Give a Winning Investor Presentation – Top 10 Tips

Presenting to investors may feel daunting.  But at the same time it’s a great opportunity.

One of your biggest challenges when you present to investors is knowing at what level to present.  Do you need to outline the background?  Should you cover all the detail? Do you need to address every objection? 

Meet the Author: Benjamin Ball

Ben is the founder of Benjamin Ball Associates and leads the presentation coaching and pitch deck creation teams. Formerly a corporate financier in the City of London, for 20+ years he’s helped businesses win with better pitches and presentations, particularly investor pitches. He is a regular speaker and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and UCL London.  Follow Ben on LinkedIn or visit the contact page. 

How to Prepare for an Investor Presentation

The most important thing to understand is that investors want to understand; they don’t want a slick pitch.  They do not want to mark your homework; they want to make decisions based on what you say. Whether you are raising money, updating investors, running results presentations or producing a capital markets day, these tips will help you create better presentations for investors.

Presenting to investors is a real skill. A core skill for entrepreneurs and leaders.  And it’s a skill you can learn.  Over the last 15 years we’ve coached thousands of people to be brilliant at presenting to investors.  Read more about how to prepare for an investor meeting.

Do please call us and we’ll tell you about our investor presentation coaching – it’s fast and good value.

To help you master the skills of a high-stakes investor presentation, our coaches have shared their top ten lessons for creating and delivering winning investor presentations.  Their advice is based on over 15 years of successfully coaching businesses globally.

Let’s review each of these tips in more detail:

1. Investors wants to learn, not hear a series of data points

Imagine. As an investor you have huge responsibilities. You need to make decisions based on limited knowledge. And your performance is based on these decisions. When someone presents, you want to know that you are listening to someone who can make money for investors.  You want them to explain clearly how they will make money.  What you don’t want is someone who gives a slick presentation with no substance.

When presenting to investors, you need to do the hard work for the investor so that your presentation to investors lays out clearly what the issues are, why they are important and what you are doing about it. If you are very good you will also look at alternative approaches and argue why those will not work. You may also assess risks. 

By taking this approach you show that you understand the issues and that the investor can rely on your good judgement. 

2. Keep your investor presentation concise

Most investors and analysts are very busy and have a huge amount on their plate.  When presenting to investors your job is to make it easy for the investor to make a decision.  You’ll find that you will be most successful if you say less, and say it better.  What do I mean by that? Don’t waste time stating the obvious. You do not need to tell them that climate change is a big issue or that AI is a growing trend. 

You will look more impressive when you present if you build on the investor’s existing knowledge rather them telling them stuff they know already.  A short, concise presentation is also easier to understand

3. Your investor presentation must get to the point quickly

What do you say in the opening words of your high-stakes presentations? How do you grab attention and show that what you are saying will be valuable to the investor?  If you want to impress you want to quickly lay out why you are there and what you are looking for from the investor.

The quicker you get to the meat of the topic the better.  Do not start with extensive background and never leave the punchline until your closing words. 

Make sure, at the very start of your presentation that your investor understands what you do, why you are successful and what you are doing to continue growing your business. 

Only bad presentations leave the important information to the end.

Another way to make your investor feel comfortable is to start by talking about things in which they believe. For example, if you start your presentation by stating that the world is flat, you will alienate most people. Instead, you want to get your investor nodding along with you towards the start of your presentation – so long as you are not stating the obvious.

Why Pick Benjamin Ball Associates for Your Coaching

At Benjamin Ball Associates, we’ve been coaching business people to improve their business communication skills for over 15 years.  Our coaching is fast and effective.  We work with individuals and with companies, one-to-one and in groups.  Call us today to learn more.

“I honestly thought it was the most valuable 3 hours I’ve spent with anyone in a long time.”

Mick May, CEO, Blue Sky

Our most popular training courses include:

• Presentation Coaching
• Public Speaking Coaching
• Investor Pitch Support and Coaching

Trusted by some of the most successful companies globally

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email info@benjaminball.com to transform your speeches, pitches and presentations.

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4. Know what your investor needs to hear

Presenting to investors is very different from presenting to customers. They need to hear different things. They don’t need to know how brilliant your product or service is, they need to know how you will grow your business. To get the result you want, you should talk to investors in the way they want to be spoken to.  That means using the language of investors. Do you speak about the cost of acquiring each customer, the lifetime value of a customer, or your KPIs? How do you talk about the competition and your competitive advantages?

These are the sort of questions you want to address in your presentation. If you tell your investor the things that they need to know, you’ll make their job easier and they will feel better about the potential of investing.

