By Olga Smith
Quite a few of our students were taking elocution lessons in order to prepare their sales pitches. They needed to present to their potential investors and business angels. Almost all of them make the same sort of mistakes in what they say and how they say it.
I) Let's have a look first at mistakes in the content of their speech.
Often, entrepreneurs do not give essential facts that are necessary for investors to decide on whether to invest or not. Instead, often entrepreneurs tend to get too excited about their idea and talk about how wonderful it is, using lots of big words and clichés such as:
"I want to create this business because it will help women"."There is no business like this in the world"."It is a great idea". "I need your money to start this business".
What investors are looking for is the answers to simple yet vital questions:
1. What is the size of the market in question? In other words, how big is the pie?
2. What percentage of the total market do you plan to get? What is the slice of this pie you plan to get and in what time frame you plan to get it?
3. What is the competitive advantage of your idea? In other words, what you are offering that others do not?
4. How much money you need and for what exactly you will spend them to create and grow the business?
Investors need numbers and dates, not empty promises, dreams and money wishes without deadlines.
II) Now, let's see what mistakes entrepreneurs are making in terms of their pitch delivery.
Here the most common ones:
1. They go over time. Usually, investors have only a minute to listen. Entrepreneurs go into lots of "blaa, blaa, blaa" and by the end of that valuable minute they said plenty of unnecessary words without even mentioning their main idea or a single number
2. They sound depressing.
3. They sound monotonous and boring.
To make your pitch really successful and to ensure the investment you need we recommend:
1. Make your pitch concise and all about numbers and facts.
2. Work on your intonation and voice modulation with the apps
Fluent English Speech - Apps on Google Play
Fluent American Speech - Apps on Google Play
Business English Speech - Apps on Google Play
Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause - Apps on Google Play
3. Record your sales pitch and make sure your speech is clear and that you speak not more than one minute or a time frame that you know will be allocated for you to speak.
4. Practise the clarity of your speech with the apps:
Get Rid of Your Accent - Apps on Google Play
American Accent App - Apps on Google Play
You can also book a couple of elocution lessons to master your sales pitch rapidly.
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