How to Make Your Pitch to Angel Investors

When you have found angel investors who may be able to provide the required capital for your start-up business or your expansion plans, your next step is to make the business presentation. This is the most crucial step in the process for the simple reason that you only get once shot at persuading the angel investors to pour money into your business. Botch your chance and word can spread like wildfire inside the angel community.

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Fortunately, you can learn from the following tips on successful business presentation. Be sure to come well-prepared from your attire to your business plan, slideshow and sales pitch. Practice until you make it perfect, if you must.

Sell Your Vision

The vision in your head must be translated into an exciting story coupled with the facts and figures to back it up. Unlike venture capitalists that look more closely at past performance, present traction and future possibilities, angel investors will more likely pay more attention to an attention story. But always remember that this is still business we are talking about so facts and figures are still a must.

You are basically selling your vision of the company to angel investors. In your sales pitch, you must address four key areas if you have any hope of persuading your prospective angels:

• The business idea must be easy to understand, effective at presenting the key points and filled with substance. You only have 15 minutes to impress angel investors with your business plan.
• The business plan must either answer a present problem or meet an unmet need. Angel investors are looking for an idea that will click with the target market.
• The target market must have an existing market sufficiently big for your company to actually make the desired profit from.
• The company must have the right people to make the business idea take off. No matter how much money your company may have but if the people are incompetent, then angel investors will lose their money.

As such, your first order of business before the sales pitch to angel investors and even venture capitalists is to make the business plan. This is discussed in other articles.

Watch Your Body Language

However, angel investors will not only look at your business plan for many reasons. Keep in mind that you are being sized up, so to speak, by the angel investors particularly where your passion is concerned. You can fake the numbers because there will be no time for the investors to check up on these figures but you cannot fake passion, confidence and assurance. Well, at least, not for long.

You must watch your body language. You may have the passion but you must also project confidence and assurance when making your sales pitch. We suggest the following:

• Do come in professional attire because this is a job interview, of a sort.
• Do make eye contact and smile in a confident manner.
• Don’t make nervous movements like wringing your hands, playing with a pen, and combing your hands through your hair. Don’t even think of shifting your feet too much since it communicates untrustworthiness.

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Most of all, you must be clear, concise and direct to the point. Just as you have little time for fools and fancy talk, the angel investors have even lesser time on their hands.