For example, one client recently was presenting to investors to raise money to grow their business. The CEO was brilliant at pitching the product, but was less comfortable speaking the language that investors would expect. With our coaching and our help re-writing the investor pitch, the investment story became clearer and they eventually raised £8m from investors to grow their business.  

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5. Build your relationship first, the investment second

While you may think of investment decisions as dry and calculated, emotion plays a large part in the decision making process. In reality, the biggest investment decisions are based on a gut reaction and only justified by a logical analysis. This means you should use your meeting to build a good relationship with your investor.

For example, you should ask your investor questions during your investor meeting.  Why? Because by showing interest in the investor, you build a relationship. You also learn about what the investor needs and wants.

If investors have raised objections before the meeting, then address those objections in your presentation.  People want to be heard and appreciated.

6. You are the expert when presenting to investors

While many investors may be strong, daunting figures, they are unlikely to be experts in your specialist area.  You are presenting because you have expertise. If you don’t know more than them, then you are not the right person to be presenting, or you are looking at the wrong thing.  You should be educating the investors – they should learn from you. 

7. Minimise use of visual aids in investor presentations

You can waste a huge amount of time preparing PowerPoint.  But too many PowerPoint slides will reduce your impact in investor presentations.  Instead, put your efforts into a high-quality story and a powerful interactive meeting.

Some things you should work on for your next investor presentation:

– Use language that makes your investor comfortable.  For example, what’s most important to them? Is it sales, profits, growth rates, margins, safety, cash flow?  Talk about what matters to them. 

– What metaphors do they use? Do they talk about driving the business? Do they talk about nurturing and growing the company? Or do they talk about battling the competition and fighting market conditions? When you use the investor’s own favourite metaphors, you will be speaking their language.

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8. Use stories and examples when presenting to investors

One of my favourite sayings for pitches and presentations is: “Facts get forgotten, but stories get repeated”. A good story is usually more compelling than the most convincing numbers. Yet too many investor presentations fail to apply the power of a compelling story.

A good story in your investor presentation can be a multi-tool. It can do many jobs at once. A powerful story can help bring to life a complex idea. A story can make it easy for an investor to understand what drives your business and a strong story will give the investor something they will remember and repeat to their colleagues.

We’ve written a few good articles on how to use business storytelling and this is one of my favourites.

9. Make your investor presentation easy and fun

One common mistake when presenting to investors is to make your presentation too long and too complicated.  Just because you are smart and your investors are smart does not mean that your investor presentation needs to show how much work you have done. Complexity is off-putting. The human brain loves simplicity. An investor presentation should be made simple for your audience.

Having worked on hundreds of successful investor presentations, we are often surprised how simple the best presentations are. But turning complex presentations into simple presentations is hard. Anybody can fill a presentation with detail. It takes real skill to convince your investor with just a handful of smart ideas and cast-iron logic.

10. Prepare your investor presentation rigorously

Test your presentation on other people.  Show it to your colleagues. Ask people to pick holes in your arguments.  Be tough on yourself.  Keep working at it and fixing it until you are completely happy.  And practise it out loud.  Not to memorise it, but to check if it is good enough.  And make sure you look good as a team. The investor will be judging all of you, individually AND how you interact. 

For you to be successful in your investor presentations, you want to be well prepared.  Many people bring in a coach to help them prepare. That way you can stress-test your ideas, rehearse and improve your presentation, then go into the investor meeting feeling confident that you are ready. 

How do you do this?  Call us.  We spend our lives polishing investor presentations.

How to be brilliant at investor presentations

Get some expert help. If you want to really impress when you next pitch to investors, then get in touch. We’ve been helping businesses present to investors for over 15 years. Hundreds of businesses have benefitted from our fast and efficient coaching expertise.

Call Louise Angus, our client services director, for a no-obligation chat about how we can add value to your investor presentation.

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Why Choose Us:
Transform your pitches and presentations with tailored coaching

We can help you present brilliantly. Thousands of people have benefitted from our tailored in-house coaching and advice – and we can help you too.

“I honestly thought it was the most valuable 3 hours I’ve spent with anyone in a long time.”

Mick May, CEO, Blue Sky

For 15+ years we’ve been the trusted choice for leading businesses and executives throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East. We’ll help you improve corporate presentations through presentation coaching, public speaking training and expert advice on pitching to investors.

Some recent clients

Unlock your full potential and take your presentations to the next level.

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email info@benjaminball.com to transform your speeches, pitches and presentations.

Speak to an expert. Get a free consultation