The Best Investor Pitch: It’s About Getting a Meeting, Not a Check

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of going into a meeting with a banker or venture capitalist with the goal of walking out with a check.

“When you go out to raise money for your company, there’s a special skill in knowing when to ‘call the question,’” writes Ed Powers, managing director and head of the Capital Access Funds team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Asking point-blank for capital doesn’t make sense, he argues. “Investors have their own processes to go through, and that they don’t make funding decisions in an instant.” The true goal, Powers suggests, should be building trust and comfort – and getting to the next meeting.

In a guest post for Inc., Powers offers tips for increasing your chances of a successful investor pitch and suggests that sometimes the secret lies not in the investor presentation, itself, but in the follow-up. Proactively providing answers to any questions asked during the meeting and information addressing next steps will help investors clear their own internal hurdles and build your legitimacy, as well. For more on how to get to the next meeting (and eventually the money, too), read the full post here.

Related Content from OpenView:

Preparation is always a key to a good pitch. Read this post from the OpenView Blog to find out what kind of information VCs are looking for and what they’ll expect from your pitch. And for a list of things not to do when pitching an investor, give this post a read.