Some Pitching Insights

I was recently fortunate enough to be part of a team in graduate school that pitched one of our business ideas in a school competition. This process was exciting and enlightening. Pitching a business idea takes a lot of background work and research to have the proper material to pitch however, once you have all of those pieces in place assembling a pitch is its own beast. Here are some of the insights I’ve picked up from the process our team just went through.

Tell a story that connects your audience to the problem you are presenting:

It can be easy to list off some statistics or talk in general terms about problem spaces your business may be operating in, but a pitch is meant to draw people in to the reason your business exists. Connecting them to the problem your solving quickly is important, and statistics alone won’t cut it. We are emotion driven and most of us have some empathy for others. A personal story, when told right, can firmly connect people to your problem space and prime people to connect to your businesses ‘why’. A story paired with facts and statistics about the problem space you’re in will set you up to help the audience better understand your solution.

Talk about your solution in simple terms:

Some businesses are more technical and the urge to get into all of those details right off that bat can be tempting however, it’s important to help people understand your core business model in the simplest terms possible before immersing them into the details. Help a listener spend the least amount of time trying to understand what your idea is so they can spend more time listening to the how and why of its minutia.

Have tangible financials, milestones, and success metrics:

This is one that our team missed sadly but the lesson has been learned. In a pitch you’re likely hoping someone won’t have suspicions about your viability or success. It’s essential to ease these suspicions by showing how you will be successful financially with a clear multi-year set of milestones and business financials. If you have had actual market numbers that’s even better.

Talk about consumer benefits

Talk about how your consumers will find value in what you’re doing. You want your audience to have no question in their minds of why someone would want to use your products or services. Benefits can be obvious of course but it’s important to also cover the benefits to consumers that aren’t as obvious to someone that hasn’t been immersing themselves in this idea as you have. Hopefully you’ve done some consumer or user research to gather insights and feedback about benefits.

Tie it all back to your story

It can be really powerful to end on the emotional point you started with. If you are using a story, you can talk about how it might be different with your business, or even tell the rest of your story if you broke it up into two parts. Either way, ending with your personal story can be a powerful tool to help people remember your business later.

I hope my experience is helpful to you if you decide to write a pitch. Good luck!