Tailor the message for your audience
Now that Fabrikam has a prototype that addresses your mission, your team wants to pitch that prototype to a potential investor. When you're pitching to a specific person or group of people, investors, potential new customers, a conference, or event audience, you need to tailor your message to that audience.
Every audience has a different focus. Let's look at the two audiences you'll likely most frequently pitch to: investors and customers.
Investors
Investors are focused on your product, plans, and your potential to make money. They want to be sure the money they invest with you gives them a return.
Investors also want to know the mechanics of your business. It's not just your product, it's also the go-to-market strategy that explains how you'll acquire customers for your product and make money. When pitching to investors, it's crucial to research them and what they're interested in. You should review their prior work history, their other investments, and their interests.
Pay particular attention to those prior investments and their investment thesis. There are some critical questions to answer that might help you understand if this investor is going to be interested in you:
- Have they invested in other companies like yours? Is there an overlap between your company and another of their investments? If there is, then you'll need to differentiate yourself from that other investment.
- Do they invest in companies in your industry?
- Do they invest in companies with your business model? For example, some investors are only interested in software-as-service companies, or companies who are business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B).
You'll need the answers to these questions and the insights into the investor to either incorporate into your pitch or be ready to address them if the investor asks.
Customers
Customers are focused on your product and how it helps them. They want to ensure choosing your product is the right solution that will deliver them benefits like more sales, cost savings, productivity increases, or other benefits.
For Fabrikam, maybe you're pitching to a fashion or retail company to add their products to your app. The customer will want to understand:
- Why their company benefits from being part of your ecosystem.
- How any integration will work.
- Most importantly, how much money they'll get from the deal.
For customers, you need to understand their products, markets, current competitors, and their business model. You need to articulate how you fit into their world.
Connect with the audience
You'll need this information about your audience to both set the stage and to answer questions they'll have for you. For Fabrikam, it could also be essential to find an entry point: a resonance that allows the investor to see the problem in light of their own experiences, empathize with the customer, or engage their economic interests. This entry point will let us share to a more receptive audience why our solution solves the problem.
Think through what your audience might ask. Identify a "frequently asked questions" list of things you've been asked or expect to be asked. Have answers to those questions. Looking and acting like you have everything at your fingertips and are the expert will make you appear confident and help earn the respect of the audience.