Create Great Pitch Books

Every pitch book is different.  Every business is different.  Every investor is different.

Despite this, people repeatedly make the same mistakes 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. Make sure you have 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 you will use your pitch book

Are you creating:

•  A handout to be read afterwards?

• Something to be projected on a screen?

• Or a document that you go page by page?

These three uses require different documents. SO, design your document for the use intended.  One size does not fit all.

   3.     Tell your story in the headings

Think like a journalist. Make your headlines count.  Your headlines 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 your pitch book 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 you have made it easy for your audience

Imagine you are your audience sitting reading your document.  You are short of time, under pressure and lazy. So, does your document pass these tests:

• Is the document easy to read?

• Does the important information leap out?

• Does it answer all the top questions that investor will have?

Keep improving your document until it is as easy to read as a newspaper.  And make sure you don’t make any of these common pitch document mistakes.

 

These five golden rules will help you create great pitch books.

And, if you want help with your pitch books, we would be delighted to discuss what we can do.  Call Lousie Angus, our Client Services Director today on 020 7018 0922 or email her below.