
Remember to address all the topics that investors will expect to hear. It’s a good idea to add an appendix to the last slide with the links containing detailed information on the financials and the data included in the presentation.
With a well-designed presentation deck, you are ready to win investors for your business. Be sure to practice your speech beforehand, do not stress yourself out, and stay calm. Get a teammate to take notes during your presentation and treat every investor pitch as a learning experience. Observe the reactions you get on each slide and keep refining, practicing, and executing ideas and improvements, even if you think you’ve found the perfect pitch.
