Conducting presentations to secure funding for your startup can be daunting and stressful. If you have a presentation coming up or are just starting to plan out your pitch deck you are probably looking for some practical things you can do to make it better.
I want to share with you some practical tips that you can use to improve your presentation. In this post I wanted to cover how you control the content of your presentation.
Content control is about managing what you say. Steve Jobs was the absolutely master at this.
Never read your slides. Reading from your slides will damage your credibility because it suggests you don’t know what you are talking about. Your slides exist as a story cue for your audience and your dialogue should build on the contents of the slides. If you had to, you should be familiar enough with your pitch that you don’t need the slides at all.
Minimize the noise and amplify the signal. It can be tempting during your pitch to want to tell the audience everything in a lot of detail. While you need to have some details when presenting, you need to cut through and focus on the big messages
Don’t occupy an ivory tower. When presenting, if you sound like you think you are the smartest person in the room you will put your audience off. Assume your audience is reasonably intelligent with broad general knowledge. If they don’t understand they will ask questions.
Repeat the phrase that pays. You likely spent a lot of time crafting your strategic sound bites, so, repeat, repeat and repeat. (And repeat again).
By taking the time to consider and manage what you say your presentation will benefit. Using your pitch deck as supporting material rather than a script and delivering a clear message free from clutter will improve the chances of securing fundraising.