Mastering Your Pitch
Back in the summer of 2020, Melanie and Paul hosted three Pitch Bootcamps in the run-up to Startup Canada’s first ever completely virtual Canada Export Challenge. And as we kept seeing the same questions come up in our session, Startup Canada’s Executive Director, Kayla Isabelle, invited Volition’s Managing Partner, Melanie Ewan, to join her in a live Q&A to cover some of those burning questions.
More than six months have passed since that IG Live, but these pitch tips stand the test of time, particularly as it looks like virtual pitching is here to stay.
We know that entrepreneurs in our community are thinking about and preparing for upcoming pitch forums and competitions for 2021, so we’ve pulled together some of the top tips from the original IG Live to share with you.
What is one key mistake that you keep seeing people make with virtual pitches?
The thing with virtual pitching is that it’s not organic. Yes, we are all getting used to (and tired of) Zoom meetings, but a lot of people still haven’t tried to tell a story on camera before.
The problem we see is that people don’t think they need to practice pitching in a virtual space. So we get people who haven’t tested their tech or practiced and recorded themselves pitching in this environment.
This often results in the pitcher:
looking uncomfortable with a severe lack of personality coming through;
getting thrown off by tech glitches or just the experience in general;
losing their audience easily by rambling, being monotone, blank-faced, or pitching to their second monitor instead of their audience, and/or;
going way over time because they don’t have the visual cues from an audience or the same feeling of time passing.
Thankfully, this is an easily addressable issue.
I want you to actually practice your pitch in a virtual space. Record yourself on Zoom, 40 times in a row if you have to! Practice tech failing (you don’t have to apologise for this, FYI), watch your facial expressions and body language in your recording and assess if that is a person you’d want to connect and work with. Keep practicing until your in-person personality and ease starts to come out.
What is the difference between an investor and a competition pitch?
I’ll start with the similarities:
In both cases, your goal is to generate intrigue and trust and leave your audience wanting to know more, work with you, vote for you, etc. So in both there is that strategic storytelling angle.
In order to deliver a truly compelling pitch that will land, you need to know your audience going in.
With competitions, while some are run like an investor forum others are more focused on entertainment. The key with competitions is that they typically focus on a specified angle (e.g., Startup Canada’s CXC Pitch Competition asks that you focus on international scalability).
One of the easiest ways to be eliminated at a competition is if you don’t tick one of the boxes that has been specified, so make sure to read the rules!
With investors it’s always going to be more tilted towards that return-on-investment mindset, which does shift based on what stage you are at. Typically, though, there’s the structure of problem/solution/opportunity with a focus on traction, and team, and you always need to have an ask. Coachability will also be more important to investors as they are investing in you and are often coming on as advisors or coaches in addition (or in lieu of) investing money.
At the end of the day, they are both opportunities to tell your story and whet the appetite of your audience for a second conversation. And, as you never know what’s going to come out of that pitch or who’s in the audience, treat them as equally important.
What is a broad and general red flag that you always see?
Not having an ask, You always need to have an ask as this shows me that you have a plan, that you know your next milestones, and what you need in order to get there.
Whether you are looking for funding or an advisor, make sure that you have a well thought-out ask and that you include it in your pitch and that it’s on a slide in your deck, preferably on your contact slide so both of those pieces are up there during Q&A.
How do you balance your ask with the progress you’ve made if you feel like you don’t have traction yet?
It depends (you’ll hear this a lot and I know it is frustrating).
First off, a lot of the time people don’t think they have traction when they actually do. Maybe you have a great team, or you’ve gotten government funding, are in a 2nd phase of clinical trials, or have beta signups or letters of intent from partners, etc.
The question for me is: if you’re asking for a lot of money, why that big number? What is your longer term vision and plan? If you can quantify that big number, that’s fantastic.
And please, please, please be specific on how you are going to make the money work, for e.g., I need $500K to hire a sales team so we can get our next X customers, so we can get to this milestone on our growth plan – show us your plan.
What is the best pitch you’ve seen and why?
The best pitch is the one that I actually remember. Remember that those investors, or judges, or whoever you are pitching to, they see a lot of pitches. So, you want to be memorable so that you can get that second conversation.
One of the best tools is story. People like a good story. It triggers relatability and induces hormones in our brains that make your pitch more memorable and you more likeable. While the audience may not remember all the details of the company, they remember that story and that person.
There are many options with story, and at Volition we do love the customer story, i.e., “Meet Sally. Sally has this problem, we have solved that problem and it has transformed Sally’s life in these ways. We have 10 customers just like Sally, but we need x, y, and z to get the next 100. We have the best team to make it happen, and are asking for this thing from you which we will use in these ways to achieve our goals.”
I’ve also seen the following structure many times, and it always lands when thoughtfully designed and well practiced: “Here is my origin story/my why…and this story gave me the idea for my app, and this is what our app looks like, this is what our team looks like, this is where we are at in our traction, and this is what we need in order to achieve our mission.”
Both of these approaches weave the story with structure and allow your audience to understand what you do, why you do it, your traction, and your ask. Add a dash or personality and some key numbers here and there, and voila!
