The prospectives make their pitch and
then the dragons decide to invest and mostly take equity.
The biggest lesson in the program is
how to pitch and how shockingly bad most of the pitches are.
Most of the people stutter around and
are really bad at answering the questions of the dragons.
To be an entrepreneur the pitch is
sometimes the most important thing you may do and doing it well
requires skill and preparation. Most of all preparation. The people
in the UK TV program defintely dont look prepared. I have been asked
to help the Cape Talk 567 Small business awards in the art of
pitching so here are the tips that I will be giving them in their
preparation to win. When you pitch it is a winners take all approach.
Tip 1: Preparation of the pitch. The pitch needs to be 5 minutes max.
Outline of a pitch:Start with a great
story and if its funny then even betterOutline 4 main points:
- Who you are. Your credentials
- What makes your business or business concept unique and special
- What is your market and how you will get that market or if you are an existing business how do you keep your customers
- How much turnover and profit you are making or expect to make
Each point should be short and sweet
and tell as many stories as possible.
Conclude with an ask for a normal
pitch: what it is you need to make the business even more
succesfull.Once the pitch is done the people evaluating it will ask
some questions and they are usually quite standard and you can
prepare for them.These are some of the prep questions:
How much or how many of the product or
service will you sell and over what time period
What is your profit margin?
Why should we invest in you?
Will you spend every waking hour on
this business?
What are the risks in this business and
how will you deal with them?
How many customers do you have already?
How many have you sold?
Most importantly dont argue with the
panel, when they are critical say, “i accept that, and will address
the problem by....”
If you cant answer a question, say,
“I'm not sure but I can find that out”If an investor asks you
what you need, you are almost there....Give away equity.....10% of a
business is better than 90% of nothing!
Thanks Harry
ReplyDeleteThank you for this great sharing about best business opportunities......
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ReplyDeleteCongratulations Charles Maisel! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this exciting information.
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