Create Great Pitch Books

Every pitch book is different.  Every business is different.  Every investor is different. Despite this, the same mistakes are made repeatedly when creating pitch book slides.

These five essential rules, drawn from our experience of creating great investor pitch books, will help you impress.

 1.     Start with the big picture

To build on the Eurythmics song:  Behind every great pitch is a great message. There should be one big clear message underpinning your pitch.  And one clear message for each slide. Creating these is the hardest part of putting an investment pitch together, but it is also where the most valuable work is done.

 2.     Decide how to use your document

Are you creating a handout to be read afterwards?  Or something to be projected on a screen?  Or a document that you go through in the meeting page by page?  These three uses require different documents. Design your document for the use intended.  One size does not fit all.

   3.     Tell the story in the headings

Think like a journalist. Make your headlines count.  They need to grab attention and inform.  They need to be interesting and push your story forward.  The headline writer at a newspaper is one of the best-paid jobs.  Work with someone who can write great headlines for you.

 4.     Make it interesting

That may sound obvious. But, we usually find extensive padding in investor pitches.  Take out everything non-essential and keep only what the investor needs to know.  Say less, and say it better is a good rule of thumb.  Move pages to the appendix if you are not sure.

 5.     Check that it is easy for your audience

Imagine your audience sitting there reading the document.  You are short of time, under pressure and lazy.  Is the document easy to read?  Does the important information leap out?  Does it answer all the questions that the investor will have on top of her list?  Keep improving the document until it is as easy to read as a newspaper.

 

These five golden rules will help you create better pitch books.  And, if you want help with your pitch books, we would be delighted to discuss what we can do.

You may also be interested in our June 2018 article, Seven secrets of the best investor pitch decks.