4 Tips on How to Create an Investment Presentation Pitch
Creating an investment presentation pitch deck for investors undoubtedly involve a degree of pressure. After all, investors can help your business reach new heights, providing the financial support that you need to grow. Plus, support from investors can ultimately make the difference between becoming a leader in your industry and struggling to gain brand recognition.
To acquire investors, you need to make an excellent case for the value of your company. After all, why should they place their faith in you over a competitor? You likely have a stellar idea to this question, but can you translate it into a professional, engaging, and effective presentation pitch deck? What makes you stand out from the competition?
This is where we Presentation Geeks come in. Here, we’ve gathered up our best tips for creating an outstanding investment pitch deck. Make money with a compelling, action-inspiring pitch deck is at your fingertips with the help of these easy-to-implement tricks.
Tips For A Successful Investment Presentation Pitch Deck
1. Start Broad And Narrow As You Go.
The framework of creating a presentation pitch deck consists of big ideas. Investors have a lot of information to absorb in a single pitch, so giving them a broad, big-picture understanding of your business and market size is the most realistic way to capture their interest.
As geeks, we get it – diving into your research and the complexities of your ideas is the most exciting aspect of an investment pitch. But, before giving your audience a step-by-step breakdown of how you plan to achieve your goals, focus on giving them context. More than anything, your investment presentation pitch deck is the first impression. An investor will want to know: Who are you as a business? What is your business all about? What is your product or service? What is your business model? By ironing out these basic questions first, you’ll have a strong framework to support the more detailed aspects of the pitch and the market opportunity within it.
Who are you as a business? Who are the founders, what are their stories? Was a family member a collector of fine wine and one of the children decided to carry the family name by opening up a winery? Was it started by two friends who have cornered the market in real estate in their local neighborhood?
What is your business about, and what is your product/service? Of course, people would love to know what you sell, how you operate and what market you service. For example, do you have an eco-friendly cleaning business that operates through app bookings or are you a storefront that specializes in hard to find and unique items such as art, food items or early adopter technology?
What is your business model? This is where you will narrow down your ideas. How do you operate, how many people do you employ, how do you produce and distribute your services?
2. In A Presentation Pitch Deck, You’re A Storyteller.
Investors are interested in the story behind your business. How did the business’ core idea come about, and how did it start to take flight? This story defines your business and can be made a major selling point in your pitch deck. Plus, it humanizes your brand, helping investors to relate to you, your goals, and your needs.
Your company’s story is a great way to introduce your business towards the beginning of your presentation pitch deck. Companies often choose to introduce their team at this time as well, either immediately before or immediately after talking about their conception.
Visual aids can also help to add interest and vibrancy to your company’s story. Consider including images from the early days of the business and graphics that depict your growth over time. These visuals can go a long way in boosting your narrative and providing a background for the entire presentation pitch deck.
3. For Every Problem, There’s A Solution.
A sure-fire way to hook investors on your business is to present them with a relevant, poignant problem, then explain how your business is ready to implement a solution in market.
This direct line between an unsolved problem and a solution to fill the void is powerful, so use it!
Here, it’s important to avoid grazing over the problem and jumping straight to the solution. Your solution will have a more powerful effect on your audience if they understand the full scope of the problem first.
You should to create a full slide to your problem. Explore what the problem is, but also present evidence to support the fact that this problem is significant and rooted in reality. Explaining the people who are directly impacted by this important problem will also give investors a good sense of your target audience.
After analyzing your problem, you can move onto the solution.
4. Describe your solution in detail
- Explain why your solution is superior to your competitors’ solutions in market
- Outline what makes your solution entirely unique business model
- What does your product or service lifecycle look like?
- Explain why your solution is valuable and important to people experiencing the related problem
- Generally, what is your marketing strategy to attract and retain customers?
- What are your financial projections and strategy to stay stable and viable in the long run?
Investors want to see that you have a good understanding of your target market, industry, and execution. Additional questions to ask yourself are: what are other businesses doing and what are their strengths? Why do their business models work? How is your model better? Are there obvious trends and themes in the market you are servicing?
