As a business consultant to SMEs, very often I receive inquiries to help draft a business plan. 10 out of 10 of these business plans are either to get a loan or to pitch for funding. I always tell them that good numbers (positive indications) in your business plan stand a good chance, but one must remember that the basis of assumption and justification of these numbers are equally important.
To pitch for funding, be it a loan, investment or grant, numbers alone won’t impress the person you are asking for money, there are many factors that are involved in a pitch. Haven’t you ever come across crazy ideas that got tonnes of funding? or great ideas that can’t get people excited?
In a pitching exercise, I divide it into 2 section:
the TECHNICAL & the TACTICAL.
TECHNICAL means those contents that need to be included in your pitch deck depending on how much time you are given, or the format that you must comply, etc. I believe you can simply google this. Many formats of pitch deck can be found, thus I am not going to talk about it here.
However, the TACTICAL are some fine details that you may wanna consider during your presentation. No guarantees but it is worth considering.
- Testimony
- As part of the “proof of concept”, the solution you provided has either solved a problem or created value. This must be witnessed by a happy customer
- Getting you to talk about it may sounds like “Syok Sendiri”, so best if you can get your customer to give you a testimonial – either by writing or a short video clip, but remember, keep it short
- You can now elaborate to your audience as to how you want to connect with more of these customers using the fund you’ll pitch
- Priority
- Most of us are so passionate about our solution; we keep talking about the features, the capabilities and we elaborate too much on the technical, till we run out of time for the other important components.
- If you are pitching to a bank, they are frequently concerned about your repayability. You may wanna stress more on your positive cash flow after getting the loan from them; likewise if you are trying to get a grant, the objective of the grant is always very obvious.
- For example, if the grant is to assist you to export to neighbouring countries, make sure to cover that part in your presentation. If it’s about automation, please don’t say you are using the grant to hire more people.
- Remember, it’s their priority, not yours. So please arrange the sequence and content accordingly.
- Presentation Style
- Unless you are going for a reality show, forget about the style.
- Your objective is to present it in a very simple and clear manner, do not play around with some lame jokes or tricks
- Pace your presentation, do not rush
- In a Q&A session, you may come across some immature or unpleasant questions, just answer it directly. Do not try to argue over a small issue. It’s ok to tell that you don’t have the data, no need to pretend
- Last but not least, practice it in front of your friends (best on someone who doesn’t know what you do)
- Take them through
- The best way to explain your solution is to take them through the journey, imagine that they are your customers.
- If you have a product, please show them the prototype, not just the image in your slides.
- The best is if you can tell a story to connect all the above points.
- It’s all about you
- Let’s be honest about it, do you think they do not judge by observing the way you present?
- If they think you are a cunning guy, no matter how good is your solution, they will pick the petty stuff and condemn
- If they like you, they might point out your mistake and give you recommendation on the spot, agree?
- So you need to tell them who are you, what’s your strength, why must they trust you.
- Your experience and exposure and your believe is indeed important, so tell them
- Last but not least, do your homework. You must know the campaign you join. If you pitch for a grant, you should know how much is the maximum you can get. If the grant is at RM100,000 please don’t try to ask for RM10mil, they might think it’s not helpful at all even if you’ve gotten the grant. Set miles stone, each funding come in to create certain value at different stage, make their funding worthwhile.