Another area to think about is your own internal structure. An organizational chart can show how each person’s unique experience will contribute to the solution you are proposing.
When you detail your solution, you have the chance to flex your research muscles, offering as much backup as possible to support your claims. This research will add credibility to your proposition. Having all this information might not fit in your deck, but being able to answer your investors with enthusiasm and knowledge during your presentation is the benefit of doing your research.
Copyright Protection
On your pitch deck, you could write “All Rights Reserved” on each slide or page. Copyright protects the execution of a business idea but not the idea itself. If you want protection, the product must be tangible. Please seek legal consultation for deeper detail.
You can also apply for patent protection which applies to newly developed technology or processes. Patents provide a time-limited, legally protected, exclusive right to make, use, and sell an invention. In this way, patents serve as a reward for ingenuity.
You could also consider registering a trademark. However, a trademark typically protects brand names and logos used on goods and services only.
Confidential information is a form of intellectual property (IP) that has commercial value, is not in the public domain and is communicated to others in confidence. If you sue someone for taking your idea, you will have to prove your idea has commercial value and that you sustained damages.
Need more legal help?
Seek legal counsel for more information. As a formality, until your product or service created, you could put your business name and “All Rights Reserved”.
5. Make Your Investment Pitch Deck Actionable.
The goal of your pitch deck is to convince potential investors of the value of your business, driving them to take action for your growth. Inspiring action is never easy, but getting investors to act after a single presentation pitch deck is possible when you use actionable language.
Make sure to use actionable language in your pitch. Start by using the second-person point of view to draw your audience into the presentation. By using “you”, “your”, and “yours”, you create an active voice and everyone is part of the conversation. Use verbs to emphasize to make sure your investors know what you want them to do.
6. Know exactly what you want and need.
Another important aspect of actionable language is knowing exactly what you need from your investors. This is typically financial support, but it could also be important professional expertise about the market, industry connections, and other types of assets. During your pitch, asking for what you need upfront opens the door for others to get involved and want to know more about your business model or product or service.
Conveying confidence in your pitch is crucial to inspiring action. If you have and are able to portray, complete trust in your business, investors are more likely to trust you, too. So, speak directly and make your points firmly in your pitch. Be clear about what you want. Just be sure to check your tone so that it doesn’t come out as aggressive or coercive during your pitch.
7. How do you create an awesome presentation?
There are many platforms to create presentations in. The most common one is Powerpoint and another dynamic, interactive platform is Prezi. You can also hire a professional or a team of professionals like Presentation Geeks.
If you are wanting to do this DIY, here are a couple of tips.
- Striking images are always an immediate eye-catcher. You can use your own photos that you have shot. Have no time to produce your own content? Various stock sites like Shutterstock, iStock, and others offer high-quality stock options. For free photos, there is Unsplash, Pexels, Freepik, Pixabay, and many more!
- Only have 3-4 bullet points or 1-2 paragraphs per page. Your audience probably will not be reading the screen for very long and if you need them to, consider also having supplementary handouts, especially for those who don’t have very good vision!
- Infographics or dynamic charts and media help liven siIf you are wanting to do this DIY, here are a couple of tips.mple graphs, data, and charts. This is where a professional graphic designer or someone on your team who has a good eye for data visualization.
- Video content is always a wonderful way to demonstrate a practical solution without having to use so many words. Or it can spotlight someone in your business who’s important, or show a day in the life of your company!
- Add animations or transitions elegantly into the Powerpoint. A simple fade or slide push can go along way, as well as a well-timed bullet point or a clever zoom on a photo.
Wrap-Up
Investors hear pitches from businesses all the time. So, to make them want to invest in your endeavor, you need to be a cut above your market competitors. This involves having a stellar first impression, offering a thought-provoking solution to a problem, and detailing the actions that must be taken for that solution to come to life. So, take the time to create a solid pitch!
The key points outlined above can guide you in the creation of an investment pitch. While investment pitches are usually quite concise, you can relay plenty of information to investors with an attractive, efficient, and thoughtfully-designed presentation pitch which make them want more.
